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You've clicked play on another Reach Australia podcast ever so it's great that you've this my name is Peter Blanche from Reach Australia. You'll know hopefully and love the vision of Reach Australia. Our vision is to see thousands of healthy, evangelistic, multiplying churches. We know that Jesus is ambitious for his church. He died to create it. He says the gates of hell will not overcome it. He wants to see thousands of people come to Christ. He wants to see millions of the people across our country. We're not going to do that unless we see not just tens or

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20 thousands of healthy churches, evangelistic and multiplying to see people saved and look, Samuel, you're very keen to see people saved. You're a very keen to see Islamic people saved. Indeed I had my interest started with Muslim people through wanting to be an evangelist generally and then meeting Muslim people and realizing I needed to get a few specific skills to talk to them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. And so today's episode, we're in a series at the moment of thinking through how to reach all of Australia because there we

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Australians who aren't just coming from an English or a European background and we Australians from a Chinese background, Australians with an Indian Hindu background, Australians with Middle East. Middle Eastern and Islamic background. We want to see them reach for Christ. Samuel, what's brought you to be interested in reaching Islamic people for Christ? Yes. So I became a Christian in my first year at university and under God's grace and the teaching I was getting there, I was

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showing the gospel with my friends around me and what I quickly found out was that my Muslim friends were prepared in in specific ways to reject the gospel and challenge me. And so I thought, well, I need to get some skills in this area and I need to also help the church to get some skills in this area. And so I was wanting to bring the gospel to them. I was wanting them to hear about what Jesus had done and the salvation that he had brought. And as I said, because

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and we'll probably see this a bit later on, because they've got some special issues that come with Muslims, I had to learn some specific things and I've just really focused in on that area. This is a really important issue, Samuel, because just the amount of Australians who do come and have a Muslim background, the recent census back in 2021 reveals that 3.2% of Australians identify as being Muslim. I mean, that is up a couple of hundred thousand people. There's 813,000 people in Australia with that background. Between the 2026, the 2016 and the

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2021 census, the proportion, say, of even Tasmanian residents who are affiliated with this diamond has pretty much doubled. In Victoria, the number of Muslims has increased from 197,000 people to 273,000 people. That's only just in five years. And it's not just the real, not just the urban centres that are like that, a town like Shepherd and in regional Victoria is now the whole town. Samuel has around 6.4% Muslim people. And if you're leading a church say in Shepherd or

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actually in a city or anywhere across this country, you are going to be rubbing shoulders with meeting with and wanting to reach Muslim people. What are some of the distinctives that we need to be aware of about bringing a gospel to the Muslim people's lives? I think the number one thing we need to be aware of is that Islam comes 600 years after Christianity. Now what that means is is that when Christians read the Bible, they never hear about Islam. You know, we go to

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Bible believing churches, we teach the Bible, we think about the things the Bible thinks about. And when we do that, we don't see the Apostle Paul in Syria evangelising Muslims. You know, you read the book of Acts and you know, he's in Turkey, he's in Syria, he's in Jerusalem. There's no Muslims there. And so it can sort of be off our agenda. Whereas when you read the Quran, it's on the agenda. The Christianity in the Quran is a major subject. Very often when Christians

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teach other Christians about Islam, we talk about the five pillars of Islam. Right, the confession of faith, the five daily prayers, the money for Islamic causes, the pilgrimage to Mecca and the feasting and fasting during Ramadan. And we'll go through those and that's what would be taught at school and that's what Christian books on world religion would teach. The only problem is that Christianity is a larger subject in the Quran than the five pillars. That'd

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be certain I think a lot of Christians would be just completely unaware of. That the Quran is actually speaking about Christian thought, belief, Christian people. And therefore the Muslim people are actually have some kind of familiarity. Well, it's not just some kind of familiarity. It talks about the cross of Jesus. And so Surah 4 verse 157 to 158 says that Jesus only appeared to be crucified and killed. There are different understandings of what

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Muslims have there. But the point is Muslims are taught a doctrine of the cross. They're taught a doctrine of the cross. At several places in the Quran it talks about the Trinity and says, you know, say not three. They are unbelievers who say God is the third of three. And so it brings up the Trinity. It denies the incarnation of Jesus. It speaks about the fatherhood of God and says that there is no son of God. Not even it's not just that Jesus is not the son of God. No one is.

