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25:4 Winter 2008•193
W
hat I’m going to tell you about our approach to sharing the
faith with Muslims, anybody can do. You can do it here, in
the Middle East, or anywhere. Workers on the field don’t do it
because they don’t believe that God still speaks to us, and they don’t believe
that the Word of God is what it says it is—living and active, sharper than a
sword. We’re always trying to prove it, instead of letting it be what it is.
On the other hand, sometimes, just reading the Bible doesn’t work. There
has to be some kind of human interaction with it. We were in Baghdad, Iraq,
running classes. A graduate student came up to my wife and said, “I need
someone to teach me something about a book I have read.” My wife said, “OK.”
The student pulled the book out of her purse—it was a New Testament—and
said, “I’ve read this thing so many times, but I don’t understand anything that
it says.” So my wife worked through it, and that student was the first Muslim
whom we saw come to Christ in Iraq on that trip. In six months we had 10
study groups going in Iraq, both Sunni and Shia.
Beginnings
After I graduated from college, I started working in the police department. I
had no interest in missions even though I had had a great time in college stu-
dent ministries. When I graduated I went straight into the Police Academy, and
got married the day I graduated from the Academy. When I came to Christ, I
thought, “I’m going to heaven, I don’t care about anyone else.” But when I went
into the police department, my attitude changed because then I started to deal
with the parts of humanity that a lot of people never see. I saw how hopeless
those people were, and how no one really cared. We call them the night people.
The day people are out, then they go to sleep and out come the night people.
So, I started working with these night people. It was all human desperation,
lostness and tragedy. It was in those years of my working in the police depart-
ment as a detective that God began to really teach me something about lost
people. One lesson I learned was this: sometimes the person that we think
From Bandung to Baghdad: A Journey to the Inside
International Journal of Frontier Missiology
Thy Kingdom Come: Proceedings of the 2008 ISFM Conference
This is an edited transcription of a talk
given at the 2008 ISFM conference.
Some names have been changed.
by Jamie Winship
Jamie Winship graduated with a
degree in Criminal Justice and served
as a criminal investigator. After a
distinguished career in law enforcement,
he earned an MA in English and began
his teaching career at the University
of South Carolina in 1989. While an
instructor he became intrigued by the
possibility of going to a conflict area
to work in a non-western university
setting. For many years, Jamie and
his wife Donna have worked in such
contexts in Southeast Asia and the
Middle East. Jamie is the author of
many articles and has won several
writing awards.
International Journal of Frontier Missiology
From Bandung to Baghdad: A Journey to the Inside
194
is our enemy, who we are ready to
destroy, is our best friend.
The Muslim world turned out to be
very similar to that. After I left the
police department, I went to graduate
school. My wife and I were both edu-
cation professionals, so during our first
term on the field, right after seminary,
I was hired by the Indonesian govern-
ment to teach at the University, and my
wife worked for the New Zealand gov-
ernment. Our missionary strategy was
this: get a group of Muslims together,
tell them that the Qur’an is from hell,
that their prophet is not a prophet, that
he’s really a pedophile, and that he’s
deceived by Satan. After that we would
invite them to come to church with us.
It didn’t work. I gave them tons of
books on what’s wrong with the Qur’an.
They would give me double the books
back on what’s wrong with the Bible.
We’d have 70 students in our house,
talking about Jesus. They loved all that,
then we would get into some sort of
polemics, invite them to the Indonesian
national church that was there, and
they’d never come back again.
Then I was put on trial for insult-
ing Muhammad, and that’s a 10-year
prison term. It was miraculous what
happened at the trial, but at the end
when I came out, the Muslim man
who basically saved my life came up
to me and said, “I know what you are
trying to do. And I know you think
this is what God wants you to do and
I understand that. But you better find
another way to say it. Because every
time you open your mouth, you offend
us. I believe what you are saying, but
you better find a different way to say it.
Because it’s going to get you in trouble
and no one is going to listen to what
you say.”
