Coffee, Conversation, and the Great Commission: Volunteering with Embassy

From Support Ministry to Sharing Faith Online

For the past 3 years, I have been a part-time volunteer with Embassy. Embassy is a digital media ministry of the Crescent Project. This ministry seeks to give laypeople with a heart for Muslims a way of building friendships and sharing their faith with the unreached.

Although I have been in full-time ministry for almost 40 years, I joined Embassy as a way of becoming more involved in direct evangelism. So much of my SEND work is about providing services to missionaries. I thoroughly enjoy what I do. But like Nathan in our previous blog post, I sensed a gap between who I said I was and what I did on a daily basis. I am a missionary committed to fulfilling the Great Commission. Therefore, I wanted to more regularly interact with those who were not yet followers of Jesus. I wanted to share my faith with them.

I have also become more passionate about ministry to Muslims. So, I was looking for a ministry opportunity that would engage this particular segment of the unreached. Furthermore, I realized many years ago that if I was going to get more involved in evangelism, I would probably need to pursue a method that would involve computers and the Internet. Engaging with people online fits both my interest in technology and my personality.

Getting Started: Training, Tools, and First Connections

Embassy provided me with the opportunities, the focus, and the methodology that I was looking for. Embassy also provided some basic training and some tools that I have been using for the past number of years. I initially began by connecting with Muslims in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa using English language-learning apps. This opened up some amazing opportunities to build friendships and share my faith with Muslims. Then the Embassy team connected me with a Muslim man who want to learn English by studying the Bible. We met weekly for several months, going through a simple chronological Bible study series. We made it into the New Testament before he decided that he did not want to go any further.

More recently, Embassy introduced me to a Muslim background believer who serves as an elder in a small church in his home country. Embassy staff asked me to mentor this man while helping him practice his English, all centered around studying Bible passages together. This younger man has become a friend. I have rejoiced with him as he has been very involved in starting a church in another city and leading an outreach to Muslims in yet another city.

So alongside of my SEND ministry, I am an “Ambassador” with Embassy. I spend an average of 2 hours/week on this ministry, so it is very part-time. But this opportunity to be directly involved with those from Muslim backgrounds has been deeply fulfilling. As difficult as it may be to admit, it has also given me the chance to do once again what so-called “real missionaries” do!

The Harvest is Plentiful Online: A Call for Volunteers

As part of their strategy, Embassy posts ads in various Muslim countries inviting people to learn English by studying the Bible. Currently, the number of people who have responded to these advertisements is greater than the number of volunteers they currently have to engage with these contacts. Muslims in many different countries are looking for ways to strengthen their abilities in English and are open to reading the Bible in English with a native speaker. I believe that this is an excellent opportunity for more mission staff like me – workers who are assigned to various support roles but are looking for additional evangelistic opportunities. Embassy could also open doors for on-field workers who are seeking to expand their network of friends among a particular people group.

In the process of applying to join Embassy, I had a call with Aaron Myers, the head of this ministry. Like me, he served overseas as a cross-cultural worker for a number of years but now is living back in his home country. He also found himself in a more rural part of North America with few unreached people nearby. Most importantly, like me, he has a passion to engage Muslim peoples and show love and friendship to them. I have appreciated getting to know him, learning from him and praying with him about people we deeply care about.

The following is an article that Aaron wrote to promote the work of Embassy and explain the type of opportunities it provides for believers to engage the unreached. He has graciously allowed me to repost this article on this blog.¹The original post can be found on this website.

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Coffee Across Continents: Meeting Musa

It was noon and I was meeting my new friend Musa for an hour over my lunch break.²For security, names and places have been changed. We’d decided to meet at our favorite coffee shops to connect. I’d first met Musa when he had reached out looking for someone to practice his English with. He’d had a lifetime of classroom instruction in his home of Cairo, Egypt but had few native English speakers with whom he could practice.

The first time we met we covered the bases of getting to know one another. “Where are you from? What is your family like? What do you like to do in your free time?” The sounds of Arabic were all around him in the busy Cairo coffee shop where he sat.

