The Art of Conversation: How to Engage with Your Muslim Neighbors

Introduction to the Ministry and James Remnant’s Background

Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your.

Church, go to strivingforeternity .org. Welcome to another edition of The Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, the Executive Director of Striving for Eternity and the Christian podcast community of which this podcast is a proud member.

We are here to give you biblical interpretations and applications for the Christian life, and today I have a guest on. James Remnant is someone I heard on CrossPolitik, and I reached out to a friend of mine, Gabe, and said, hey, I want to talk with him because it was such an interesting podcast, and I know when I was listening to it, I said, I have more questions that they didn't ask.

So, James, welcome to The Wrap Report. Would you mind just giving folks a little bit of an introduction of yourself, and if you can, because I heard you describe this on CrossPolitik, explain what your ministry.

Is, how you got into this. Yeah, thank you for having me on. My name is James Remnant. I'm the Director of the Almighty Initiative. The Almighty Initiative is a Christian ministry dedicated to equipping the church to understand Islam and engage Muslims with truth.

I'm originally from the Middle East of England, a place called Northampton. I've been living in Seattle since I was 21, and, you know, basically, my journey with Islam starts like many others in the West after 9 -11, and I came home from school, and my friend's mother was walking out of her house, like, in tears because, at that point, only one plane had hit one tower, and those of us in the house, at least, I think with many others, believed for 10 minutes or so that it was just some tragic accident, and then the second plane hit, and the world, as we knew it, changed forever.

At that point, as an 11-year-old boy, Osama bin Laden's face being plastered everywhere was actually kind of exciting for me in some capacity, if I'm honest with you, because both my grandfathers were in the British Air Force during the Second World War, and the 90s seemed pretty boring compared to the past, but when I started taking Christianity more seriously when I was 13, I think Islam, in my imagination, went from a sort of geopolitical enemy to a worldview theological enemy, but my approach was still very shallow.

I didn't really have any Muslim friends. It wasn't until I was 20 that I had to do a college radio show project, actually, on interviewing people on their views on the end of the world, so I got an elder from my church, I found some more missionaries, and then I thought it'd be fun to do a Muslim, so I searched all around my British hometown for a Muslim, and then I finally saw a Muslim woman working in the T-Mobile store, so I said, hey, can I talk to you about your views on the end of the world for a college project?

I'll buy you Subway. We made friends, then I moved to America, decided to really, everything I knew about Islam at that point had come from other Christians, some, a lot of whom were doing a good job, some were not, and it came from the media, so I decided I should learn about Islam from the sources myself, so I read through the Quran, I listened through Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, which are more of the Sunni Islamic source materials, and then just had a conviction it was a very academic exercise, so from there, I decided to crash the Muslim Student Association at the University of Washington, walked in super awkwardly, partway through one of the meetings, everybody saw me come in.

This is in like 2012, and then I got invited back and just kind of kept going to listen, learn, make friends, and then have one-on-one conversations. All of this came to a head in 2017. I was saying hi to people off the church one Sunday, and I saw a woman leaving who I didn't recognize, and I said, hey, I don't think we've met yet, and she says, what?

I said, we don't know each other. She says, what? I said, we've never met before. She says, no, this is my first time here. I said, great, what brings you here? She says, I grew up Muslim, decided I didn't believe that anymore, tried being nothing, that felt empty, now I'm here to try this.

I said, great, where are you from? She says, Saudi Arabia. I said, great, which city? She says, you wouldn't have heard of it. I'm like, try me. She says, okay, it's a small town called Katif. I said, I know where that is.

I have a friend from Katif, which means you grew up as a Shia Muslim, right? And she says, how the hell did you know that? I have so many questions, when can we talk? So then that Friday, we got coffee, and the place she was at is she liked the vibe of church, but didn't quite get it.

So she asked me, as a Christian, do you believe the Bible and the Bible? And I said, I only believe the Bible. So she said, okay, if the Quran is not true, how do you think Jesus escaped from being crucified?