It really struck me. We had not seen
any fruit in three years. We were in our
third year, nothing was happening, we
were just making people mad and got
threatened all the time. What do you
write in prayer letters after three years
of nothing? “We’re planting seeds,”
or something like that? We were not
seeing any impact. We started to say,
“Lord, what is this? Are these people
too hard? Are we doing something
wrong? And if we are, what is it?” We
love God, we pray all the time, there is
just nothing happening. We felt like if
people were going to send us money to
go to the field, we’d better do some-
thing in return. When I was a cop, my
captain would say, “I want 25 felony
arrests by the end of this month.” You
learn how to do it without getting
killed. If I came back at the end of the
month with no arrests, or only three,
and complained to my captain that
it was hard, he’d say, “I know. You’re
fired.” There’s no job where you can
fail to have any results. And we work
for the God of the Universe.
It was really frustrating. The breaker
was when my wife had a birthday party
for one of the girls at the University.
The girl’s father was the head of the
community. After the party the girl
was crying, “No one ever celebrated my
birth like you. No one. Not even my
own family.” She said, “Donna, I love
you, and I love your marriage, and I
love the way you talk to your kids. And
I love the way you talk about Jesus. But
I have a question. Can I have Jesus and
be a Muslim?” And you know what I
said? “No.” That’s how I was trained.
When you’re in a crisis you do what
you are trained to do. You don’t think
that much about it.
My wife and I were almost at the
end, and I told her friend “No” at her
birthday party. We were all so heart-
broken, so we left the field after four
years and came back to the States. We
said, “God, if you are not going to do
anything out there, if it’s going to just
be us out there taking money from
people and not doing anything, we’d
rather have cable, we’d rather be in air
conditioning. What’s the point of this?
Show us what we are doing wrong.”
We really besought this.
A Paradigm Shift
We went back to Indonesia, on a dif-
ferent island. We were both teaching:
Donna was the assistant principal at an
international school, I was head of the
language department. We were teach-
ing all kinds of students—European,
Muslim, American and some MKs.
In the one class I was teaching I had
two MKs. One was Australian and the
other American. In the hall I heard
the two girls talking. “Where’s your
dad this week?” “Oh, he’s out on the
Islands.” “What’s he doing up there?”
“Oh, they had another village come
to Christ.” Now these are two words
I’d never heard together: ‘another’ and
‘village.’ I was happy to see one person
come to Christ. And they were talking
about another village. In my meetings
with Muslims I didn’t have ongoing
dialogues with people because I would
offend them so quickly that they would
leave and not come back. I didn’t know
what they meant and they didn’t know
what I meant. Now, we were in a new
place, and I said to this high school
girl, “Can I meet your dad?” I knew if
a guy was seeing that much fruit, he
had to be a heretic. Isn’t that true? A
missionary that bears a lot of fruit is
doing something wrong. He is never
mentioning Jesus, or something. It has
to be!
That girl’s father turned out to be Nick
S., who is one of the best I have ever
known in Muslim work. We invited
him and his wife to our house, and I
said to him, “I’ve been on the field, this
is my fifth year. We’ve seen maybe four
people come to Christ. They are fringe
Muslims that we can’t use for anything
because they are already outside of
Islam. I heard your daughter saying
c
Then I was put on
trial for insulting
Muhammad, and that’s
a 10-year prison term.
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25:4 Winter 2008
Jamie Winship
‘another village,’ so could you teach
me what you do?” Now, my motiva-
tion for asking him to teach me was
so I could see that what he was doing
was wrong, or syncretistic, or what-
ever, so I could go back to being con-
tent that we weren’t seeing anything
happen. And he caused me great stress,
because he thought winning Muslims
was fun. He said, “Well, I can tell you
the secret. Do you have any Muslim
friends?” And I said, “Not really.”
He said, “Here’s the secret: make a
Muslim friend.” Because, see, I just
argued with them. You need a Muslim
friend to get the thing going. That
would be a good beginning. So he said,
“Go find a rich Muslim. Make sure he
loves Islam more than anything else.
Make sure he has been on the Hajj at
least once. Find that guy, tell him you
want to study the holy books with him
and another American guy. Invite him,
and I will lead it.” So I said, “OK.”
Do you know why he told me those
characteristics? Why a rich guy?
Influence. And it would be a guy who
doesn’t need anything or want any-
thing from me. The Muslims that we
are working with in the Middle East
are all wealthy professionals. They
love Islam and are very successful. All
of our guys who have come to Christ
are hospital administrators, doctors,
lawyers, dentists, accountants—that’s
who we work with.