A potentially difficult question

I then asked Musa what he did for a living. He is a young guy, in his early twenties and had just started working as a mobile phone app developer.

Then he returned the favor and asked me what I do. I’m in full time ministry so this is always an interesting question to answer. But I dove in.

“I help people in churches in America understand and follow Jesus. That is pretty broad, but it involves teaching, training, coaching, encouraging and casting vision with leaders and regular people. I’m not going to get rich. But I do find tremendous fulfillment in doing the things that I believe that God has made me to do. I bet that sounds a little crazy, but that’s what I do and really it’s who I am.”

I could tell he didn’t completely understand what I was talking about. So, he asked a few more questions but then moved on, wondering if I’d been to Turkey. He’d recently visited Istanbul and loved the city. I told him of our four and a half years living there and how much we loved the people we knew there.

Sharing a personal struggle

We meandered in and out of topics. Then he asked a serious question, “I hope to hear an emotional situation you have been through?”  

I thought for a few minutes. Then I told him about a recent struggle I’d been facing and how our family had spent time praying for God’s wisdom and healing. It was good to be transparent with my new friend even though it felt a bit hard, and I wasn’t sure he was following everything. Musa’s English is good, but he hasn’t had a lot of experience talking about personal topics.

When I was finished, I said, “What about you? Have you been through any hard situations in life?”  

Musa was contemplating his answer when he looked at his watch. He gave me a wry smile. “I’ll have to tell you next time. I’ve got to go now. But let’s make sure and meet again.”

Half a world away

As Musa left, I wondered about our conversation. Had I said too much about what I do? Should have I asked more questions about his faith and beliefs?  Should I have offered to pray for him before he left? What if I had said something wrong? I spent some time praying for our time together asking the Lord to use it for his glory and to reveal himself to Musa.

And then I removed my headphones and shut down Facebook Messenger on my laptop computer.  I got up from my seat in the corner of my coffee shop in South Dakota, grabbed my mug and headed up to the counter for a refill.  Though we were half a world away, Musa and I had enjoyed a great cup of coffee and better conversation.

Moving to Spiritual Questions

We continue to connect regularly, oftentimes just texting back and forth. Sometimes we hop on a video chat to say a quick hello. At other times, setting aside an hour to grab a cup of coffee for an extended talk.  

To my surprise, Musa had quickly moved into questions of faith. I’ve introduced him to Discovery Bible Study, and we are slowly working through a creation to Christ story set. We read a passage of scripture. I paste it into Messenger and he reads the Arabic and I read the English. We then ask some simple questions to help us discover what the story says about God, about people and about how we should live our lives.

It’s been slow because Musa often brings up his own questions – questions that are stretching me and forcing me to dig into my own faith and theology. We started with his questions about the Christian idea of a triune God. We’re now pressing into the validity of the Bible. And those conversations are packed in between talk of family and culture and food and movies and dreams for life.  

It’s a whole lot of fun.

The Global Need and the Digital Opportunity

I am the only true follower of Jesus that Musa knows. I’ve been able to pray for him and continue to pray for him regularly. Musa is one of many young guys that I am connecting with online all across the Muslim world and someday, I hope I will be able to meet all of them in person, if not in this life, then in the eternity of heaven. That is my prayer for each of them.

There are 1.7 billion Muslims in the world today and collectively, Christians are sending one missionary into the Muslim world for every 405,000 Muslims.³See http://www.thetravelingteam.org/stats. This has to change.  

We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.

John Stott

Because of advances in technology and the globalization of our world, millions of people throughout the Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Animistic and un-religious worlds are working to learn English. They are going online to try and find people with whom they can practice speaking.

A new door of missionary activity has opened and it is open to everyone who is a follower of Jesus and has an Internet connection. Geography is no longer a barrier to your relationship with a Muslim like Musa.

If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.

C. T. Studd

Will you sacrifice an hour a week to invest in a relationship with a young man or woman in the Muslim world who is looking for friendship and someone to practice English with? Let us help you. Embassy is a ministry of Crescent Project that will help you get started building relationships with Muslims online. This is a place to get started!