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It gives Muslims a hermeneutic on how to understand the Bible. It says that you understand the Bible through the Quran. The Quran gives the correct interpretation of the Bible. So this is critical isn't it Samuel? Samuel, because of the they do have some kind of familiarity with the Bible. We've Christian thinking but it's not at all the familiarity we would want them to have. It's a familiarity that the Quran or probably more precisely that Muhammad has given them through the Quran. Yes, I mean what Muhammad says about

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Christianity is very poor. So for instance when he speaks about the Trinity he speaks about God, Mary and Jesus. And so the very differentiated what we have. Well it's an appalling understanding. He understands that you see this in Surah 3 that Jesus is Miriams or Mary's son but that Mary is Moses and Aaron's sister. So he's heard the two names and doesn't understand the history there. Now why it matters is when churches teach

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well when Christians learn about Islam in church it tends to be an option an option extra. And so when I go around teaching it's the type of thing where we'd have an seminar during the week for those who are interested and it's an optional thing. Whereas for Muslims learning about Christianity is compulsory. Yes, right. This is the big difference and when you meet a Muslim the chances are that they already have some ideas to where to begin with you. And this has

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been my experience over and over again that when I meet a Muslim they never bring up the five pillars with me. They're bringing up the stuff they've heard about Christianity. Yeah exactly. But yet for us as Christians we keep saying learn the five pillars, learn the five pillars and it's of no use when talking to a Muslim. And so what happens is that there's this disparity between the preparation that they have for talking to us and us for them. Yeah that's really that's very insight from very helpful to hear because I would imagine

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there are both there's an opportunity in that because they hopefully ready to speak to us about Christianity but there's also a challenge in the fact that they've been thinking about how to talk to Christians they talk from the front how to do that. So what are the opportunities and challenges that this reality presents us? Yeah well you've actually hit the nail on the head there you've hit it on the head because it's a challenge. Yeah. It's a challenge to us because they actually ask us about our biggest doctrines. They ask us about the Trinity, the incarnation, the reliability of the Bible and salvation.

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Which we want to be talking about right? That's that's what we do because in our secular world we're talking about gender and does male and female exist. Now I'm not saying that's not an important issue but the Bible doesn't spend much time on that. It spends a lot of time on the nature of God the nature of Jesus the nature of Scripture the nature of salvation. They actually bring up the big issues for us the good issues but I need to say in my traveling I have found that most Christians are not practiced at giving an explanation of the Trinity and

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the incarnation which is what they're often asked about and so this gives Muslims and this makes the challenge. This allows Muslims to expose and exploit our lack of clarity on these doctrines and they through this they can then create an impression that we're wrong and by inference you know they know what they're talking about. They actually haven't presented anything but they'll say you know explain to me now that they'll say to a young Christian man or

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woman you know in 18 to 19 year old Christian men or woman now explain the Trinity and to be honest in churches we don't teach people that right by and large I don't I've been in many evangelical churches and we live the Trinity we live the Trinity but giving a careful explanation a careful articulation we don't do and you know and this can be very difficult for young Christians when they first encounter people asking them for these big questions and they and

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they feel inadequate and and sometimes it can make them think that Islam is true that's right so he's a challenge at you the opportunity which is the the that they the opportunities brought to us because they are willing and taught to engage with these things but the challenge is if you're not ready to speak yeah you could be a quarter of guard and not know what to say and actually watch up some other mission towards yes now there is that challenge in that they're prepared to talk to you and they asked you some big questions it's an amazing

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opportunity because and this is what I say in my training it's an amazing opportunity because Muslims are meant to know about Christianity and if you just think about that for a while it's excellent they're meant to know about Christianity and so in my training and I'll just say very briefly here but what I say to people is when when you meet a Muslim you begin a conversation by saying what have you heard about Christianity because they're meant to know about it right yeah because they mean to know about it and you say what have you heard about it what have you been taught you know I've had I said that to one Muslim I met on

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campus and you said you want to people say yeah yeah so I'll give you three quick examples the first one was you said oh you've changed the Bible and Jesus wasn't crucified and I went okay I just listened to him I said okay and I found out where he's coming from I had another young man who we'll we met through a ministry and he said I know nothing I know nothing about it okay that's the that was really good to know as well because I shouldn't assume he knows certain things and then I had another young man say to me my parents that I shouldn't

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talk to you okay now that was really helpful as well because now he'd come to our church he was eating the free food we were putting on and everything else and so he was having he was happy to come along he was an adult but but I have found that that's an excellent question on how to begin with the Muslim world you know and that is just to say what have you heard about Christianity listen to them don't even try to respond or anything at all at this point we

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go on to something else later just listen to them find out where they're coming from because it's a non-argumentative type of question that's super helpful because it's one thing they have it in training right but to actually hear here are three different stories three different responses that asking them what do they know is such a disarming easy question which I presume this where you're hitting with this Sam I'm only guessing but I'm wondering going if you ask someone what do they know about Christianity and they meant to know about it it's just natural for them to want to ask you is that

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right does it come back to you what do you know Samuel about Christianity yes well that this moves into the second phase of my training and this is a real short version my book has more details and training online it's all it's all there after I've listened to a Muslim and and I've teased out where they're coming from and I'll find out who they are I say to them can I show you one thing about Christianity can I just show you one thing I've always had them say yes because you know I listen to them I'm interested in them you know I want what's best