So I went and found a guy who was
the president of a large multinational
corporation in Southeast Asia. He
made a little bit more money than me,
had graduated from a well-known
American university, been on the Hajj,
and was a fanatic Muslim. His name
was Husni. I invited him to do the
study, and he said, “Sure, I’ll come.”
He actually wanted to come, which
was kind of shocking. So we started to
meet with him in a 5-star-hotel lobby
because this guy was a rich guy, and
we wanted a place where he would feel
comfortable. Nick met me there an
hour before our first study. We prayed
together for Husni, and Nick said,
“Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re
family in Singapore, Malaysia and
Indonesia. I haven’t been the best
family member that I could be. I’m
going to help this brother, and I’m
going to fly all of them here once a year
so we can be together.” The Spirit was
changing him. Another week he came
in and asked, “How do you date your
wife?” We were not asking him to tell
us anything, we were just studying the
Bible, but he confessed that he had a
mistress and said, “I got rid of her last
week. How do you date your wife?
What do you do?” So we started a date
night. It was about the third date night
that his wife came to want Christ. She
was thinking, “I don’t know what this
is, but I’m taking it. This is awesome.”
Their marriage got really good, and we
never talked about marriage again.
The most amazing thing of all hap-
pened when Husni invited us to a
cookout at his house. He had also
invited every employee that was under
him, from the people that clean the
bathrooms to his executive staff. We
were all in his house, all the janitors
and cleaners who had never sat in
chairs before. Of course, his executive
committee were sitting over on the
side, they were so disgusted. (Doesn’t
that remind you of the Bible?) Husni
was cooking goats on the spit, and he
was serving the people. His execu-
tives were shocked and grossed out. So
Husni got up and made a speech. He
said, “I know I am a really good boss,
but I can be better. Here’s what I am
going to do. I am starting an educa-
tional program for all of you guys. I am
sending all of your kids to school, we’re
paying for it. And a training program
for you, to make you come up through
the company.” He pointed at one guy,
who cleaned the bathrooms, and said,
“My goal is for you to come through
the training program, to come up and
take his job.” And he pointed at the
VP. He did this on his own.
going to spend at least four hours with
him, and at the end of the four hours,
he’s going to agree that the Bible isn’t
corrupted, he’s going to be willing to
consider that Jesus did in fact die on
the Cross and is divine, and a couple
other things.” And I thought, “Yeah,
right. This has got to be total syncre-
tism here.”
So Husni comes, and Nick opens up
the Qur’an. I had never done that, the
Qur’an was a book from Satan to me.
And he opens it up and starts. I’d never
heard anything so Christ-centered as
what he did from the Qur’an. It was
different from what I had ever heard
before. But when he started, it was on
Jesus, Jesus plus nothing. Husni and I
were both sitting there stunned. At the
end of the four hours, Husni did not
want to leave, he wanted to keep going.
Over the course of a year and a half, he
came to faith. He would come every
week, we never had to call him. I’d
never seen anyone this hungry. And
he was such a heavy-duty Muslim.
Nick was teaching back and forth
from the Qur’an and the Bible. One
night Husni didn’t show up. His driver
drove up to the hotel and came in
with two presents for Nick and two
presents for me. One was a beautiful
shirt with gold buttons that they wear
in Mecca, and the other was a Cuban
cigar. What does this mean? And Nick
said, “He’s in the kingdom. He’s in.”
I said, “When did it happen?!” And
he said, “Jamie, it’s been happening
all along. We’ve been walking towards
it all along. You’ve got to get it out of
your head that is has to be ‘Tuesday at
7:30 it happened.’ This is kingdom.
We’re walking him into the kingdom.
And he’s decided he is going. And he is
telling us.”
All along, I observed Husni’s life
changing. He came in one night and
said, “I wrote a letter to my extended
T
he third date night his wife came to want Christ.
She was thinking, “I don’t know what this is, but
I’m taking it. This is awesome.”
International Journal of Frontier Missiology
From Bandung to Baghdad: A Journey to the Inside
196
Holy Books. And I have read them.
And now I understand who Jesus,
or Isa, is, and I have embraced the
sacrifice of Allah, and I so appreciate
you teaching me to look for that. You
are a great father.” You know what the
fathers do? They say, “That’s good.
