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Commonwealth is a collective of missionaries, house churches, and ministries that gather in various expressions of Jesus-centered community throughout Knoxville, TN. Together we inspire and equip disciples to cultivate Jesus-centered communities in their everyday lives. This podcast is a collection of trainings, teachings, stories, and reflections from our community.
So Jonder and I lived out at Johnson University, and then we wanted to get more connected in the city. We found out about a bunch of Muslim, Arab Muslim students at University of Tennessee. Jondra actually got connected working with Muslims first with Dan and Mary, and some Iraqi refugees. Jondra worked with them for a while. And we had a host family for a while.
Speaker 1:So they were the ones that really got us started into all this. And then we found out that there were these students at UT, and some of them were asking about homestay. Homestay was an international program where students would go and live with family and pay rent, and then you'd just kind of hang out with them. You'd eat a few meals together a week, help them out with homework or just cultural adaptation, all that kind of stuff. And so so go ahead to the next one there.
Speaker 1:I'll just quickly so we the students we had were from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Kuwait, which is kind of upright on the top side of Saudi Arabia there. Alright. Next picture. So this was kind of right as we became empty nesters with our three kids. They had all gone off to college.
Speaker 1:And so the two guys on the end were Johnson students, and then Nasser and Ali, this was a holiday Muslim holiday. That was the only time one time we ever saw them dressed like this. So they never wore this stuff, but it just happened to be this Muslim holiday, and they were wearing this stuff. So that was kind of our Arab family there. And, we had this big house in North Knoxville, that had, three bedrooms and its own, like, kitchen living area.
Speaker 1:So they kinda had their own place upstairs. And it was actually quite a it was a great, missional opportunity, but it was also a good business as well because they paid our full mortgage and most of our utilities. And, so it was it was that was pretty cool as well. Alright, next picture. Alright, so Kopsa is a Saudi Arabian like chicken and rice dish they love and we would buy all the food.
Speaker 1:They would fix it. It was amazing. So all the kind of the guys around the outside are Johnson students. And then at this time, there there were two different people actually living in the house than from the earlier picture. This was a year later.
Speaker 1:And so we would often they would invite their friends over, and the Johnson guys would invite their friends over, and we would have dinners. And then the next picture, I think, is a much bigger one. Nope. That's so that's yeah. Alright.
Speaker 1:Here we go. This oh, k. Let's go back to that one. Whoop. Back one.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Alright. So there's the cops. And then that particular this particular night, we had about 30 people in the house, and they love they eat it sitting on the floor and eat it with their hands. And So we've been in kinda a little bit used to that with being Africa.
Speaker 1:And, alright. One more of this. This one was at Christmas, and there were so many. We had about 40 this night. It was an old shotgun style house, and, we had, like, 30 guys in the hall, and there were some girls, ladies in the other room.
Speaker 1:They couldn't eat together, and so the women had to eat in the other room. You see the Christmas tree there. They were asking us about Christmas, and so, we ended up singing Christmas carols that night. They thought that was really cool. And, so we've we figured that over the three years that we did this, we probably had about 70 different Arab guys in our house for a meal.
Speaker 1:And, because they loved inviting their friends over, and lots of different Johnson students got to participate as well. So to begin with, our goal was, honestly, our goal was somewhat evangelistic. And, like, we wanted to share Jesus with them. Right? I mean, I'm the missions professor at Johnson University.
Speaker 1:So, like, that's what I do. Right? But after they moved in, we really realized it's like, wow. These guys are 18 years old. They come from a country where the only religious option they have is to be Muslim.
Speaker 1:And so, like, for us to, like, kind of proselytize them to become a Christian, in some ways, would even be unethical to do that. Now, did we want to talk about Jesus with them? Of course. Did we have opportunities? We definitely did.
Speaker 1:And the guys upstairs got into all kinds of interesting conversations. There was one of the guys in the picture oh, actually sorry. Keep kicking this here.
Speaker 2:I'll take care of Excuse me. Sorry. Whoops. Sorry. Sorry.
Speaker 2:Sorry. Alright. Sorry.
Speaker 1:Sorry. Guy right here was in one of the other pictures. He and he and Stan became really good friends, and they I remember that conversation they had about, like, oh, we're I'm praying you know, the the the Arab guy said, I'm praying for you that you become a Muslim. And Stan said, well, I'm praying for you that you become Christian. And so the conversations did get really intense, but they loved each other.
Speaker 1:Stan was actually in his wedding. And so it was a really great interactive time. And so the shift in our mindset was moving away from evangelism toward loving them and getting to know them, and then just waiting on the Holy Spirit to create opportunities and times for those conversations to happen. And so we learned that there were kind of three practices for these occasions where you would be around a Muslim or a Hindu or an atheist or someone where, like, a pretty different faith from you, how do you get into a serious conversation with somebody like that? Right?