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for them and and they say yes okay and I say and I say to them can I show you what books are in the Bible and I take them then so my first Bible study with them was the table of contents that may sound unusual but the reason is that Muslims are convinced that they believe all of the prophets and so because they think well I already believe in Jesus that means that normally they feel

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that they don't need to listen to the gospel because we come along it's our you know we'd like to tell you about Jesus and the gospel and they say I already know about him I already know about him so when you're talking to them you need to the first step I recommend is you need to show them that they actually don't believe the prophets the table of the contents I can't name the prophets is that what world that they can name a few and so you take them to the table of contents and you talk about Moses and the books of Moses and the different books that are there and you show them that Christians actually

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read all of the prophets and then you compare this to the Quran and you say you know the Quran is just Muhammad telling you about the prophets whereas for Christians we actually read the prophets and you say to them can you see the difference there can you see it no from my perspective as a Christian you believe Muhammad you don't believe all the prophets you know you believe what he says about them and again you need some time to work that through but it's actually a really powerful point because that makes the Bible interesting to them yeah yeah

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Samu how Samu how is that received like sometimes showing someone they don't know something can be received by many people as oh where I say I'll believe the prophets I can't name them I don't even read them you read them wow there's lots for me to learn here are other people might go I've been shamed here and closed down how what's been the response when you put them to people there are a few responses I've had responses where the Muslim would just

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go wow that was really interesting I was doing some walk up evangelism in a Muslim area once and I went through this with someone I was speaking to and at the end of our conversation was saying goodbye and he said that was really interesting what you said about the Bible because they're taught about the Bible that they normally taught that it's been changed or something like that and so we need to make it interesting and intriguing to them and showing them that it's all the prophets does this so I've had some I've had a Muslim say to me that's really interesting I've had another Muslim not really want to accept

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the conclusion of where that's going because he knows that if he accepts that he doesn't believe the prophets that that's actually one of the foundations of his faith and so this is why that this is how I introduce the gospel to Muslims to talk about this idea and talk about who believes the prophets and sometimes you just need to spend a bit of time here and not rush on not not rush on and so with this young man I'll say to him you know can you see that the Quran is one

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man the Bible's all the prophets and what you believe about the prophets comes from what Muhammad says whereas what I believe about the prophets comes from reading them and so you know you really believe Muhammad I believe the prophets so I'm saying that and he was going no no I believe the prophets I believe the prophets and so I had to just keep gently coming back it wasn't shameful because we were just talking together and and in the end it took about five or ten minutes and he goes yeah okay I can see what you're saying another response that I've had is where I'll say okay that is the case but the Bible's

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been changed right and so you know all those books have been changed my answer to that is well that's just changing the subject the the point remains you don't believe the prophets you follow one man and this is one thing I think people I think Christians really need to understand this Islam is the religion of one man telling you what to believe about the prophets right Muhammad basically says don't read the prophets I will tell you what they mean believe in them but believe what I say about them is effectively what he said yeah and so Muslims

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believe in the prophets by name alone yeah in name alone and so Christians really need to understand this so that they're not deceived by Muslims as well because let me tell you Muslims have got 1,400 years of practice of talking it to Christians whereas Christians don't have that same history and so they've really developed how to do it well and it can be quite disconcerting and I'll bring up some other examples later on of how you know

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we need to be careful here yeah but what I'm here when are things I'm hearing from you here Sam is just the need to when the gospel is always confronts people doesn't it because the gospel is always saying to people Jesus is Lord and if he's not currently you're Lord you're going the wrong direction and you need to turn around and so there's no avoiding some clash at that point of saying to someone you are in the wrong and you need to turn around but this is one point I guess where you're gently trying to go on the prophets you're in the wrong you think you're in the right you need to turn around what other areas

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in in reaching Muslims are you going gently lovingly but firmly saying this is in the wrong and you really do need to change well one of the common arguments that they are taught it this actually isn't a Quranic argument but it's a common one and that is that the Bible's been changed yeah okay and so this allows them to dismiss what the Bible says because the Quran actually says that Muslims are to make no distinction between any of the holy books and so they're

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meant to actually believe in the Bible it's not for them to follow they've got their own book yeah but they're meant to say it's a parallel book yes a parallel book so where the differences are exposed that's where they want to say you've changed it yeah in fact in fact this is this is a nasty thing about it so the Quran says that it confirms the teaching of the Bible it says that Muhammad's foretold in the Bible yet when you look at what it teaches you see that

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Muhammad's not foretold in the Bible and that if the Quran doesn't so Muhammad's yeah Muhammad's not foretold in the Bible and the Quran doesn't confirm confirm the Bible and they blame us for this they say the Quran doesn't confirm the Bible that's your fault and people need to realize that's actually really a nasty thing to do to blame us you know imagine if I said I'm foretold in the Quran well no you're not well that's your fault right now that's what

