Closing the 'back doors'?
Word of Life, in conjunction with friends and partners, have initiated some research into the following question – ‘Why do some followers of Jesus from Muslim backgrounds join, remain, and become leaders within churches/fellowships, but others don’t stay?’
Some have said that, a few years after starting to follow Christ, 70% of believers of Muslim background (BMBs) are not found in local churches/fellowships. What helps or hinders people from truly integrating into a local expression of the body of Christ? Has anything drawn these individuals away from their journeys of faith in Jesus? What could the local church/fellowship change that would help BMB faith journeys, and encourage the expanded community to more fully become God’s family?
We are seeking responses to an online questionnaire as part of this research and hope you could help by sharing this with individuals known to yourself, and completing it yourself if relevant. We want to hear from:
- Believers of Muslim background (BMBs) who attend a local church/fellowship
- BMBs who don’t currently attend a local church/fellowship
- BMBs who have never attended a church/fellowship
- Individuals from Muslim background who used to attend a church/fellowship but haven’t been seen there for some time
- Individuals who you considered or may have considered themselves a believer at one time, but not any more
Responses to the questionnaires will be anonymous and no contact details will be visible to the researchers (unless an individual includes their details within their answers). We hope this will allay certain fears, and encourage people to provide full and honest responses for the benefit of God’s kingdom generally and ministry to believers from Muslim background specifically.
We are aiming to gather responses from multiple language/nationality/culture groups, male and female, varying maturity of faith, and across the adult age range (≥18). The questionnaire has been provided in English, Arabic and Farsi (by clicking the globe icon at the top of the form). If you are aware of a sufficiently large group that would not be able to respond without a different translation, please contact us to explore partnering to achieve this. We will also be gathering responses to a separate questionnaire aimed at church/ministry leaders and workers. Output from the research will be shared through Word of Life (Joining the Family network, Hikma forums, or training offerings).
We recognise that things like this always get the best response when someone hears about it from someone they know and trust. Would you be willing to help us by responding yourself or sharing this request with BMBs/ex-BMBs that you know please?
https://forms.office.com/e/eAD2Mc5yRQ
Thank you, and may God bless you richly
Joining the Family Team