Church of God Evangel: March 2006 edition

The Middle East in America:
A Pastor Responds to a Unique US Mission Field

The community looked like one from another world. Arabic signs lined the streets. Women wearing burkas outnumbered the women dressed in Western attire. Exotic aromas of cumin, sumac, and garlic filled the air. Men, women and children chattered in various dialects as the Middle Eastern melody of the Islamic call to prayer resounded from the nearest mosque. The scene could have been a main street in Lebanon, Syria, or Iran, but this wasn't the Middle East - this was the United States.

Ten years ago, Pastor Nicodemus* of All Nations Worship Center* in Dearborn, Michigan, found a mission field in his back yard - a community of nearly 100,000 Arabs immigrants from Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Pakistan, and other Arabic countries. At first, the large population of Arabs in the United States surprised him, but he saw a unique opportunity to share the love and freedom of Jesus Christ with a people bound by Islam.

Arabs in our Backyard

Dearborn, located just outside Detroit, has drawn Arab immigrants from the Middle East since the 1930s when the Ford Motor Company began hiring Middle Eastern immigrants. Today, several communities in Dearborn are more than 90 percent Islamic, shielding many immigrant families from Western influence. They speak Arabic and shop at Arabic grocery stores. Many cannot read or write English.

"I was actually surprised at how Islamic Dearborn is," said the Islamic World Missions Director* at Calvary International in Jacksonville, Florida, who recently visited Pastor Nicodemus in Dearborn. "I have a missionary friend in Dearborn who is the only Christian on his street. He told me that it's easy to forget that the entire United States is not Islamic like Dearborn."

An ordained Church of God minister, Pastor Nicodemus planted All Nations Worship Center in Dearborn, Michigan in 1990. He planned to pastor the church for two years before moving to another city to plant another church. He didn't expect to enter a new culture.

One day, as Nicodemus was praying, he felt God speaking to him about the increasing Islamic population in Dearborn. "I began to weep and the burden of the Arabs fell on me. It was almost like a mantle," he said.

Pastor Nicodemus made an effort to meet his new neighbors and learn about their culture and beliefs. As he built relationships with them, a few visited the church.

Embracing an Islamic Community with the Gospel

By 2001, the small 85-member congregation at All Nations became more involved in the community. The church organized several community-wide outreaches. Within the next four years, they distributed tracts, prayed with many Arabs, and scheduled several major outreach events including a car seat give-a-way in cooperation with the Ford Motor Company right after 9/11.

"The Muslim community was very surprised that we would reach out to them, especially after 9/11," said Nicodemus. "In a sense, 9/11 made our job easier."

But for Nicodemus, the outreaches were only a beginning. He wanted to establish a regular benevolence program in conjunction with other ministries in the area to pool and distribute resources to people in need. But he knew his congregation needed help.

In 2004, Pastor Nicodemus received a phone call from Philip* at Accelerating International Mission Strategies (AIMS). As leader of the Philip 8.4.8 Ministries at AIMS, Philip wanted to locate churches in Dearborn who were actively involved in reaching the Arab community. When the first team arrived in August, Nicodemus saw his vision begin to become a reality.

During the next two summers, AIMS organized teams of teenagers, young adults, and youth pastors from various churches in Virginia to help All Nations with their local outreaches. Throughout each weeklong trip, the teams spoke with people in the neighborhoods, handed out tracts, and offered to pray for anyone in need. They even organized an outreach in the local parks with live worship, puppets, drama, and a moon bounce.

Pastor Nicodemus was excited about the possibilities: "These trips are a microcosm of what God is going to do over the period of the next 10 years in this area. I see groups like AIMS continuing to come together and helping us network with other groups in the vicinity who have a burden for Muslims."

Youth Participants Respond with Enthusiasm

Many of the teenagers and young adults who participated in the AIMS trips to Dearborn came back changed. One young woman now has a passion to work in full time missions. Others hope to come back and volunteer in Dearborn for an entire summer.

"We had never done anything this cross-cultural before," said Billy Holcomb, youth pastor at Azalea Gardens Church of God in Virginia Beach. "One of our young adults who had never been out witnessing before said that all he wanted to do from now on was talk to people about the Lord."

For Cory Elliot, youth pastor at Bethel Christian Fellowship in Virginia Beach, the experience helped him impart his missions vision to the teenagers in his care. His youth group is now actively participating more in their church outreaches.

Opportunities in Dearborn Grow Beyond Expectation

Meanwhile, Pastor Nicodemus began developing the benevolence network he once dreamed about. In 2004, an Arab neighbor leased his three-car garage so the church could store benevolence materials, such as clothing and furniture. Nicodemus also joined Detroit Venture, a conglomerate of Muslim ministries working throughout the Detroit region.

Pastor Nicodemus plans to begin working with other churches in his denomination and other organizations. In addition to hosting outside teams, he plans to launch an internship program by the summer of 2006 so he can partner with organizations such as Calvary International. Nicodemus plans to take a team to Coldwater next summer to train their staff how to plan and implement an Arab outreach.

"We are trying to involved Church of God youth in community outreach as a first step in getting them involved in Arab ministries," said Nicodemus. "Our goal is to impact Ishmael and his descendents with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and part of our mission is to train workers to go into the Muslim harvest field around the globe."

Note: Some names have been omitted or changed to protect the identities of persons working in areas that are hostile to the Gospel.

For reprint information, please call the AIMS publication office at (757) 495-5850 or email the editor at aims@aims.org.

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