Christian-Muslim Connection

HOPE Builds The Christian-Muslim Connection is building a team of volunteers who are passionate about reaching the lost and elevating awareness within our own congregation about the Christian response to Islam. If your small group or Sunday school would like to learn more about effective communication with Muslims, please contact Kelly. We will give you information about opportunities to provide housing for Muslim students, to serve as English conversation partners, become a friendship partner or advocate for legitimate refugees new to the US, or just to learn more about relating to Muslims in your world. Contact 720-202-4178   Helpful Websites

Muslims in Our World

Today more than 1.3 billion Muslims live across the globe, making up 21% of the world’s population. Though Arabic is the language of the Qur’an and the language of prayer, less than 20% of Muslims speak it as their native tongue. Islam is rooted in the culture and language of its founder, Muhammad, and its holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, are on the Arabian Peninsula to which millions of Muslims continue to make pilgrimage each year.

The vast majority of Muslims, however, come from an amazingly varied number of cultures and flavors. Indonesia (170 million), Pakistan (150 million), India (127 million), and Bangladesh (110 million) are by population today’s largest Muslim countries, and a growing number are making their homes in Europe. Six million Muslims, made up of students, refugees, immigrants and American converts to Islam, are now living in the United States.

God’s View of Muslims

God is doing amazing things in the Muslim world. He has promised in Revelation 5:7 and 7:7 that people from every tribe, language and people will one day worship him around the throne. Our Lord sees Muslims much as he sees Christians—in need of redemption. He died for them and loves them. We have a great opportunity to join with God as he draws Muslims to himself, and yet only 1 in 12 Christian workers are currently reaching out to Muslim populations.

Most Muslims have never had the opportunity to meet a real Christian or to experience the grace and truth Christ offers. They live in a world isolated from the gospel and are even inoculated against truth by fear and misconceptions. They are victims of a system of thought and culture that does not present grace as an option. More than 3,000 Muslim ethnicities worldwide lack a self-sustaining church planting movement within their own culture.

To most, Christianity comes wrapped in cultural clothing that is less than appealing to the Muslim heart. While rejecting the wrappings, many Muslims are intrigued by the person of Jesus. Significant movements toward Christ are happening today among Iranians, Turks, Rifi Berbers and others. In the last 30 years, more Muslims have come to Christ than in the previous 1000 years. They accept Jesus as the son of a miraculous virgin birth, free from sin, a powerful healer and teacher, and one who will return on the Judgment Day as judge of this world. Today, evangelical Christianity is growing at a faster rate than Islam.

Our Response

Grounded in Christ, we don’t have to fear the happenings in our world. Terrorism is in part the result of of complex cultural wounds and desperation from perceived threats. Some verses in the Qur’an can be taken to condone acts of terror, but most Muslims do not support this point of view any more than we as Christians use the book of Judges as an appropriate response to the world.

We are uniquely empowered to display the same grace Christ shows us. Rather than building needless walls of defense, we can come alongside Muslims as they struggle with similar struggles to our own. Most are deeply concerned with raising children in an increasingly confusing environment, with making ends meet, and balancing the rigors of daily life. They need the hope and grace Christ offers delivered by sensitive and loving friends.

Cherry Hills Community Church supports missionaries serving among Muslims in Southeast Asia, Western Asia and Central Asia. Currently, there are 11 mosques in the Denver Metro area, and Cherry Hills is creating a compassionate and understanding posture toward our Islamic neighbors. We are reaching out to the growing number of Muslim immigrants and refugees to the United States as well as the Muslims working beside us, attending our schools and living in our communities.

If God is calling you to join us in this ministry outreach, please contact Kelly.