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they do right and and so that that's the broader issue is to why they attack the Bible and say well it must have been changed because Muhammad's not foretold and it's and it doesn't confirm now this is where I want to push back because I want to say we've got plenty of evidence that the Bible hasn't been changed we've got you to we've got ancient copies ancient translations and ancient quotes and there's no indication at all of the Bible being rewritten

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secondly when they attack the Bible this is another one of the skillful ways that they do things they attack the Bible and create an impression an impression which again can be really disconcerting you know they might go to the end of Mark's gospel and say look at that these verses are not in the most ancient manuscripts see the Bible's corrupted and for a young Christian that they get that and that's yeah they get throwing now the impression that they

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create from that is of course the Quran's not like that that's this is the impression isn't it that's if I'm showing you this I wouldn't be doing that if it was equally true of me but the fact is there are actually ten different Arabic Quran's in the world today they will say to you there's one or they won't say anything and they'll just try to create an impression early in Islam's history with there was there were canon there were synoptic Quran's different Quran's with different numbers of chapters different orders

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different verses synoptic Quran's from the different followers of Muhammad there was a wholesale burning to standardize one Quran and even then that Quran developed off into a whole range of ways and so even today there are ten canonical Quran's and when you get that history their accusations against the Bible become fairly hypocritical and meaningless yeah but Christians don't learn this type of thing but a part of standard Muslim education about Christianity would be how do you show those things about the Bible the reason

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I'm saying that Sam is because I that question on where would you actually draw a line of the sand and gently lovingly carefully expose that no you are wrong here and you really do need to turn around and do a U-turn the the truthfulness the purity the veracity of the scriptures is one of those moments again where you would say you've got this wrong you need to turn around just like you would on the prophets it's an easy way it's one of the ways in and isn't it now the effectiveness of this Samuel the yeah because what we're

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hearing about from you right now is here are some approaches you can take if you've got a story for us where you've you've done this and you've seen a person as his got his a Muslim come come the cross I'll give you two two quick ones one was I I was having a debate with some Islamic leader I can't remember who it was now because I do a lot of debating and and I held up a Quran which had the variance of the ten versions in the margin it's sort of

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like a critical edition sort of it's not quite like that but it's like that and this man when he saw that his faith in Islam was shattered his faith in his Islam was shattered and he sent me an email explaining what had happened because just think about this he's been taught about the cross of Jesus and that Jesus didn't die for your sins he's been taught that God is not Trinity and that it's just Islamic you know oneness he's taught that Jesus is not God and so he's taught all these things but the only reason those those are true is

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because the Bible's been changed and there's one perfect Quran that's what he been taught so when I just showed him that there were multiple Quran's he lost the reason for rejecting the gospel that Islam had actually taught him and he said oh everything I've been taught about the Quran is wrong I've always been taught there's one Quran now I see there's many of them I have no reason to reject the cross and so he accepted straight away he accepted the cross he

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accepted that Jesus is God come to save us that God has done something to save his people you know he accepted that and then he sent me an email and then he came and helped me do filming of my debates and so that was a really great thing I had another one where I received an email from a young man because a lot of my teaching is online I do it around campuses and and everything but I have a lot of work online and I just got one from me young Muslim men in Singapore who was watching my debates and reading my articles and he said you know I've

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become a Christian and I want your material in my language to take to my friends you know how do I you know can you help me there and I've got some things in some languages but you know it takes a little while to get things translated so there's a lot of good things happening in this regard yeah yeah and I'm I'm partly interested in the debates at this point but there's a bigger principle for me I'd like to discuss because one of the things is these approaches you've got about the prophets and about standing firm on the

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scriptures and I'm sure it's stuff about the opportunity that we've already talked about in the incarnation there these are things that someone who does some training could do with their next door neighbor or with their school friend or their work colleague and it's the it's the personal evangelism that's happening there and here are some things and some tools you've already given us but the the debate moment is an attempt that actually mission and evangelism towards groups of Muslims so I'm hoping in our churches lots of people would have

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lots of friends and family who have front Islamic background that you could actually speak to personally but what have you seen that's actually getting traction in a kind of group setting tiny reach groups of Islamic people yeah look to be honest there aren't many churches which have taken up the the mission to Muslims not within Australia that I know of there are a few there are a few which which will run a specific ministry that because that there are

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great discipleship programs and evangelism programs to Muslims like the word of life course or the al-Masya course or the message of the prophets oh sorry I think it's the prophets of spoken course and and what tends to happen is that you'll get an interested individual within a church who then will get that ministry going and there have been churches within Sydney with Stuart Binns being one man in particular who've had a lot of fruit in that area but I would say it's been more based around an individual within the church rather than