I said, he didn't. And I just read her the last three chapters of Matthew. And she says, oh, it does say that he died and rose from the dead. But what actual difference does that make to my life? So I said, okay, so in the Islamic version of things, Allah loved Jesus so much that he rescued him from the cross.

In the Bible's version of things, God loved you so much that he put Jesus on the cross. So if you trust in him, you can know with certainty that you're loved and forgiven. And she said, that makes so much sense to me.

I believe that. So then she started coming to church with us regularly. And in the course of discipling her, we were going to host a party for people who used to be Muslim and now Christian. But she ended up hearing me pitching an event where Christians and Muslims can meet each other and hang out.

So we did that during Ramadan. We had 35 Christians and 35 Muslims come to church for dinner, and we just had good conversations. And basically everything has come from that. So now we are training churches.

We're helping them understand what Islam is as a worldview, who Muslims are as people, and then tangibly helping them meet their Muslim neighbors and have meaningful conversations over the course of a lifetime.

Sunni and Shia Islam, the Sunni-Shia Divide, and the Quran’s View of the Crucifixion

So for some folks who know nothing about Islam, let's just give some background for folks. You mentioned two different sects of Islam, Sunni and Shia. Could you give a quick overview for folks of the differences and what are they.

And how did you know that she was, just from the city, which branch she was of?

Well, the only way I personally knew about the specific city she was on is because I'd met another guy from that city like a year previously. So I just happened to know that. In general though, the Sunni world, the Sunni Muslims comprise 90 of the Muslim population in the world.

Shias are about 10%. And most Shias are in Iran with a lot in Iraq. And then there's a good number in Lebanon as well. There's small communities of Shia in basically every Muslim country. But the center of that is Iran, both on a population standpoint and on a geopolitical standpoint.

And for folks that are listening when we're recording, this is in the news these days, Iran. You know, everyone thought, oh, Israel's attacks Iran, America attacks Iran, the whole Muslim world's going to come against them, against the US and Israel because they're all Muslim.

And yeah, that didn't happen. And I said, I didn't think it would happen. And people were like, afterwards, how did you know it wouldn't happen? I'm like, you got to understand that these are not too, they may be Muslim, but they've been warring.

The Iran-Iraq war went on for many decades over the views of Islam.

Right. It's a very close contender, whether there's more animosity between Iran and Israel or Iran and the Sunni states around it. The wounds run deep and the animosity runs deep as well. You know, in the same way that I think for us as Christians, we almost have more frustration with professed Christians flying a rainbow flag than we would with like an atheist flying a rainbow flag.

Right. Because they're supposed to, they profess the same things we profess theoretically. These differences make people more frustrated. And that's the way it works with the Sunni-Shia conflict.

Yes. And the, you know, for folks to understand, you said something there in the beginning that for many, it may be the first time they're hearing this. I will say what you could do if this is new to you, you can get my book, What Do They Believe?

Because I have the chapter on Islam. And we talk about that there, that in the Quran, the idea that Jesus never died on the cross, it was a lookalike. It was, so Allah made it look like it was Jesus. This is really, it's one of those things I bring up often when speaking to Muslims, because there is a verse that refers to Allah being the great deceiver.

Now, when you get the English version, there's some debate whether that's a deceiver or a planner, but the way to avoid that debate over Arabic, especially if you don't speak Arabic fluently, and they do, you know, is the fact that, you know, what James mentioned they believe that Allah deceived his own followers into believing that Jesus went to the cross when.

He really didn't. That's scary. Right, right. Now, I think if you look at the history of this, this idea doesn't really originate from Islam. It probably originates from the Gnostics. So, there's a Gnostic text called the Second Discourse of the Great Seth, which basically uses very similar wording to the way the Quran describes Jesus being saved from the cross.

So, the Quran does not go into a lot of detail as to how that happens. So, this is something Muslims have been trying to solve for a long time, but it seems to absorb this from Gnosticism.

