The Hikma and Courses tracks continue to work together to bring believers from Muslim background together to discuss relevant topics, leading to both research publications and new discipleship resources. 

This summer we held our second online Forum, hearing from brothers and sisters with experience of parenting children, teens and young adults in different contexts. 

• Identity was a key concern for the speakers. The struggle to deal with the assumption that ‘being born in this country means you’re a Muslim’ was mentioned several times. Teaching children to develop their personal identity alongside their cultural and heritage identities, and being able to respect and inhabit both, was seen as very important. 
• School and friendships are as important for BMB children as others. Speakers mentioned the difficulty of children encountering different perspectives on faith and truth at home and from school, and the need to prepare them for this. Ridicule, conflict and persecution from their peers were discussed.
• Within the church context, speakers identified the high expectations on leaders’ children as a key challenge in some countries. Others emphasised how the church family can replace the lost blood family for BMBs, and the importance of having children engaged before their teen years to give them a good foundation before they begin questioning faith and religion in general. 
• Wider family issues, such as witnessing direct conflict or the difficulties of being excluded from family celebrations or events, were discussed.
• The need for teaching parents about biblical parenting was explored as we considered ways the first generation’s mindset needs to change from Islamic to biblical parenting.

A report of the Forum will shortly be made available to those who registered to attend, and all Hikma Partners. Please contact us if you are interested to know more. 

The Hikma Partnership are beginning to explore BMB perspectives on different themes. In 2023 the team worked with the Paths of Life Network (BMB discipleship course writers and providers) to draw up a list of priority topics. From this, a survey of stakeholders led to the choice of ‘family life’ as the first theme, with a Forum on marriage in April 2023 and this Forum on parenting following in July 2024.

The Forums, with a wide invite to all BMBs and those who live/serve with them to participate, aim to bring up some of the particular challenges facing BMBs in the topic area. Each is attended by a wide group of contributors and participants from a variety of contexts and experiences. 

The Forums are followed by Panel gatherings, where a smaller number of BMBs and invited contributors (researchers, pastoral workers and course writers) look at the challenges in more detail and consider some of the ways these have been effectively addressed. The Marriage Panel report is available to Hikma Partners on request.

The Panels inform resources for BMBs and for the wider church, accessible in written, audio and visual formats. These will provide a research base for discipleship course and other resource development.