Speaker 1:And so we there's three kind of practices. So first is curiosity. If you don't have any curiosity, then it's probably gonna be difficult to go much further. Right? And then it's listening, and then eventually it's sharing as well.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, the the main thing for curiosity is sometimes we assume we think we know what they believe. And that's a that's a bad mistake. Right? You might have heard what Muslims believe, but there are lots of different kinds of Muslims. Right?
Speaker 1:Well, just like there are lots of different kinds of Christians. And so or even an atheist. You might think you know what they believe, but you probably don't. And so trying to figure out the kinds of questions to ask, just to to be gen genuinely curious, not with an agenda. You know?
Speaker 1:And I think sometimes we, as Christians, have been guilty of asking questions because we have an agenda that we eventually wanna get to. Right? But get rid of the agenda and just genuinely ask questions to get to know them and understand them. And so even questions like, tell me what your religious background is. I was telling the folks at our table, they love talking about religion.
Speaker 1:You know, sometimes in America, you say, when you meet a new person, you're not supposed to try to talk about religion or faith or whatever. You know, that's kinda can put people off. Well, Muslims, I don't know about Hindus and atheists, but I know Muslims love talking about religion. Right? So, if you ask them questions, they love talking about it.
Speaker 1:Or how important is your faith to you personally? Like, that's a, you know, that's a pretty fair question. Some might, you know, they might say, not at all or a lot or, you know, whatever. Right? So, know, what what do you wish Christians understood about, people of your faith?
Speaker 1:Alright. So, again, there's, you know, kinds of questions we can ask that that are not threatening, that don't have an agenda, but that will, you know, eventually get you to finding out. So Mike's gonna share a story with us about curiosity.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And just to go off of what Brent was talking about, you know, and and Brianna and I, our context is working particularly, with, Chinese who are here in The United States. And so we encounter, people with no religious background. Almost, every Chinese student that we've ever met, is atheist. So, that's our context.
Speaker 2:And, just to to kind of go off of just a little bit before the story, what Brent was sharing, the idea of not having an agenda. Something that we just started, we started to hear in this space, is, some, something called English Connection on Wednesday afternoons. And the idea there is to provide a space for international students to practice their English without an agenda. We are here in this space to help them practice English. And that's what we're here for.
Speaker 2:And of course, that could move through this process. But another similar context is where the story comes in. Another English program that I oversee, we had a student from China start to come. And he told the person who was there to help him with his English, he told him, he's not interested in talking about Christian stuff. He was just there to practice his English.
Speaker 2:And from that point on, his American native English speaker partner, took what he said and respected that and helped him with his English, for a long time. But he also had genuine curiosity curiosity about this, this Chinese student. There were numerous times that I would overhear their conversations. And frequently, they were talking about, the American partner would ask the Chinese student, to explain his beliefs about something or his world view about something. And it wasn't just, to propel the conversation forward or to have something to talk about.
Speaker 2:It was genuine curiosity. And eventually, that curiosity was reciprocated, and he started to learn about his English partner's Christian faith, and ask him questions about his worldview and what he believes. And about a year and a half into that, I had the opportunity to have lunch with a student. And one of the things he told me is that he likes learning about the Bible. And if someone asked him if he wanted to be a Christian, he would say, No right now, but maybe someday.
Speaker 2:And so that grew from his English partner's curiosity. And that moved to then reciprocal curiosity to a point then where he had a genuine interest in Jesus. And so that reciprocity and curious engagement with someone, that connects really well with the the next thing that Brent's gonna talk about here.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, listening, genuinely wanting to understand someone. And, like Mike said, the the reciprocity is a is a key piece there. If we go in with an agenda, then we might be just looking for a place to insert an answer or, you know, find out something about them that we can use later, you know, to work with them, whatever. But if you're just genuinely interested, then you just continue asking questions.
Speaker 1:And in the same program Mike's talking about, it's called Friendspeak. Many years ago, I had a student at Johnson that was participating in this. And she kind of had a similar experience. She got paired up with a Chinese lady who was doing a PhD. And the first night, this was a little 18 year old Johnson student and probably 25 year old PhD student.
Speaker 1:And the PhD Chinese lady says, just so I want you to know upfront, like, I'm not interested Christianity. I didn't come this program meets at Laurel Church of Christ over on Kingston Pike. It's like, I didn't come here to learn about Christianity or the Bible. I just want to improve my English. And the girl was like, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay. You know? And so again, just like Mike said, this girl was like, alright. You know, she never brought up faith. But about a month later, they the girl invited her to go to the mall and to go out to eat.
