In this month’s Evangelicals Now, Dr. E.M. Hicham asks: ‘have you ever had the opportunity to share your testimony or explain the gospel to a Muslim? If so, you have probably realised that simply presenting the essential points of the gospel is not enough to win them over.’ He goes on to make clear, ‘everything in Islamic culture is based on social relationships. Absolutely everything!’ For this reason, he argues ‘building personal relationships with Muslims is perhaps the most effective way of ministering to them… Muslims are unlikely to become your brothers and sisters without first being your friends.’

It’s a great article! If you can access it, I encourage you to do so. As I write this, the online version doesn’t appear to be live. But check it out if you have a paper copy. If it is live by the time you read this, check it out online if you can. Having been working with Muslims for the last 15 years now, I can affirm (with my lesser authority and experience that is not as long or as direct as Hicham’s) that he is absolutely right. I suspect you will only get a hearty ‘Amen!’ from anybody else who works in Muslim contexts too.

The point that particularly struck me, however, was this one from Hicham:

Western Christians tend to keep their personal lives to themselves. They go about their daily routine with their heads down. The Muslim mentality is quite different. So let me encourage you to look up! Do all you can to exercise hospitality and be welcoming to your Muslim friends. They like to talk about their family, their work, their country of origin, how many children they have and about their lives. They are often very proud of their children, especially when they are in well-paid jobs. Most families of Arab origin will like to talk about these topics and many more. So don’t hesitate to ask genuine and wisely worded questions. This will not make you a nosy person in their eyes, but rather an interested and caring friend.

Whilst I can absolutely see all that is true of Muslims, it isn’t only true of Muslims. There are a fair amount of non-Muslim Westerners for whom this is absolutely true too. Whilst I recognise what he says about Western Christians, it looks a lot like the majority of British Evangelicalism which largely happens to be drawn from the same class and ethnic background, it isn’t true of many working -class Western Christians (it’s just there’s a lot less of us knocking about!) Hicham is absolutely right that a head-down, non-engagement predominates amongst Western Christians. No question. But in Britain, that is because most Western Christian are white and middle-class and ape the white middle-class they emanate from.

I appreciate many (most?) Evangelicals in the UK do not live in areas full of non-white Muslims. That might tell its own particular story, but it does mean – whatever else we might think they should do – we cannot expect people to reach those who simply are not in their area. But I was struck by how Hicham’s description applies significantly to many working-class people in the UK too. Working-class people, it ought to be said, who certainly do live and move in and around the areas most of our middle-class churches exist. Hicham’s call to ‘look up’ and engage with people applies equally here. Just as most Muslims will need to be your friend before they become your brother or sister, the same can be said of the majority of working-class people too. It is the British middle-class – whose culture dominates – who are not so relational. The working-classes are incredibly relational and are just as unlikely to give your gospel presentation the time of day before you have earnt their trust and respect as a good and loyal friend who is interested in them.

As Hicham encourages us to be relational with Muslim people, that same call applies to reaching working-class people too. As Hicham rightly says:

Gradually these experiences will lead you to feel more sympathetic towards Muslims and their needs. You will be more willing to share in their fears and expectations and you will sincerely wish to rejoice with them and feel sympathy for them in their suffering. It is then that Muslims will begin to understand what Christianity is all about and to grasp what truly motivates Christians.

Again, substitute ‘Muslims’ for ‘working-class people’ here and we can say the same thing. It’s not just Muslims with whom we need to be relational; it applies to the working-class too. In fact, I suspect the demographics that are hardest to find in our churches can probably be traced back to this: lack of relationships and relational involvement. A non-relational dominant culture that highly values abstract thought and logical reasoning presented in the form of propositions and truths – which has less time, inclination or interest in building relationships or has a very different understanding of what good relational engagement looks like in practice – is going to be very hard for anybody, from any culture that values relationships and personal engagement to get behind. Some people simply aren’t drawn in by propositional truths and presentations of facts; what they want is connection and relationship.

This is not even just a non-Western thing or a class thing, but is increasingly becoming a generational one too. This becomes an issue when the church is dominated and led by older (which certainly includes Gen Xers but is, in truth, probably now stretching to Millennials too), white, middle-class men. This is no dig whatsoever at what we predominantly are. We are what we are! It is simply to say that if we are going to have any hope of reaching almost any demographic currently underrepresented in the church, it is going to take a wholesale rethink about the entire culture of church life which will be especially difficult given just about all those currently inside and in any position to do it are drawn from the same culture and are least well placed to see where the issues lie. Even those that do will struggle against the many that don’t and who cannot get outside their culture, the dominant current and historic culture of the church, and even the dominant culture of the country we live in. That is to say, it is no easy task.

Two encouragements that might help. First, lean hard on those we do have from different cultures. There are some non-white church leaders we can call upon to help us engage with people like them. There are some non-middle-class church leaders we can call upon to help us engage with people like them. The key is not to get defensive when they raise how things could be improved in order to reach people like them. The exercise is not one in trying to stick it to the middle-class – we want to reach them with the gospel too – the exercise is trying to redress the balance and do something about the fact that certain demographics are simply not represented in our churches. If we are serious about that, we have to listen without defensiveness or brittleness to how these things might be changed for the better to those drawn from such backgrounds and cultures.

Second, as Hicham so helpfully encourages us in his article, start by being relational. Our defences will go down when we actually make friends with people. We are more likely to listen to and understand our friends than we are to people we barely know and certainly don’t respect. Let’s start simply by making friends. Start with the relational work of making friends with people who are not like you, not drawn from your culture and perhaps, over time, get round to asking them about some of these things too. If nothing else, it will be a start.