And for folks to understand, Muhammad, as he was coming up with this, developing these thoughts, hundreds of years after Christ, those he was in contact with were not generally the genuine Christians.

He was a merchant. He would travel around. He would talk to Jewish people. He talked to, I'm going to put Christians in air quotes, because many of the Christians he interfaced with were heretics that were thrown out of the Roman Empire.

And that's why in the Quran, it will argue that we believe in a trinity, a triunity of the Godhead. They would say that that's three gods, but the strange thing is, it describes the trinity as referring to the Father, the Mother, and the Son.

And so, there is a surah that will actually ask, Allah is saying to Jesus, did I tell people to worship you and your mother as God? And anyone that knows Christianity knows that's not the trinity. And so, that's a good question to ask.

I don't know, James, what you think about this, but I usually will ask when I deal with someone that's Muslim, one of the things I ask is, how does the Quran define what Christians call the trinity, and who makes up the trinity?

Because what I usually find is people who are born in America will define trinity in the proper way, and if they're born in a Middle Eastern country where they haven't really interacted with Christianity, they say what the Quran teaches.

Yeah, a lot of Muslims grow up basically believing that Christians believe in Father, Mother, Son, basically, because that is very similar to the Arabic polytheism Mohammed himself was dealing with. And now, some Muslims will make the argument that, well, it doesn't literally think the trinity is this.

It's making a hyperbolic argument against the sort of Catholic veneration of Mary that existed at the time. But really, even the sort Catholic veneration of Mary really is a later development in Roman Catholicism as well.

So I think the safest thing for Muslims to sort of shelter behind when it comes to this is how little information we have about what Arabia is really like before Islam, because there is some writing, but it kind of comes in fragmentary pieces.

So they can certainly make the argument that there are Christian sects we don't know about that the Quran is refuting, and if that's the case, then they're not refuting us here and now, and then the Quran doesn't apply to that.

So that's their best kind of argument, really. Yeah, they do have a group that they will.

Argue, oh, they believed Mary was God. But the point to make in that is, but that's not Christianity. They even admit it was a very small subset of people that were thrown out of the empire for heresy.

So even if they were the ones he's speaking to, he's referring to the people of the book, the Christians, and it's like, well, there's a problem there.

Right. And it's also speculative as well, because there's nothing in the early Islamic sources that would point to this being a heretical sect of Christianity that no longer exists, like there's no differentiations made in the Islamic sources.

Doesn't mean it's completely impossible, but it seems pretty unlikely to me. Correct. And the only sources I have ever seen.

For this sect of Christianity are from Muslim sources. And so I have not been able to find anything outside of Islam to support that. Now, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, because we've lost a lot of documents from antiquity, but it is kind of suspect that the only sources are from Muslim sources to defend this argument that Christians make against them.

The Core Beliefs of Islam and How a Person Becomes a Muslim

So James, for folks who, we probably, because this podcast goes around the world, and so with that in mind, there's probably many who really don't have a good handle on Islam. Maybe they've, like you said, 9 -11, there were a lot of people that had questions.

In fact, the way that my book What Do They Believe? started was because of 9 -11. After 9 -11, the pastor of the church I was at, he actually asked me, would I study the Quran so that I could teach the church what Muslims believe?

And so what I did was, so I come from a Jewish background. I remember a rabbi that converted me back to Judaism, and he gave me tapes from this rabbi, Tovias Singer. And Tovias Singer would mix Roman Catholicism and Mormonism and describe that as Christianity.

I've always said, not always, but for decades, I have said that I will debate Tovias Singer anywhere, anytime, without preparation. He actually heard me say that and contacted me, was ready to take me up on it, until I think he sent someone, one of his followers called me up and was like, oh, I used to be a pastor.