Speaker 1:And so they spent like four or five hours together that weekend. And the next Wednesday so this was only a month into you know, Mike's was like, this guy was a long time. But even a month later, that next Wednesday, the Chinese woman said to the girl, well, I'm curious about your faith, your Christianity. Like, why do you believe what you believe? And the young girl was kind of confused.
Speaker 1:Like, I thought you weren't interested in that. And she said, well, now you're my friend. And because you're my friend, I'm interested in what you believe. And so I feel like that's where we see this. That's exactly what happened in this other story as well, the reciprocity that happens there.
Speaker 1:And so in interfaith dialogue, proper interfaith dialogue is purely about understanding and peace, seeking peace. I think as evangelicals, we often forget that Jesus did say blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God. We don't tend to work toward that very often, corporately or maybe even individually, but I think that is something Jesus is very serious about. And so the other thing is that evangelicals kind of are afraid to be involved in this dialogue because they think that dialogue means agreement or endorsement. But, you know, just because I'm asking them questions and I'm learning about what they believe, it doesn't mean that I I agree with them.
Speaker 1:There's an Islamic seminary in West Knoxville. Go back one slide. I think it's that last picture. So yeah, this was last November. We invite them.
Speaker 1:There's about 20 students at this Islamic seminary, and they come to Johnson. And we have a meal with them, and we divide them into tables like this. We put two or three Johnson students at a table with two or three Muslim students from Tasir. And then we coach them on conversations to have. And so one of the things we encourage people is to share what you believe and why you believe it.
Speaker 1:And so both the Christians and the Muslims get to share. And they always say, oh, I didn't know you believed that. Or same thing with the Christians, oh, I didn't know you believed that. And so that really becomes a very organic way. And my students, many of them have said, wow, that was much better than the evangelism evangelism styles that I've been taught.
Speaker 1:Like, you know, we were openly sharing. I shared everything that I believed and, you know, I learned about that. And they got to hear, you know, about the gospel and Jesus. And so I think that this idea that dialogue is agreement is is a problem. It doesn't have to be dialogue or evangelism or witness, I think is a better word for that.
Speaker 1:I think, really, proper dialogue leads to, very good opportunities to share, but it's not in a proselytizing, conversionary kind of a way. It's a nonthreatening way. And, does it lead does often lead to salvation? Probably not in if you're thinking purely evangelism, it probably doesn't in that way. But it certainly does improve peace, and they get to hear the good news about Jesus in the process.
Speaker 1:Right? And so that last piece going back there, share, is just kind of what Mike said. You know, I'm willing to let you know about me. And so eventually, they and especially if you've been super curious and if you've listened, eventually, they will want to know what you believe, and they wanna know why you believe it. And so you will have the opportunity to share, but it won't be in a way that you're kind of trying to force something on them.
Speaker 1:And I think that is very significant. So you can see the the process that kind of happens here. We want to finish with one more table conversation here to end things up tonight. So two kinds of questions. Think of one person you already know whose faith or worldview is different from yours.
Speaker 1:What could you do to deepen that relationship with this person? And so we figured that the faculty at Tasier Seminary, the Muslim faculty there, we started this in 2018, and we're still doing it now. We're we're doing another dinner in November in a few in a couple months with them. They get a new group of students each year. I have a new group of students every year, as freshmen.
Speaker 1:And so we we just kinda we've just kept doing it. And they said, you know, this has been really good for our students also. You know, we just had 09:11, you know, this past week. And, obviously, Muslims still feel some stigma in America. And one time, Zanab, the lady that kinda oversees things at Taser, she said, can you get your students at Johnson to tell my students, like, what how they evangelize and how they share their faith with other people?
Speaker 1:And I was I was I mean, she could tell the perplexed look on my face, and I was like, yeah. I'm I think I could do that. Right? But, like, you know and she finally said, well, you know, like, our students, they're afraid to talk about their faith, but it seems like your students are more open about that. And I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker 1:This is the elephant in the room. Right? It's like, you're trying to get me to encourage your Muslim students to be better evangelists? Like, that what's happening right now? So you know?
Speaker 1:But it was just like that was it was so funny, but it was I mean, it was it's you know, like I said, it's the elephant in the room. But, like, there was so much trust between the two of us that she didn't feel uncomfortable asking me that question. And so I think when you develop that level of trust, I think God will definitely honor that. And so if you don't know someone, then the second question would be, where could you put yourself intentionally to connect? So let's take about three or four minutes to discuss that.