What do you mean that’s what I taught
you?” And they share the Good News
with their families. It is all done with
respect, because that’s how we view the
Qur’an. It’s a pointer to the gospel.
Here are three examples of the kind of
things we can do.
Bringing Down the Dividing Wall
Once we got invited to speak to 250
graduate students from different
Palestinian universities about life.
Some of the Palestinian guys that came
to Christ started to talk in their neigh-
borhoods, and they saw that the people
there were really depressed, they were
basically in concentration camps. So we
agreed to come and talk to them.
Palestine is a very depressing and
very hostile place. We all gathered
in a conference room, and I started
out asking, “How many of you have
talked to an American before?” None
of them had. So I invited them to ask
me any question, which was a stupid
thing to do. They asked questions I
just couldn’t answer, questions like
this: “OK, you are a Christian coun-
try, right? You believe in Jesus, right?”
“Yes.” “We revere Jesus. Why do you
unconditionally support a political state
that are atheists and spit on the name
of Jesus and say Mary was a liar who
got pregnant? Why do you support
them so unconditionally?” I don’t know
how you would answer that question,
but my answer was, “I don’t know.
I’ve never thought about it, really.”
Most Americans don’t think like that.
So the Palestinians asked all of their
questions, and then I asked them a
couple of questions. “What would be
good news to you guys? What would
be really good news?” They are living
behind a 30-foot wall. Their kids are
growing up behind a 30-foot wall that
they can’t get out of. “We don’t care
After Husni gave us the cigars, he
soon told us that he had resigned from
his position. He said, “I don’t need all
of this.” He went to another Middle
Eastern country to reach Muslims for
Christ. We had never talked about
missions. That’s how the Spirit of God
works if we get out of his way.
Bearing Fruit in the Middle East
After we had learned this Insider
paradigm from Nick, we started trying
it, but I still wasn’t bearing any fruit.
So I was talking with Jack C., who
was one of the guys that worked in
Indonesia, and he said, “Here’s your
problem. There’s not a technique to
do this. Now you’ve got the tool, but
the problem is, you keep telling God
what he can do and what he can’t do.
Stop telling him that, ask him what he
wants to do and do whatever he says.”
Now that was a huge theological shift
for me. So we started to change, and
in that year, my wife and I led more
people to Christ than in all our previ-
ous years of ministry. I’m not talking
only about Muslims. We had a French
community group. You don’t have to be
an American to become a follower of
Christ. It was an amazing four years of
learning the insider methodology, and
how to talk to them as Muslims in a
way they could hear and understand.
In the Middle Eastern country where
we are right now, in six months we
had several key leaders come to Christ,
both men and women. (Usually what
happens is, you get a lot of women and
no men. So we asked the women on
our team to hold off until we could
get a big group of men together and
then let them loose to go get the
women.) We had key guys come to
faith really quick. We prayed through
that strategy. We had a guy come to
the kingdom who went the same day
and got his best friend, who also came
to Christ, went out and got his cousin.
These guys went right through their
families in about a week. They would
share the gospel with a laptop reciting
in Arabic what the Qur’an says about
Jesus. Our first guy, Ali, who is now
getting his Ph.D. in the United States,
had a government lawyer call me who
told me he had dreams about Jesus.
He asked me to meet with him, and I
agreed. I didn’t know him. I wanted
to see how our Muslim guy shared his
faith. Ali and I met the lawyer at a big
two-story Starbucks, really crowded,
where we got a table against the wall.
(I knew there was secret police in
there, and you’ve got to watch out for
those guys.) When the lawyer came
in, I asked him if he wanted to meet a
Muslim who had gone on this journey
already. So I introduced them and
asked Ali to explain it to the lawyer. So
Ali opened up his briefcase, took out
a chart and taped it on the wall in the
Starbucks. It was a chart of his spiri-
tual journey. And he had this little
pointer. I tried to duck down, but
someone tapped me on the shoulder.
I turned around. It was a woman, and
she said, “I can’t see the chart, can
you move over?” So I learned that
these guys really aren’t afraid, because
of the way they are sharing their faith
as Muslims—Muslims that are fol-
lowing Jesus.