I've got to help you with your debate with Tovia. The guy didn't even hear my full debate argument, but I guess it was enough. I found out later, he actually converted to Judaism and follows Tovia. So after that, Tovia has ghosted me.

Tovia even created a banner, like debate, you know, former Jewish Christian pastor versus Tovia Singer, you know, and then he ghosted me. And so I emailed him and said, hey, because he moved to Israel, I was like, hey, I'm going to be in Israel.

You want to do a debate when we're there together? He never responded. And so, but one of the things he did was he misrepresented Christianity, and he does that to people who don't know Christianity. So when I started to study Islam, I only wanted to study from the Qur 'an.

I did not want to look at Hadiths, because that's where there's some differences, as we are talking with the different groups and sects of Islam. And so I wanted to be fair to what they believe, and I ended up doing that with Islam, and then because I was Jewish, I was asked, hey, can you cover Judaism?

Well, the Talmud takes a long time to read through and study, so it took me longer. But, you know, I ended up going through all these different religions. But for many people, after 9 -11, all they knew of Islam is, well, when you die, you get 70 virgins.

I mean, that was it. It was like, you die in a jihad, in a holy war, and you get 70 virgins in the afterlife. And so for many, that's the extent that they have an understanding of Islam. Could you give, provide for folks, just like a quick thumbnail version of what is it that Islam believes?

How does someone become a Muslim? Do they have to convert to it? What does that conversion look like? So how does someone become a Muslim? What is the main premise that Islam would teach, especially that which would.

Be different than Christianity? Okay. So, basically, the central premise of Islam is that there is one God and absolutely one God who has created the world. But differing from Christianity, the world was not created perfect.

Adam and Eve were created in paradise and then sent down to earth when they sent. And this is called the dunya. And instead of believing in original sin, all of us are tainted with a sin nature from the time we're born.

Muhammad actually taught in Sahih al-Bukhari that everyone is born pure in a state of what the Muslims call fitra or nature. And then it's external forces that corrupt you from that. So, when somebody becomes a Muslim, Muslims say they're reverting to Islam and that instead of converting because they believe everyone's born Muslim.

So, if you're born into a Muslim family, the shahadah, that confession that there's one God and Muhammad is his master, you'll be whispered into your ear as you're born. If you're an adult who becomes Muslim, then you have to say the shahadah three times in Arabic and that's how you become Muslim.

So, the idea is if you're sort of born pure and this world is a test, then the idea is to do as many good deeds as you possibly can and do more good than bad in this world. And on the day of judgment, your good deeds are weighed against your bad deeds in the scale.

And if your good deeds are heavier, that means paradise. If your bad deeds are heavier, that means hell, at least temporarily if you're Muslim. But it's not just about good deeds, it is also about believing and finding the true religion of Islam.

So, the Quran says, if anyone seeks a path other than Islam, it will never be accepted from them. Even though you'll find lots of Muslims that do believe that people from other religions go to heaven, historic Islam does not teach and believe that.

So, how we get here and what constitutes good deeds and bad deeds comes from both the Quran and the Sunnah or the Hadith, right? And so, the idea is that they affirm that God has spoken through Adam, through Noah, Abraham, Moses, through David.

And they also believe Jesus is a prophet and that Muhammad is the final prophet and the seal of the prophets. So, the idea is the prophets are like a letter God has written to mankind and then Muhammad is like that wax seal that stops anything else coming.

So, they believe the religion is perfect, it's for all people in all time and that in order to be made right with God, you must become Muslim and then strive after good deeds. And they believe salvation is a combination between God's grace and mercy and good deeds.

It's not works alone. A lot of people think it's about faith versus works. It's not. It's a faith works combination and then they believe the people who serve Allah correctly and pass the test will spend eternity with Allah.

Yeah, much like Roman Catholicism, it's faith plus works. And I think the reason you have all these different religions that have to, the majority of it is works, right? That's the ultimate thing. But because man-made religions are going to add human effort to getting right with God, but if they don't add the faith, well, then you could believe anything, right?

