It may sound rather scholastic to begin with grammar, but it really matters that Muslim is an adjective as well as a noun!
If we think mainly of Muslims (noun) as a group with troubling doctrines and alien customs, we will tend to fear them rather than love them. It is better to think adjectivally that here in my neighbourhood is a Muslim father; a Muslim daughter; a Muslim fellow- parent at the school; a Muslim who like me supports Arsenal, etc, etc.
These identities readily become talking points:
“It must be really hard being separated from your loved ones in Kurdistan,” we can say with sympathy. Or “do you find it’s hard raising children in Europe?” (Muslims are, like us, troubled by drunkenness, porn, transgender ideology and the like.)
Whilst prayer is also key – for open doors and for our deepening empathy for our Muslim neighbour – it is good to have a gospel verse memorised that you can share with them. Explain how much joy and peace you have personally gained from knowing Jesus: “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” or “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Muslims are people made in the image of God, and they experience many of the same struggles we face. Yet there is one way in which Middle-Eastern migrants are not like Westerners: they are from the very lands in which the drama of the Bible played out. The infographic opposite may provide some conversation starters you hadn’t thought of, so that we introduce the Saviour to migrants in a way which doesn’t feel like a ‘Western religion’ is being offered to them.
My prayer is that churches grow to love migrants with perceptive minds and big hearts. May many more Muslims in the UK discover Christ to be the Good Shepherd who gathers in lost sheep from every nation.
J and his family served in the Middle East for 11 years. Now UK-based, J is available to give training and mission updates in person and by video calls to help UK churches in their outreach to Muslims.
Photos: (Banner) Randomly arranged wooden letters (image for illustrative purposes) (Bottom) Infographic of the Middle East and North Africa