I heard Ralph Winter say one time,
“When a Muslim or anyone comes to
Christ, the first thing you tell them to
do is tell their father.” We really took
that to heart. When our guys come to
faith, we say, “Go tell your father or
mother.” So they go home, and this is
what we teach them to say: “Father,
you know, I understand now what you
have been trying to teach me through
the Holy Book. I understand that you
were trying to teach me into all the
c
In that year, my wife
and I led more people
to Christ than in all
our previous years
of ministry.
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Jamie Winship
about Israel anymore, we’re sick of
the fighting. We will take Israeli rule,
just get us out of these walled concen-
tration camps.” They can’t move. So,
they said, the really good news for
them would be freedom, to get that
wall out of there. I said, “What is your
strategy for doing that? Every battle
you have fought, you have lost. So let’s
strap bombs on each other and blow
each other up—is that accurate? That’s
not a very good strategy. I can tell you
how to get rid of that wall, guaranteed.
Want to hear?” I opened up my Bible
and read Ephesians 2 out loud to them,
which says,
Remember that at one time you were
separated from Christ, excluded,
utterly estranged and outlawed from
the rights of Israel as a nation. But
now in Christ Jesus you who once so
far away through the blood of Christ
have been brought near for he him-
self is our peace. He has made us
both Jew and Gentile and destroyed
the hostile dividing wall between us.
By abolishing in his esh the enmity
caused by the law with its decrees and
ordinances. He annulled it, that he
from the two might create in himself
one new man out of two so making
peace. (Eph. 2:12-15)
“So,” I said, “It seems to me that if you
want that wall gone it has something
to do with knowing Christ. Anyone
that wants to talk about that, we will
be here all week.” Guess how many
came to talk about that? All of them.
Some came to Christ.
Kingdom Circles TV
Another time, a short-termer working
with us shared the kingdom circles
with a shop owner. The shop owner
wanted to hear more, so the short-
termer brought him to us, and we did
a study with him. He turned out to
be a sheikh who had a weekly televi-
sion show on Islam. In the end, right
before my wife and I left, we gave him
a Bible (we only give them a Bible if
they ask for it). When we came back
next week, he had read 18 chapters of
Matthew and all of Revelation and
was asking me to explain Revelation
to him. I said it is the last book of the
Bible for a reason, and we needed to
start at the front. I told him we can
dialogue for our entire lives, and be
best friends, but without Christ we
can never be one. He didn’t get it, so I
showed him Cornelius. He said, “This
man is a Muslim!” And I said, “He
is, you’re right. But he needs Peter.”
People always ask me, when a Muslim
comes to faith, what do they give up?
They have prayer, do they give that
up? No. They give, do they give that
up? No. They follow the law, do they
give that up? No. There’s nothing they
give up. Instead, everything they do
becomes not a form of duty, but an act
of worship. Peter and Cornelius are not
best friends dialoguing; Peter has given
Cornelius something he was longing
for and they are one in Christ.
Then we started talking about the
Passover, and the sheikh said, “Oh,
I see what you mean: the Passover
is so that the blood of Jesus needs
to be painted over our heart, right?”
(You can’t tell a Muslim what to say.
They have to say it the way they say
it, because that’s what they are going
to say to their friends.) And then he
added, “We need to make pamphlets
so I can tell other Muslims about this.
And you need to tell the Christians
about this!” So, he did the kingdom
circles on his television show and said
he came up with it. Later, when we
met with him for our study, he said
that he embraced the sacrifice from
Allah, and we prayed. The following
week he was on his television show,
talking about the mark of the blood on
your heart.
Proposal Writing
in the Kingdom of God
One more example is from another
Middle Eastern country, where the
government approached our company
with a request. (We have a for-profit
company license by the country’s
government. So when people ask us
what we are doing there, we just tell
them we are there to make as much
money as we can. They say, “Oh, OK.
That’s fine,” and never ask us again.)
The government told us, “We have
done a year-long process of selecting
the top 26 college graduates in this
country. We are putting them through
a year-long training program, and we
would like you to come do a section for
them.” This is how good our reputa-
tion is. I got elected as the one to do
that section. The program was run by
the country’s government in conjunc-
tion with the local government, and
the director was a local Muslim. He
told me these guys all had really bad
attitudes because they knew they were
going to be the best in the country,
and he wished me good luck talking to
them. The second thing he warned me
about was, because this was run by the
government, we could not talk about
politics or religion.
