What does "Middle East" bring to mind

What words come to your mind when you think of the Middle East? If I had to guess, I think most westerners would probably throw out topics like conflict or Islam or hostility to the West.  Sadly, those three topics most certainly do accurately describe certain aspects of the region that my family calls home, however, we would also probably throw in a few more kind descriptors of the region such as hospitable, kind, and full of good food.

The Middle East is the birthplace of the Christian faith, but it is also the home of perhaps the greatest regression of “Gospel-spread” in Christian history. What is God doing in the Middle East today?

Although there is still much work to be done in the Middle East, we can praise God for church growth and the spread of the Gospel in this region. The Middle East was spurned by early Christian missionaries who chose to go to less hostile countries first. When larger numbers of missionaries did begin arriving in the Middle East over the past hundred years (led in large measure by the pioneer Samuel Zwemer, they found Muslims hostile to the message, however, in certain Arab countries there were nominal Arab Christians who were much more open to the Gospel (the already-present millenia old Arab Christian denominations had nearly completely lost the Gospel message by this time). Many missionaries shifted focus to reaching these Arab “Christians” and planted new evangelical denominations among them in the long-term hope that local believers would be more effective missionaries in reaching Arab Muslims than westerners.

Although it has taken longer than at first hoped, the children’s children of this first generation of converts have become bolder and more willing than previous generations to reach Muslims, and indigenous Christian missionaries have even started to be raised up in two or three contexts over the past thirty years or so. Currently, there is a great need for biblical and missiological training for these indigenous Christian missionaries; far too often, they are only exposed to “magic-bullet”, quick-fix methodologies like DMM, CPM and similar methodologies. Moreover, most indigenous missionaries I’ve met also have no concept of incarnational ministry and western mission leaders (or donors) wrongly minimize the culture and worldview gap that exists between indigenous Christians and nearby (or geographically distant) Muslims; indigenous missionaries still need to be taught skills to learn the culture and worldview (and oftentimes the different Arabic dialect or language as well) of the people they are trying to reach, but unfortunately there is little training currently being done in these countries…

In other parts of the Middle East where even the “nominal” Arab church has not been present for centuries, there have also been trickles of individuals who’ve come to Christ through missionaries or media campaigns. In some contexts, these individuals are unable to find any local churches and must follow Christ completely alone; in other contexts, these believers are able to join already established Arab churches; and, in rare situations, groups of Muslim-Background Believers have even begun to meet together as a church. Although these new believers still only represent a “trickle” of all that God’s Word promises for these nations (Matthew:24:14And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
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— “Nathan Smith” (Pseudonym), July 17, 2024