South Asian Forum of the Evangelical Alliance Newsletter
Issue 23: June 2016
S outh As i a n F orum of the
Evangelical Alliance
connecting, uniting, representing
The South Asian Forum (SAF) is a grouping within the Evangelical Alliance, it was set up to provide a place for South Asian Christians in the UK to encourage, support and equip each other for mission, and to represent their concerns to government, media and the wider Church. With the support of both individual members and church members totalling more than 20,000 people, SAF is steadily growing. Visit saf.eauk.org to get involved in supporting this wonderful
ministry by becoming a member of SAF. Once you become a member, you will receive idea, the Alliance’s bi-monthly magazine, as well as regular newsletters from SAF detailing our progress. If you are already a member of the Evangelical Alliance you can add SAF to your Alliance membership at no extra cost. In this instance please send an email to saf@eauk.org
SAF interviews Ann Bower, coordinator in mission in the UK forums at Global Connections
to Faith forum and other mission in the UK forums, to help churches to share Jesus with people of other faiths, running teaching, training and opportunities to share experiences and needs. We have also looked at individual faiths to see what the underlying needs are when sharing the gospel: Lambeth Palace got involved with our in-depth look at Buddhism. 2015 saw the successful Hope for Muslims tour where churches had encouragement from David Garrison, hearing about large numbers of Muslims around the world coming to Christ, meeting agencies and seeing materials to help them to relate to Muslims in their neighbourhood.
What is your background? I was born into a traditional church-going family, the oldest of four children. My father worked in London and my mother was the homemaker. My grandparents came to live with us when I was seven until the last one died when I was in my early 20s, just before I got married. Home life was strict due to my father’s Victorian upbringing, but my mother’s gentle strong Christian faith influenced us all.
How did you become a Christian? The advantage of being brought up ‘in church’ is that you have years of Bible teaching and exhortation. The disadvantage is that it can be easy to assume that one is a Christian. In my teens, through an elderly lady from our congregation, I met members of the Church Mission Society: through involvement with CMS, I committed myself to Christ.
Tell us about the work of Global Connections? Global Connection, a network of more than 300 members, mission agencies, churches, colleges and more, aims to see “mission at the heart of the Church, the Church at the heart of mission”. Our interest groups provide opportunities for agencies to meet together, pray together and share common interests and needs. Many subsequently work on projects together. We provide help and advice, often working with solicitors and government officials on issues to do with the particular needs of mission partners, such as pensions, insurance, NHS treatment etc. We work with churches as they seek to become missional communities and as they support mission overseas.
How can Global Connections help local churches in reaching out to those of other faiths? Over several years we have worked, though the Faith
Tell us about the ‘Reaching the world on your doorstep’ event. Once upon a time the word ‘mission’ was interpreted by many churches as something concerning people in other countries around the world – helping them to know Jesus. In recent years there has been a growing recognition of the reality that the world is also here, on our doorstep: we all need to know the saving love of Jesus. The Evangelical Alliance, London City Mission and Global Connections, along with several GC member agencies, are working together to present a day of teaching, training, encouragement, prayer, sharing resources and ideas to help churches to engage with people around them of different faiths and cultures. Some may also take the opportunity to go for further training and practical experience at a later date. ‘Reaching the World on your Doorstep’ is on 23 November at St Mellitus College in London. We would appreciate your prayers as we develop a good programme and we’d love you to join us, with others from your church and your mission agency.
What do you hope this event will achieve? We pray that the event will enable churches to feel better equipped and more confident to reach out to those in their midst whose beliefs are different. So please get your church members to save the date. For more information on the event, please visit the Global Connections website events section. Ann Bower Global Connections, Caswell Road, Leamington Spa, CV31 1QD 01926 487755, www.globalconnections.org.uk
SAF profiles its work, partners and resources in the quarterly Newsletter and on our website saf.eauk.org
Equipping our churches to welcome believers of Muslim background “It’s time to build the dams” Twenty years ago a veteran missionary told me how river beds in the Arabian desert stay dry for months or even years on end. Very occasionally, torrents of heavy rain funnel through these valleys. But if there is no dam to catch the water, it all runs to waste and in no time has vanished again. Then the missionary turned to me and predicted: “The rains are on the way, and Muslims will turn to Jesus in floods. But will we catch the precious water? It’s time to build those dams.” Today the rains are beginning. Books like A Wind in the House of Islam and Too Many to Jail trace today’s unprecedented movement to Christ which continues to gather pace in Muslim countries. It’s happening in Britain, too. Last week I read in one local church’s report: “God is bringing to us more and more enquirers and believers from a Muslim background. We are looking to establish a Farsispeaking home group.” Yesterday a prayer letter from the same town told me of a Saudi student who is preparing for baptism. It is indeed time to build the dams. These dams include some strategic understanding of same-culture fellowships vs joining British churches: their respective advantages and the possibility of blended models. Dams also include new discipleship materials for those coming from a different worldview and facing different issues from the ones we usually address. But above the dams comprise God’s people. God is entrusting to us these precious brothers and sisters in Christ. They are our family members, and they need our family love.
many other believers of Muslim background. What a thrill to attend their baptisms. But what pain they experienced in family relationships - pain from their families and pain to their families. Many were on a search for identity, and this proves to be such a key topic for believers of Muslim background that I made it the focus of my PhD.
