Islam almost completely usurped the church entirely in the Middle East. Christ’s prophecy in Revelation 1-3 regarding removing the lamp stands from the seven churches has been fulfilled in modern day Turkey. However, during the last couple of decades, the Spirit began to move as the churches remembered Christ’s simple template or pathway to discipleship. As local ministers of the Gospel again began to make three challenges boldly: #1 Come and see, #2 Follow me and I will make you fishers of men and #3 Go make disciples of all nations.

Dave, a missionary friend of mine, followed Jesus and the Apostles’ disciple-making pattern even as he ministered for decades in a challenging Muslim majority country. Even though ministry was extremely difficult and even dangerous, he has not only seen Muslims become Christ followers but many also became Muslim Background Believers (MBBs) disciple-makers. In some Muslim majority regions almost half of the disciple-making leadership are MBBs.

One of Dave’s weekly discipleship practices he used for young MBB disciples, evangelists, disciple-makers or church planters was something he called “doing book”. Over years of experience, Dave and his team had developed an evangelism and discipleship-making pathway containing all the necessary steps a Muslim needed to come to faith in Christ and be a faithful disciple-maker. All this happened in cities that often did not allow Christians to gather openly as a church. Dave’s “book” was just a simple journal where disciples wrote down the name of every person the team was witnessing to or young believer they were discipling, what point they were at in the evangelism or discipleship pathway process and what next step would be taken. After each update, disciples and Dave would offer suggestions or coaching. Finally, they bathed all the names and next steps in prayer.

Their research and experience revealed that a typical Muslim seeker needed an average of 20 different gospel encounters or experiences that they called “kingdom touches” before they would place their faith in Christ and become a Christ follower. The evangelism pathway has a list of kingdom touches like:

• Give them a New Testament to read
• Answer questions about what they read
• Give them a Christian book
• Invite them to your home to eat
• Do something fun with a group of Christians
• Watch a Christian movie
• Listen to praise music
• Call them to ask how they are doing
• Regularly pray with them about their concerns

This was only for the beginning part of stage #1, Come and See. After someone trusts Christ there is additional content or kingdom touches on the pathway. Another list of content exists for stage #2 as well as stage #3.

After Jesus challenged his disciples for stage #2: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men”, he would often send his disciples out two by two to do ministry. For example, in Luke 10:1-28 Jesus sends them out to the villages for some time. When they returned, he gathered them to debrief, coach and answer questions. This is the same thing my friend David does when he “did book” with his disciples.

Finally, for stage #3, David and other disciple-makers like him would finally send their disciples out, quoting Luke 10:3 “Go, behold I send you out as lamb in the midst of wolves.” Over the last two decades, Dave’s network of house church planters has lost a total of 8 disciple-makers who were martyred by the wolves. However, thousands of Muslims have come to Christ and become disciple-makers. The lamp stands of Christ have returned to many of the same churches mentioned in Revelation 1-3 as well as across the Middle East.