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something that the whole church did now it may have happened and I just don't know about it but the examples that I've heard of and know of tend to be someone zealous within the church and then they get a ministry and they're supported by the church to do that yeah the reason it's great to reason I'm asking is we want us because we want as much personal angels of happening at the same as possible we everyone we just want to see people come to Christ and so people talking to people really matters to see that work scaled to see not

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just the ones or twos of the contacts come to Christ but to see that scale to see tens and twenties and hundreds of people come to Christ we'd love we'd all love to see that yeah is anything like that happening in overseas really be there are missionaries and and obviously Christian people who are living in these living countries who want to see Jesus name honored who want to see people brought to eternal life in him who are doing whatever they can to bring the gospel to bear in those countries are they is anything happening overseas that we can learn from that saying actually this is seeing the tens or 20 the

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hundreds of people's compared yes there is well what there is is an awareness that as Muslims come into Western countries that they're open to the gospel and remember many of them come across here and they don't like Islam right so I've had Muslims come to my church and I haven't had to do anything that they've just come in and said we don't like Islam we just want to become Christian and so they come in and it's just a normal discipleship program that you're on with them and so there is a growing awareness amongst churches

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particularly in the UK that there are a lot of these ex-Muslims who want to explore Christianity and that the church needs to start thinking about how they're going to do that that's really helpful because I wouldn't I am I right to imagine that's just not a UK thing that's that's Australia there'll be plenty of people we might be Christian people might be a little bit concerned about bringing the gospel to them but we're here what I hear from you is going that they want to hear it they need to hear it and they're more open to listening to it than we might first imagine yeah absolutely I mean I've

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got a few ideas I can suggest for churches to do so one of them would be and and this is this has come as an awareness for us out of COVID but it's true for Muslims for a different reason and that is when it comes to reaching the Muslims in your area you need to realize that your area is is twofold there's the geographical suburb in which you live but there's the internet and before

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anyone visits your church they're going to look you up online and what is the Muslim going to see when it comes to your website and so if you live in one of the suburbs you know particularly of say Sydney or Melbourne which has a very high proportion of Muslims and you're trying to reach them I would suggest that on your website you have something across the top saying four Muslims right because one of the things we have is that one of the issues we have is that Christians

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can be a little scared sometimes to talk to Muslims they're not sure how it's going to go I mean you look at what the Islamic State were doing just a few years ago it was fairly horrific and you know you see that type of thing and you're going oh I'm not sure what to say anyway because I'm not really prepared for Islam so I'm not sure what to say it's a little bit scary so there's a bit of fear from the Christian side but there's also fear from the Muslim side I was doing some evangelism this a few years ago now and the man said to me I'd like a

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Bible please and I said oh I'll bring one around and drop it off for you and he said you cannot bring it to my home you said do not bring it to my home he was he was terrified at what that would lead to and so you know when you see large groups of Muslims then realize that there's a there's a fear within that group to be different to be different and the internet is the first place where you're going to encounter them and so my strategy that I'm saying to to churches

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is you want to have an equal strategy for both the online presence and your face-to-face presence you need to be doing both of those because for that Muslim who's interested that's a fearful thing for him to to say you know he's not just going to say I'm going to go to church today that that may not go well but on his or her device he can go anywhere there's a there's a level of individual privacy that allows him to explore without having to initially

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break some cultural because the things that are holding that that community quite tight in their fear for the breaking that yes and so I'd recommend a church in an area like that that was trying to reach them they've got to be thinking that way and they need to have as a menu item for Muslims for Hindus for Buddhists the Muslim can click on it maybe a welcome video and then you know some resources that you know that they could fight out is going to be helpful for their situation this is great Sam and I'm loving that because we do want a bit healthy evangelistic multiplying churches at our vision and this

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is a key part of reaching real Australians and it sounds like to me here's a basic mistake you can make which is not having a website that is actually friendly towards the Muslim outsider are there any other it's I think it's just worth highlighting in in our attempts to bring the gospel to bear on Islamic people what are the basic errors that can we can so easily make we accidentally hopefully not intentionally but accidentally put stumbling blocks in front of them what are the things to avoid yeah in one sense I'd want to say you just

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need to be a genuine friend and want to love them and if you are genuine and you know I have genuine Muslim friends so I was traveling overseas recently to it was to a particular country and there was a Muslim man in Australia who needed some papers taken across there and we're friends so I was taking his papers to get signed his government papers over to his home country for him so so you you've got to be a genuine friend yeah right this is my thing you've got

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to be a genuine friend to your Muslims and I've got Muslims and I love them I invite them to my parties and and everything else so that's the first thing and if that's the case you will find that they know that you love them yeah and they'll say you oh can you please take your shoes off you know we don't eat that whatever it might be and so in one sense I want to say you don't need to learn a whole lot of cultural things there are things to learn but the number one thing is be a genuine friend love people love people and it's the same as