Discipleship courses are needed, but we must remember that books don’t make disciples by themselves. Disciples make disciples, so new believers need fellow-believers to love them, My journey with believers of Muslim background support them and model what it means to follow Christ. In Come Follow Me, available here, I God first placed this burden on my heart 37 sought to design a discipleship course which years ago, when I met a lonely believer Shehzad. could be a relevant, relational tool in the hands Shunned by Muslims and mistrusted by Christians, of a mentor walking alongside a new believer of he was caught in no-man’s land between two communities. He had nowhere to turn and no one to Muslim background. The global need to collate such courses and to garner insights on discipleship call family. Shehzad opened my eyes and heart to the needs of former Muslims following Jesus. Later, issues, will keep growing in the years ahead. The BMBtraining website helps to meet this need. during 15 years in Pakistan, two years in Jordan and nine years in Britain – all with Interserve – my wife and I had the privilege of being befriended by
South Asian Forum of the Evangelical Alliance
Joining the Family Now is the time for us to understand, love and equip our sisters and brothers of Muslim background. And, crucially, to be enriched by them, for they have so much to teach us. This conviction brought together in 2013 a working group of Christian leaders and former Muslims; we ran seminars in British churches and conceived the Joining The Family course. The course and its supporting book equip ordinary Christians in the West to welcome, care for and disciple believers of Muslim background. The course combines DVD clips with small group discussion, supported by a facilitators guide so that church groups can run the course themselves without outside help. The teaching content comes from 25 interviews with these believers and experienced mentors speaking from the heart. Filming was by Carfax Media helped by Elam Ministries, and the materials are published by Kitab-Interserve Resources. Read more here and visit here to obtain the materials. British church leaders comment:
Become a member - saf.eauk.org
• “I’m so glad that the Joining the Family resource exists.” Steve Clifford - general director of Evangelical Alliance • “I commend it warmly.” Toby Howarth – Bishop of Bradford • “Brilliant practical training.” Tim Rudge - field director, UCCF • “We have been waiting for a course like this.” Steve Bell, author of Friendship First • “I am so thankful for the ‘Joining the Family’ materials.” Rico Tice - All Souls Langham Place & Christianity Explored • “This is the course that so many of us in the church with Muslim friends, neighbours and colleagues have been waiting for!” Ann Coles – New Wine Network For the first time in history, believers of Muslim background are becoming a significant stream in the world Christian movement. Now is the time to welcome what God is doing. Tim Green General Secretary, The Increase Association
SAF profiles its work, partners and resources in the quarterly Newsletter and on our website saf.eauk.org
SAF speaks to Rev. David Bhakiaraj, project leader of Cardiff Asian Christian Outreach I’m a third generation Christian from South India. After my secular studies, my wife and I trained at a Bible college in the UK for three years. It was during this time that the Lord developed within me a strong desire to reach out to Asians in Britain. Interestingly, the Lord led us back to India where we served for 18 years in ministries that included missionary training, church and youth ministry, church leadership, and theological education. In 2008 we moved to pastor an international church in Oman. We served for close to five years and had the joy of baptising more than 35 expats who found the Lord in a Muslim country. In 2012, the Lord brought the ministry among ethnic people back to us and opened a door to return to the UK. I have been married for 27 years to Liz who works with children with special needs and we are blessed with two children. How did you come to faith? I was born in a Christian family. My Dad was director of scripture gift mission for more than 23 years and pastor of a local church. I was fortunate to have attended a Christian school and had a godly upbringing. Right from an early age I realised my need to have Jesus Christ in my life, but I deliberately put off the decision saying that I would give it serious thought when I grew older. Towards the end of my school years, I noticed a change in a couple of my friends and discovered that they had given their lives to the Lord. During that time I attended a gospel crusade in our city simply to hang out with my friends. Little did I know that my life would be changed as a result. The preacher talked about things that were familiar to me, but when he explained the fact that even having a Christian background and being a pastor’s son will not get one to heaven, I really felt it was just for me. I invited the Lord into my life that day and since then have tried to live for Him.
What is your current role and what does it entail? I work with Highfields Church, Cardiff, and lead the project Cardiff Asian Christian Outreach (CACO). In partnership with five other churches in the city we like to see relevant, church-based and evangelism focused outreach amongst the ethnic communities in Cardiff. Our goal is to see individuals from different ethnic communities becoming disciples of Jesus Christ, joining local churches and then reaching their own community. We do this through different activities that include children’s ministry, international students and families, book tables, sewing class, English language classes, hospital chaplaincy and ministry among asylum/ refugees. We also work with four ethnic fellowships: Arabic, Farsi, Tamil and Urdu, trying to encourage and support them to reach their own community. We try to also offer training to British churches who would like to reach the ethnic communities in their neighbourhood. What is your passion? To know Christ and to make Him known. I also get excited when individual Christians and churches catch the vision of reaching the nations who have now come to the UK. People from many closed countries now live in our neighbourhoods and what an opportunity we have to reach them. Having lived in a closed country myself, I know what an impact those returning to such situations can make in their communities. I long to see British churches, many of who are situated in neighbourhoods with a large ethnic population, involved in mission on their doorstep. What a difference it would make if every church in the UK reached out to people of other faiths on a regular basis. My desire is to also see ethnic churches and fellowships in the UK reaching out to their local communities with the gospel. I believe we are at a hugely significant time in our nation where we are seeing good relationships forming between churches. I long to see British, Asian and black churches work more closely together so that we can learn from one another, encourage one another and together be good ambassadors of the King of all Kings. David Bhakiaraj internationals@highfieldschurch.org.uk