Right.

So, every one of these man-made religions that are used to control people will always have an element of faith because it's got to be you believe in their true faith. They're the only true religion and your works kind of keep you there.

And so, it's an important thing for people to recognize. This is how you recognize the true religion from false, by the way, folks, is every man-made religion has human effort added to it in one way or another.

And what the Bible teaches is Christ did all the work. We can't add anything to it. In fact, if we try to add anything to what Christ did, it diminishes what He, God Almighty who became a man dying on a cross, it diminishes what He did when He paid the fine that we owe, which is eternity in a lake of fire.

Well, He being an eternal being can do that once in time. It would take us forever. And so, that's how you know the difference between the divine religion, Christianity, and all the others. They add human works.

And I would say that for any Muslims listening, the Muslim cultures, do you have an innate understanding of this to some extent? Because I was in Saudi Arabia about a month ago. And when I went to Riyadh, I spent $7 for my entire time in that city because of the hospitality.

Like, hospitality is a really, really important part of their culture for a couple of reasons. One is because they do genuinely love their guests. But also, even if they don't, there's a large sort of sense of honor by providing everything for somebody.

And if somebody is paying for their own meal, that is dishonoring the host, right? So, in the same way, God is honoring Himself by refusing to let anyone else bring anything for salvation. We simply accept as a guest.

And this is an important thing that you bring up. Because for folks here who may, I'm hoping, James, that you are going to influence some folks that end up saying by the end of this episode, hey, I want to reach out to Muslims in my area.

One of the things to realize is they have a very large understanding of hospitality. It's a major part of their culture. And you inviting them over to your house, they're going to, usually, they're going to come.

And they're going to be very respectful. Keep inviting them, right? They're in your house, they're going to be respectful, you get to talk. But learn what they believe. One thing I always tell people is don't assume what someone believes because even if they say they're Muslim, hey, we got a mayor, a candidate for mayor in New York City right now.

And everyone's saying he's Muslim. He supports LGBT. Most practicing Muslims, which he claims to be, would not agree with his positions. In fact, they might want to throw him off a building.

Right, right, right. Zohran Mamdani is a product of a very interesting thing that's happened in the American Muslim culture. So, there, in some ways, has been an alliance of convenience for the Muslim community and the left-wing community in America, which they have some common goals, so they end up working together.

But what's strictly supposed to be a professional relationship got a little intimate. And now you have a generation of people who have a sort of hybrid ideology, which has some sort of Islamic sprinkling on, but is largely left-wing in its ideology.

And this sort of Zohran Mamdani is one of those people. Yeah. And I think it's fascinating.

To see, because like this is, he's someone new. I'm going, how do Muslims accept him? You know, he's in that culture, he's promoting himself as a Muslim, and yet totally supporting.

Things that Islam would be against. Well, I think what you'll see in the Muslim world, and let's be clear here, this isn't something that only applies to the Muslim world, but there's a certain sense of tribalism to this as well.

When it's Muslims versus non-Muslims, it tends to be us versus them. So for a lot of Muslims, having somebody who's technically part of the group as the mayor of New York is a big deal for them. They feel like that's a win for the community.

But if you put him alone in a Muslim community, they wouldn't like him because he's Shia or because of his actual views, which are completely at odds with historic Islamic orthodoxy. But because there's such a big deal of sort of group solidarity, it feels like a win for a lot of Muslims in New York.

Yeah. And this is a thing for many to realize that I don't want people to think of, just because this guy's in the news, and think this is what Islam believes. He's more of a, I'm trying to think of a good word, I want to say freak, but that wouldn't be, more of an anomaly, I think, of, you know, when we say what Muslims would believe, I don't think he would represent what the majority of Muslims would believe,.