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if if someone from overseas comes to my house I don't expect them to know all the cultural things in Australia either right I'll go oh no no we don't do that or you know we do it this way and they'll do exactly the same thing and there's lots of generosity in that moment and they're similar towards us yeah now there are the basic things you know that they most likely will have a firm a distinction between contact between men and women you know that type of thing yeah so you know if it's out in public yes you can men and women can talk but obviously you

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know in other situations you may find that if you go into their house the women would leave the room and it would just be you there with the other with the other men you take your shoes off there's you know some alcohol issues may you know maybe a problem but you don't want to assume it either I've got a friend he comes to my Christmas party and his Muslim and he brings the beer right I don't drink and so it's the Muslim who brings the beer to the party so this is what I mean you need you know I you know I like to know the mission you want so I actually love them and I actually genuinely know yeah and that's why I come

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back to that and say that that's the number one thing but the whole the there's trying to scale it if you're doing things to try and reach a broader group of Islamic people then you know things like alcohol men and women would matter this really matters yes yes yeah so at the individual level love and just ask love and ask at the broader level yes you do need to be more careful there and so that's great although something box that we can avoid but there might be some that people are listening and thinking I just don't know what to do even

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with what if they invite me to go to the mosque should I accept that invitation say they invite me to the mosque and I can invite them to church that makes it easier should I go things like that yeah look when it comes to visiting a mosque I think we need to be thinking one Corinthians chapters eight to 10 and that is you are free to go to the mosque right so a question is free to go and visit the mosque however how are other Christians going to interpret that

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Christians who are maybe weak in faith and they might say oh you think all religions are the same right that that's something a young Christian could think and what will the Muslim think if you come there are they saying oh you know he accepts Muhammad as a prophet because he's come there you know so there's no black or white answer it's it's that one Corinthians eight to 10 answer of using your knowledge and your freedoms in Christ carefully now I will take

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groups of people to the mosque as part of my training that I sometimes give but I'm always careful to think through who am I taking and how are they going to understand what I'm doing here so that's the issue of visiting the mosque yeah so I mean you've given us great insight into the church website itself but how about running running a church service itself that is accessible understandable to Muslim people yes look what I want to say to pastors is simply run your

[38:11]
church well run your church well now what I mean by that is you need to have good Bible teaching right somebody needs to be able to come in and have a sermon that is is good teaching I know this might sound basic but sometimes you can have a fairly mediocre sermons happening and that's not going to help Muslim when they come in I think more important though than the Bible teaching is actually probably how we read the Bible if you go to a mosque you'll meet

[38:42]
people who are Quran reciters and so they spend a lot of time learning how to recite and chant sort of like it's a type of singing that they do and that they sing and chant the Quran and so the majority of the world's Muslims don't understand what's being said but it's beautiful it's beautiful and so for them that's one of the highlights of going to the mosque to have the Quran chanted beautifully and then they'll have their own sermons which may be good

[39:16]
which may not which may not be but the Quran is chanted beautifully now if we are running our service and someone gets up to read and they and they go oh what's the reading right and I've seen this happen what's the reading you know they're about to get up what's the reading and they're reading it and how do you pronounce that word they don't have to pronounce the word and then everyone in the congregation laughs because they can't I've seen this happen many times right and so we make a joke of the public reading of God's word which for

[39:49]
them is going to be that's a big thing for them yeah of course that's a big thing for them and so if you if I was trying to reach Muslims I put a priority on making sure that the Bible is read well and so one of the things that I do with this is I say to people if you're not sure about the reading go online and listen to an MP3 recording by a professional actor you know there are many of these Bibles on audio and you can listen to them and and practice with them

[40:19]
and then learn you know where to pause and how to pronounce the words and so that that would be something that that you could do are there anything else similar around churches and how they operate themselves to make to make it as easy as possible for the Islamic person to hear about and come and follow Jesus yes I think that if we're if we're hoping that Muslims will come then we want them to know that as part of our church calendar we'll we have evangelistic courses to explain Christianity to the Muslim and so you know just as a church

[40:54]
might have you know marriage enrichment courses or you know parenting courses or you know things throughout the year it's it's good to also have courses to for Muslims to to to to help in their discipleship and you mentioned a few of the earlier what what are one of the ones that people in a strip passes in Australia could could utilize and look into and potentially using this yeah so there's three that I can think of there's the word of life course which comes out of the UK by Steve Massoud and that's excellent there's also the

[41:27]
Al Masiyah course you can get all of these online and then the final one is all the prophets have spoken and that they are three good evangelical courses that you could advertise and say oh you know we've got this course and so I guess what I'm saying there is you know if a Muslim comes to church they've got to be able to understand the teaching it's got to be good teaching that they've got to see that the word of God is being respectfully treated and read well and also they need to see that there's discipleship there because if

