The Indo-Malaysia Room in the House of Islam includes Malaysia, Singapore, the southern Philippines, and Indonesia’s sprawling chain of more than 17,000 islands. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world with a population of 250 million, 87 percent of whom are Muslims.
Long before the arrival of Christianity and Islam, the peoples of Indo-Malaysia spent centuries steeping in a soup of animism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Today, these ancient religious flavors continue to season the region’s societies and cultures.
Indonesia saw the first modern movement of Muslims to Christ in 1870, then in 1967–71 the largest turning of Muslims to Christ in history, as over two million Muslims were baptized into Christian churches. Today, many Muslims in Indo-Malaysia are responding to a simple five-step approach to sharing the Christian faith, “Any-3: Anyone, Anywhere, Any Time”, that a man named Mike Shipman adapted from Jesus’ discourse with the Samaritan woman in John 4.
- STEP ONE is to get connected with a Muslim. Most Muslims in Indo-Malaysia never hear the gospel because they don’t know any Christians.
- STEP TWO is to welcome a God conversation. In this region, Muslims love to talk about God. Mike suggests asking your new Muslim friend, “What do you do in your religion to please God?” — a great starter for a conversation about spiritual things.
- STEP THREE involves exploring the results of our efforts to please God and often leads to questions about assurance of salvation. Many Muslims accept that we cannot know the will of God or have any confidence that
He will save us. -
- STEP FOUR gets to the heart of the gospel message and the narrative of Jesus’ death for our eternal life.
- STEP FIVE invites your friend to receive salvation through Jesus.
This simple approach to sharing the message of Jesus is easy for new believers to follow. As a result it is spreading throughout Indo-Malaysia. Thousands of Muslims have prayed to invite Jesus to be their Savior, and are now following Christ as His disciples.
LET’S PRAY
- Pray that effective gospel methods such as satellite television, the Jesus movie, personal Christian witness, and Any-3 will continue to spread the gospel across Indo-Malaysia.
- Pray that the believers will remain strong in the faith when the persecution that always accompanies the emerging movements in Indo-Malaysia comes.
- Pray for Indo-Malaysia’s more than 280 million lost Muslims in 282 different people groups, many of whom have yet to receive any Christian witness.
Post credited to the editors at Worldchristian: visit http://www. worldchristianconcern.org/donate to support mission efforts to reach the unreached for Christ.