Or what would be faithful to the Quran. Right, he wouldn't, but he would be much more representative of what a lot of Muslims in America actually do believe, than you might think. And what you saw in the last election, like the presidential election, is you're starting to have a little bit of a sort of cold war between the sort of camps of Muslims who are sort of more historically grounded in Islamic theology, and then people who are sort of captivated by the American political scene, and how much that's influencing their theology.

So, it's not, yeah, he's not, I wouldn't say he's an anomaly, like, at least not in the time and place we live now. There's more and more people who are like this, but he certainly doesn't represent.

Historic Islam. Yeah. And you're more up-to-date with American Islam than I am, because my study of Islam comes from studying the Quran, studying Hadiths, talking to Muslims, but most of it is from their sources.

That's where, you know, I'm always looking to go. So, you know, one of the things that I would like to dig into is, so we gave an overview of Islam. I want to dig into your ministry, what you do, how do you train churches, because this is, I think, an important thing for you in the audience listening that I want to encourage you with.

My hope in this episode is either that someone reaches out to James, and we're going to give you a way to do that, and if you go, hey, wait, I don't know how to spell that word that he used for the initiative.

He's going to give you an easier website in a moment, but my hope is that one of you listening is going to feel burdened to reach the Muslims in your neighborhood, and so when we come back from this break, what I'd like to be able to do is I want James to explain a little bit of ways that either his ministry can help you or what you could do to be able to reach Muslims in your neighborhood, because this is really the thing, folks.

Many people complain when we have Muslim immigrants moving in, and I did an episode many, many years ago when I first started this podcast. I think it was, like, episode one or two, way back when, where I made a case for people who were upset with so many Muslim immigrants that were coming to America, and I made the case in that episode to say we should be evangelizing them, not getting upset with them.

I mean, God is bringing them here. You know how I know that? Because they're here. That's how I know God is bringing them here. That's God's will, because it happened, and so instead of complaining because we have a favoritism of our country, America, we should be looking at it and saying, you know, they come to America.

They stay within their own community. What can we do to, since they're here, to help them hear about Christianity, which they would never hear elsewhere? So, we're going to come back to that right after this break.

Hospitality, Coffee, and Sponsor Reads

You know, one of the things we're talking about with Islam is the fact that they have a hospitality culture, and one thing that you could do is, well, invite them over for a good cup of coffee, because, well, who doesn't like coffee?

Well, okay, the Mormons, but if you make it cold, then it's okay, because they just don't have hot coffee, but the reality is you can invite your Muslim neighbors or friends over. You can come and have a cup of coffee with them, and if you're going to do that, may I encourage you to get yourself some Squirrelly Joe's coffee, because, well, A, they sponsor the show, but more so because it's a great cup of coffee, and you're supporting a Christian family as well.

You know, folks, one of the things I always find interesting is that when you do speak to Muslims, the way Muslims view other Muslims and the way Christians view other Christians is kind of, well, different.

You see, a Muslim will hire other Muslims and pay them more, and they will, if they're working for another Muslim, they work even harder because they think they're taking care of one of their own, where you know what Christians do?

They go, oh, you're a fellow brother in Christ. You should give me a discount, and then if you're the guy working, it's like, well, I don't have to do good work because he's going to be forgiving. No, we should actually be more like the Muslims in that way, taking care of one another, and this is one way you could take care of a fellow Christian family is by buying Squirrelly Joe's coffee.

Joe is a fellow believer. You're supporting his family and by getting the coffee, and so it is a way not only of getting a great cup of coffee, but supporting a Christian family as well. Way to do that is go to strivingforeternity .org slash coffee.

That is strivingforeternity .org slash coffee, and from there, you will get a discount on your first order by using the promo code SFE, but may I encourage you to always go to strivingforeternity .org slash coffee when you reorder.

That way, he knows you went there from us, and he continues to sponsor us, and I will recommend if your church has coffee because, well, you're Christian. They all do, so get the five-pound bags for church, and that way, you can have your whole church enjoying great coffee.