[42:01]
they're thinking of becoming Christian they're going to want to know how what does it mean for me to be a Christian how do I change my life and so there needs to be some public recognition that we have a discipleship course to help you learn how to live as a Christian that's right so it's not just to learn about Christianity but you know to learn the truths of Christianity but also how I live as a Christian it's that vision for us at Registrarial of deeper disciples obviously in every increasing numbers but

[42:33]
we don't want to see people come to a first-time expression of faith Islamic people and then not be followed up and deeper in their obedience to this. Well even with that first with that initial response of becoming Christian you know they have to see that Christianity is plausible you know they've got to be able to come to church and go yeah I can see that there's a path that I can follow here and that this is plausible for me to do and that's how I get going. So yeah Samuel I was going to ask you about much of some of angels in Australia or much of angels in

[43:04]
Australia does feel to be more propositional in nature whereas for many countries abroad the value or the importance of story in seeing people come to faith seems to be significant is this a factor in Islamic evangelism? Yes I mean there are many ways of sharing the gospel with Muslims I've tried to outline today how I introduce the gospel through explaining what the Bible is but Bernie Power from the Melbourne School of Theology has a great book of different stories

[43:39]
and I've got some own stories so I'll tell you briefly why now to give you an example of the type of thing so often Muslims will say you know God is exalted and high and it's degrading to think that God would come down as a man you know and and I'll say that God went to the toilet and they'll say it this way and say you know how degrading to say that of God and so I've got a story which I share with them and I say imagine there are two kings one king stays in his palace and never leaves the palace

[44:14]
but there's another king who comes out of his palace and comes down and helps his people now which is the greatest king and I think for most people they're going to say well actually the one who comes down like that they're actually the type of leaders that we celebrate even in Islamic countries when the leader you know it comes and flies the fighter jet or does something or gets involved with the soldiers and is in the trenches you know and so that that's how I've collected my own little stories where I say which is the greater king the one

[44:47]
who stays in his palace the one who comes down to help his people and you know you develop your own stories like that and part of what I'm hearing from you there it's not an evil or that there's one praise or the other there are certain truths propositions that are important to be held and understood and the story can really help bring that out yeah that's really quite important you talked a bit before about Islamic debates yeah and it's important that we keep reflecting on

[45:17]
the fruitfulness of these activities is the debate world fruitful for Islamic mission absolutely and I think this is one of the differences between Christians and Muslims and I brought this up at the beginning of the in the beginning of the program because the Quran speaks about Christianity so often and debates against it debating Christians is a major part of Islamic culture

[45:49]
now for Christians we don't have that as part of our culture and so we think oh what's debating you know we're not that much into it but for them they're religion does this this is what Muhammad did and so that's actually why I got involved in this area because that's their culture and so Christians shouldn't think of it from their perspective I mean they obviously will think of it from their perspective but I want to say you need to see it from from the Islamic perspective and so some of my debates you know they're going

[46:22]
800,000 views and I can see where they've gone and that's not just mum click out it right it's most likely lots of Islamic people who see me culture they're the ones clicking on yeah because they're interested in that type of thing yeah yeah the other place in which I do it is that I'm on Facebook most days talking to Muslims online and I want to bring up the online material as well because see I think that if a church wanted to reach a particular region then they need to get into the algorithm of the Instagram for the youth in that region and you

[46:59]
need to think about how you're going to do that because if you go to a region where there's a large number of Islamic youth I can assure you they're all watching their champions debate online because that that's their culture okay and so they're watching all these debates now you want your church to be coming up in and amongst that because for the youth that's where they're meeting people that that's how they're connecting and so you need to be thinking or this is what I'm encouraging

[47:32]
churches to do to think about the algorithm and how that algorithm is going to be connecting with the people you want because you know yourself once you go and look at one thing the algorithm picks that up and then starts giving other information to you and you you know at the moment your church might be completely sidelined from where all the youth in your suburb are living on the internet you know your church just doesn't even exist and you've got to think how do I get my church

[48:03]
into that into that area so awareness pieces and how to know even know we exist how they're going to hear about Jesus unless yeah someone obviously someone brings a good news to them but they've got to become aware of who's got the good news in the first place this is an important part yeah and so what you might do is you may actually have getting back to the idea of a debate you might have a debate within your area and I can tell you the Muslims would be aware of that now you want to be very careful if you're not if you don't know how to do it you need to have certain

[48:34]
skills to debate Muslims because it may go really badly for you but but having an event is the type of thing where if you get the right speaker in you'll you'll be known within the community you get on all their algorithms you'd you'd become noticed and if you're trying to reach them you've you've got to think about how am I going to do this you know there's posturing flying setting up tables at Christmas and Easter time you can do all those sort of more traditional things I'm just saying that Instagram and those things are also very important because that's

[49:10]
that's where they spend a lot of time now now so we just see we do this world we see Islamic people come the Muslims come to faith how well do you think the Australian Church is going at having having people from an Islamic background have come to Christ how well are we doing at having the many our communities and loving them and how well are our churches doing at welcoming converted and serving and growing and building leaders in the area of Islamic yeah that that's a very big