There’s no way I was going to be in
a room for two days with the top 26
graduates in the country and not talk
about my relationship with God. On
the first day, right at the beginning,
I asked them their names (so I could
tell how many Muslims, Armenians,
or Christians there were in the group),
their degree and their passion in life.
There were two Christians out of
26. Everyone’s passion was the same
thing—money. So I said to them,
“Wow, I really learned something
about you guys. You’re all selfish.”
It got really quiet. “Is money all you
think about? I’m in here to teach
proposal writing. I’ve read a thousand
proposals in my career. When I pick up
one that has no passion in it, I throw
it in the trash. Money is not a passion,
that’s just selfishness. Passion means to
suffer. Passion goes out towards other
people, selfishness comes in. I’m in a
E
veryone’s passion was the same—money. I said
to them, “Wow, I really learned something about
you guys. You’re all selfish.” It got really quiet.
International Journal of Frontier Missiology
From Bandung to Baghdad: A Journey to the Inside
198
room with 26 selfish people and I have
to teach you how to write a good pro-
posal? I can’t do it. The only way you
can write a good proposal is if you are
filled with passion about something in
life.” I drew a big circle on the board.
“The only place that I know where a
person can really gain passion is inside
the Kingdom of God. So now I know
we have two things we need to accom-
plish in the next two days. One, how
do you get into the Kingdom of God.
And secondly, what are the mechanics
for a decent proposal because you have
to be able to write a proposal.” So I did
the kingdom circles, and while I was
doing it, the executive director came
in the room. I was explaining proposal
writing in the kingdom as he was star-
ing at the diagram.
We went through two full days with
these students. They were all engi-
neers, because that’s what you are if
you score the highest in the coun-
try. I got to find out who they really
were. We had people who wanted to
be dancers and people that wanted
to work with pets and handicapped
people. They started to really share.
And when they wrote their proposals,
they wrote about these things in life
that they really cared about.
There was one guy who would inter-
rupt me all the time through the
training. But God always gave me the
right thing to say to him. I would tell
stories, and this guy would start crying
because it was really moving to him.
And the executive director would come
in and out all the time. In the last hour
he asked the students, “I want to hear
what you think of these last two days.”
And they all said, “It was life-chang-
ing. The most inspiring thing I have
ever heard.” The guy who had cried
started crying again.
At the end of the training I taught the
two Christians how to share their faith
with Muslims. When I was talking
to the Christian girls I asked them
what they thought I was doing. They
said evangelism. “It’s not like what we
would do, but that’s what you’re doing,
right?” And I said, “Yeah. Do you see
anyone mad at me?” “No.” “Do you see
anyone who wants to kill me?” “No.”
“This is how you should share your
faith with Muslims.”
Later on the students were dismissed
from the class, and the guy who kept
giving me a hard time said, “You
know, I had a job interview at noon
today. But I couldn’t go because it’s so
important what you are saying. I really
appreciate it, I really do.”
As the executive director was walk-
ing me out to my car, he said, “We
need to sign you guys up right away
to do another course. I’ll contact your
company, and as long as you don’t talk
about religion, we’re good.”
The reason these things happen is
because our team and others believe
that God still speaks, and his word still
cuts. Thank you.
IJFM
e World Christian Foundations
study program invades the mainstream
curriculum, the legendary “liberal arts”
curriculum, and invests it at every
point with missions-oriented content
and perspective, teaching everything
people would normally learn in college
and seminary (aside from vocational
specialties) and doing so with a broad,
4,000-year global, mission perspective.
rough their studies, students
begin to understand God’s plan for
reestablishing His glory through
“general” and “special” revelation,
www.worldchristianfoundations.org
World Christian Foundations
From the Creators of the Perspectives Study Program.
General Editor Ralph D. Winter
partnering with humans in defeating
the Evil One and restoring Creation
through Jesus Christ.
is unique curriculum can be studied
anywhere in the world with a qualified
face-to-face mentor. William Carey
International University (www.
wciu.edu) offers the program at the
graduate level. Northwestern College
(http://distance.NWC.edu; go to
“Programs”) also offers the course at
the undergraduate level as a degree
completion through their Distance
Education department.
For more information contact beth.sno[email protected]
