Photo by Ellyn Schellenberg

 

In a British inner-city setting, OMers Carrie* and Rojhat* are reaching and discipling people from Muslim backgrounds through the power of story. In this first half of a two-part article, writer Nicky Andrews discovers how their witness has been shaped by Middle Eastern life and culture: storytelling shares Jesus in ways that their Muslim friends can readily absorb, and naturally spread amongst their peers – winning many hearts to follow Him.

Worldwide, many cultures treasure the power of storytelling. UNESCO says, "Oral traditions and expressions are used to pass on knowledge, cultural and social values and collective memory. They play a crucial part in keeping cultures alive."  Telling stories birthed in the Middle East  - about Jesus, or the stories He himself told – is therefore a very natural way to start communicating gospel truths to people from those cultures who now live in the UK.

The power of story

On a British winter morning I meet Carrie and Rojhat at their flat, with views of Victorian roofscapes and high-rise blocks. Over an Arabic-style breakfast (salads, olives, flatbreads and hummus, rich in Middle Eastern spices and herbs) the couple describe their own journey, and how their ministry activities (chiefly among asylum seekers and refugees) focus on introducing Muslims to Jesus through the simple power of story.

Carrie begins with her own experience. She is English, but fell in love with the whole Middle East years ago while visiting an OM friend serving there. An experienced community worker, she joined an OM team in the Middle East and spent an initial two years becoming immersed in Arabic language and culture,  including telling stories of Jesus. Carrie discovered how these intrigued and touched people’s hearts: after all, storytelling is part-and-parcel of the oral cultures of the global South and Middle East.

Rojhat’s experience

“Bible stories brought Jesus to my own heart”, says Rojhat, who was born into a Kurdish Muslim family. As a boy in the mid-1990s, he had heard local media talking about a visit to his city by a European evangelist; 200-plus people had been healed of various conditions. In the mid-2000s, after moving with  relatives to a neighbouring country, he heard about Jesus again; a Kurdish pastor was giving lessons in his own Kurmanji language, in which Rojhat was semi-literate. The pastor used Bible stories to teach his students, and the stories began to win Rojhat’s heart for Jesus. After some time he was baptised.

Although his family had very mixed reactions at first, Rojhat persisted in following Jesus. Five years or so later, he met James* from the OM team in the capital city (Carrie had joined this team  a year earlier.) James suggested that Rojhat and two other Kurdish believers start praying together regularly; this mushroomed within 6 months into a gathering of 200-300 people. (These days this is a Kurdish church with a Kurdish pastor.)

Reaching Rojhat’s wider family

At the same time, Rojhat invited James to begin Discovery Bible Study (DBS) sessions in his family home of 15-20 people. Many were teenagers, who next became part of a young people’s group which OM began on Sunday evenings in Carrie’s flat. The OMers taught Rojhat how to disciple these young relatives using both DBS and the Al Massira (‘The Journey’) discipleship course (almassira.org) “Many of those young people still believe and are actively serving Jesus today”, says Rojhat.

“That young people’s group was a good example of what OM describes as a ‘vibrant community of Jesus followers’, “ adds Carrie, “where investing into an organic group of disciples through example and training, leads naturally to new groups forming.” The couple smile too at another circumstance – it was through leading this group together that Rojhat and Carrie fell in love.

Changing location

Carrie and Rojhat married three years later and within a year moved to another location to help lead an OM team which focused on training local Arab Christians to reach their peers; in tandem they ran an ‘internship school’ to mentor visiting near-culture workers from North Africa. In their new location there were whole clans of refugee families barely scraping an existence in the shells of abandoned houses.

The OM team and their trainees would visit these traumatised communities nearly every day. They brought practical help, and Carrie  again found her old community work skills very useful (these had proved invaluable in her previous city, when helping a local church reach isolated families in urban tower blocks.) And then the team would share from their personal treasury of Bible stories learnt by heart, the refugees flocking round to listen.

They would recount whatever story was most appropriate to the felt need a refugee was expressing. Maybe someone was sick: Carrie would say, “Did you know God can heal sicknesses? Can I tell you a story about how the prophet Jesus healed somebody?” The sick person usually agreed and their family and friends would listen in too, all ears…this might lead on to DBS with the most interested listeners. With its story basis, Carrie saw DBS win Muslims’ hearts for Jesus time and again.  

Following Jesus

“We have never asked anyone to pray ‘a prayer of commitment’”, says Carrie. “‘Believing’ is always very organic: you can sense where someone’s heart is by their demeanour during Bible study and prayer, the deep questions they ask. If people choose to use the words ‘I’m a Christian’ that is totally their choice, but better for new believers to simply say instead, ‘I’m following Jesus’. By staying embedded in their existing culture, they can have the greatest influence on their peers, passing on ‘Jesus stories’ because that’s just what happens, that’s culture. And so the whole cycle begins again.”

In part 2, read how Carrie and Rojhat’s Middle East experience helps bring the love and hope of Jesus into the lives of Muslim asylum seekers and refugees in the UK -  through the power of story and Discovery Bible Study.

 

* Names changed