[49:44]
question to to go across the whole of Australia and I can't answer for all of Australia what I can certainly say is that the churches that I've been involved when in when Muslims have come they've been fully welcomed and incorporated into the church life their kids have come to youth group and it's been positive so my general feeling is that the churches are keen to do it and they've got people who are ready to do it but you know they're just trying to work out how do we go about doing

[50:16]
it and how do we make connection as in doing with any other group yeah yeah that's right that's something you've been doing is for a long time I'd be interested to hear if over the time period you've done it you look back and you go gee I changed my approach here or here is something I've had to radically change the way I do it because it just wasn't there in the food I wanted to what has changed for you as you've tried to reach Muslim people yeah absolutely so when I started doing it the seminars that I would run would be teaching the five pillars of Islam and you know

[50:51]
giving maps and historical details and and I was really doing what what I had been taught myself and what you'll find in books and what I just found was that when you talk when someone spoke to them you know the five pillars didn't even come up and it was just through debating and talking to a lot of Muslims that I started to develop that approach which I outlined at the beginning which is to to to engage with what they learn about us and to understand what they learn about us and so my

[51:27]
training to Christians now begins with find out what Muslims believe about you have that in mind so that you you at least are not unaware of what you're going to encounter and then I've you know I've tried to develop what I would consider more of a biblical theological approach in that I I want to show them that we follow all the prophets and the result of that is that the gospel we believe comes out of all those prophets the gospel we believe you know so the idea of

[52:00]
the idea of the fatherhood of God and the son of God that's not a Christian idea that that existed back in the time of Moses and it's throughout all the prophets the fatherhood of God the son of God has an expression throughout all the prophets it's not a Christian idea when we look at the idea of Jesus death being a substitute sacrifice for our sins that's not a Christian idea the idea of a substitute sacrifice for sins didn't begin with the apostle Paul it's actually the message of

[52:33]
all the prophets and so this is how I've moved in my gospel presentations to to be showing that the gospel is the message of all the prophets and the good thing with this is that it helps Christians to to learn their own scriptures better and so I've really worked hard at trying to and takes a little while to get your head around this but to teach Christianity to explain Islam to teach Christianity to explain Islam and so we've had examples of this by teaching the table of

[53:08]
contents you understand better what the Quran is that it's only one man and that the Bible's all of the prophets and so it's teaching those things which Christians come away going oh I really understand what Islam is yeah I really understand what the Quran is now because the Bible's all the prophets and so I've learned Christianity you can do a similar thing with you know learning about the temple Islam has no temple theology this is a big subject but Islam has no temple theology so when you teach the temple you actually show people what's not in Islam and and it makes all

[53:46]
of some Islam makes a lot of sense as to why they do what they do because they have no temple theology you know God does not come to us there is no holiness of God that you're approaching there is no priest no sacrifice all of those doctrines are removed and so you teach you can teach Christianity to explain Islam and so that's what I've tried to do because and this is where we started because Islam is not in the Bible one of the things that people like myself have to do is we need to figure out what is a way of teaching about Islam that every minister can do and that's not going to involve

[54:22]
learning loads of details about Islam it's going to have to work with the tools that he or she already has that is understanding how the Bible speaks to Islam yeah okay now you've already mentioned for us Samuel some resources about some evangelistic courses that I hope for will be book or any other podcast we always want to resource God's people resource his church what are some of the other resources that you're aware of that people could make themselves

[54:53]
yeah well I mean I'll start with my own resources first of all so I have a website called engaging with islam.org and that's got Bibles for Muslims, evangelistic leaflets and apologetic leaflets training courses you know debates so it's a real portal and if you want Islamic resources it's also got a section there so that's my hub and from there people can get all manner of

[55:24]
resources from there I've also got a book with Matthias Media called Where to Start with Islam and that that's sort of a summary of my 25 years of my first 25 years of being in this ministry and I go through in a lot more detail than what I've said here well Samuel thank you so much for being in this today it's a really important part of Australia to reach and we know this really matters because Jesus talks about heaven and he talks about hell and he talks about it

[55:57]
regularly and real people will go to heaven and real people will go to hell and there's an urgency in Australia that we reach as many as we can as quickly as we can as deeply as we can and see them live them brought in the gods people of church and to help reach the country it's really critical that our leaders of churches are trained and able to lead as well as they possibly can to this end in the reach of Australia has its leadership development program helping leaders be

[56:28]
evangelistically minded looking to be multiplying their churches enlarging the footprint of their ministries it's helping leaders lead helping them be fear logically robust at the same time as practically skilled so we can see healthy evangelistic churches grow and reach this country you can find out more about the richest Australia leadership development program at the richest Australia website reachestraining.com.au