Now, if you're sitting there saying to yourself, you know, Andrew, the problem isn't the coffee because I'm, you know, I get so wired up. I need to get a good night of sleep. We got a solution for you there as well.

You can go to MyPillow and use the promo code SFE. It stands for striving for eternity. Get yourself some great pillows, towels, bed sheets. They got so many things out there, and you get great discounts with our promo code, and then they continue sponsoring us here, so go to mypillow .com.

Use the promo code SFE, and that will let them know that you heard about them here from us, and they might continue sponsoring us, and we thank them for that. With that, let's get back to how you, as those in the audience, might be able to reach out to Muslims in your community.

Maybe you're too old to go to the local college and go to the Muslims Student Association and, you know, break in there, and you could just go if it's a public college and they have open meetings. Maybe that's a way of doing it, but for folks, James, that don't know where the Muslims are in their community, how could they find Muslims in their community?

What are some ideas that they could do to reach out to the Muslims, and how could your ministry help them to do that? And with that, what are some resources that you could think of that would.

Help them to learn about Islam? Yeah, so there's several ways you could kind of go meet Muslims, and it kind of depends on where exactly you live, of course, but on the sort of like larger scale of things, one thing that's a really good avenue to meet Muslims through would be, say, cultural events.

So, for example, in Seattle, there is a Seattle Arab festival, there's a Seattle Persian festival, there's Seattle Turkish festival, like those are great avenues. On a slightly smaller scale, you could look for, say, music shows or stand up comedy events and stuff.

So one of the best settings I ever experienced for this was a comedy group in Astoria in New York, where there was a comedy group called the Muslim Otherhood. If I was in New York City, I'd be going there every single show to kind of hang out and meet people there.

But on a smaller scale, what you should be looking for would be halal restaurants that serve like Middle Eastern food and stuff. You could be looking and looking for kind of coffee places which are open late.

So generally, Muslims don't like to hang out in bars, but food establishments which are open later than everywhere else tends to have Muslims there. Why? Because the culture tends to involve staying up really late and talking about things.

And if there's any individual Christians or churches interested in this, on our YouTube channel, which you can find on our website, which is almida .org, or more simply, muslimsandjesus .com, there's a whole series called Almida Academy, which you can train you in this.

But we also work directly with churches. We'll travel, we'll come to you, we'll help you understand Islam as a worldview, and we'll help you meet your Muslim.

How to Build Real Conversations with Muslim Neighbors

Neighbors. So the resources go into your website, some places they could go. What are some things folks could do, you know, in order to, so they invite someone to their house. You know, what would be good approach on what they could do to, you know, have good relations, you know, questions they could ask, ways to start conversations and further them along.

So I would say, I would focus on being friendly, honest, and curious. So essentially, and this is the same with Judaism as well, that you talk to 10 different people, you're going to get 10 different versions of what the religion is.

So you do not want to go into a conversation with a script, assuming you know who you're talking to. So what that means is you need to understand who exactly you're talking to first. So just try and figure out how exactly the person in front of you thinks about the world.

Like, okay, so you're, you're Muslim. What does that mean to you? Does that mean you're reading the Quran every day? Does that mean you're doing like the five daily prayers? Or what exactly does mean to you to be Muslim?

And then just sort of like, you know, compare notes. Oh, that's interesting because this, this is how we approach prayer as Christians. And just going to have those things and just kind of keep asking more and more questions.

Then ask, oh, you have kids, I have kids. What do you do when your kids are acting this way? So there's also just any kind of life questions of how their theology and their worldview impacts the way they live are really good starting.

Points. But James, that sounds like that's going to take a lot of time. And I don't have time. I'm so busy. I mean, I got kids soccer and I got, you know, the TV shows I got to watch. I mean, what do you, how would you respond to someone that feels that that's a big time commitment?

Yeah, it can be a big time commitment, but this doesn't need to be something that's happening all within the course of a week. Think of this as a marathon, not a sprint. Like you should be at your kids soccer games within reason.