Information and Prayer Guidelines from the Christian Concern for Muslims Prayer Calender, Ramadan 2020 - Day 29.
[Written by Fred Nel from Eternal Life Outreach]
I was exposed to mission work among Indian people on the South Coast of Natal. I learned about the people, their
culture, food and different traditions and especially their religions. It was all new to me.
Prayer Point: Pray that the ordinary average Christian will learn and accept that Witnessing, Evangelism, Missions,
Sharing the Gospel with others is a non-negotiable obligation for each one who accepts Jesus Christ as his/her Saviour.
2 Corinthians 5:14 to 20, Ephesians 4:12, Matthew 28:19
For the majority of people in South Africa all Indians was just part of one great large Indian culture group – sad to say for
many people it is still like that today. To my own great surprise, I learnt very quickly that the Indian people mainly
formed two main groups, namely Hindus and Muslims.
Prayer Point: There are Muslims in every town and city today, especially in the business areas. Many of us hunt for
bargains among these Muslim businesses. Pray that the Lord will give us a passion to learn more about these people,
their culture and they beliefs etc. but most of all to learn how to share the Gospel with them.
You may not know it, but
Muslims are more open to talk about God, religion and spiritual matters than your average neighbor or even yourself.
Pray that we as Christians will not shy away because of our own ignorance and lose a golden opportunity to lead
someone to the Lord.
At that time, I was blessed to learn that there already exists a large number of churches, independent and
denominational, in the Indian communities. Excited to learn about so many Indians that became Christians, I also learnt
that almost 100% of them came from a Hindu background, only a few came from a Muslim background.
Prayer Point: Pray for the predominantly Indian churches of which the majority are in Indian communities close to
Mosques and Hindu temples. Pray for these Christians that the Lord will give them a heart and a zeal to reach out to the
Muslims in their communities.
Receiving some Anti-Christian Islamic material from some Muslims, mainly material from the late Mr. Admed Deedat, I
learnt that the International Islamic Propagation Centre International (IPCI) is just opposite the Grey Street Mosque in
Durban. From here Islamic Anti-Christian material goes out by the tons internationally, and thousands of Muslims from
all over the world used to get trained there to argue and debate with Christians regarding The Bible, Jesus as the Son of
God, Jesus as God, The Crucifixion and the Trinity among a number of other literature to refute and ridicule Christians
and Christianity.
Prayer Point: Pray that Christians will not be offended about these objections that appear to oppose the very essence of
Christianity. Pray that Christians will make the effort to learn why and what is the essence of these objections against
Christianity. Pray that Christians will learn HOW to answer Muslims regarding these objections without going into a
debate or long theological discussions. Pray for Muslims that they will not accept the teachings from people like Deedat
and other likeminded, but that they will make a point to study the Bible and Christianity to get the TRUE answers to
these objections that stand between them and receiving true salvation in Christ.
Prayer Point: Pray for John Gilchrist and Gerhard Nehls whose substantial material resources and answers are all over
the internet available. Please pray for Fred Nel who train and teach people how to answer this objections all over the
country, and internationally, without getting into a debate and who's "Gold Nuggets for Communicating the Gospel"
which are also now available through https://www.tencourses.org/goldnuggets/
Today the general news is that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. Taking in consideration that Muslims
can have four wives, it is obvious that populations that endorse Islam as a religion is growing fast, but there are no great
numbers of people that convert to Islam. The average Muslim is therefore more culturally a Muslim leaving it to the
clergy to explain and know the religion.
Prayer Point: Pray for Muslims all over the world who experience such legalism and hatred from among their own
communities that they had to flee their countries to the Western World. Pray for these people as they do not want to be
Muslims anymore. Because they do not know Christianity, they become agnostic and don’t want to have anything to do
with religion. Pray that the Lord will send in workers amongst this harvest that HE brought to us as immigrants to show
them that true Christianity is not a religion but a relationship.
Prayer Point: Pray for Muslim and converted Muslims and Christian immigrants from Muslim countries that flee to
Europe, Canada, USA, other countries and here to us from all over Africa.
It made me sad to learn that since the Lord called me into missions' way back in the early eighties, that there were just a
handful of people in the whole of South Africa that really reach out to Muslims with the Gospel. In 1985 those of us
who were concerned about the Muslims gathered to encourage one another, we were less than 20 people, and we
formed Christian Concern for Muslims (CCM) as a partnership to encourage one another and to work towards
multiplying the workers.
Prayer Point: With the influx of immigrants into South Africa as well as population growth the need for more Christian
workers among Muslims has become an enormity. We can do Missions and Evangelism right on our doorstep. Please
pray for the local churches' Pastors and Dominees that they help their congregation members to see and use the
potential to make Missions and Evangelism to Muslims part of their life style and let us CCM at large help them to teach
their congregation members HOW to reach out to Muslims with the Gospel.
In 1987 three of us, John Gilchrist of "Jesus to the Muslims", Gerhard Nehls of "Life Challenge Africa" and my self of
"Eternal Life Outreach" attended an international conference in Zeist Holland presented by the Samuel Zwemer Institute
for Islamic Studies. Among other things we learnt that there were only 750 full time missionaries in the world that work
among Muslims. Less then 2% of the church at large missionaries work amongst Muslims.
Prayer Point: Pray for the Muslims who are still today the largest unreached people group in the world. Islam spread
over 550 major cultural groups in 75 countries. In many parts of the World as well as in Indonesia, the largest Islamic
country, there are people groups where there are no Christian workers at all. Please pray for Indonesia, South East Asia,
The Middle East and the Muslims in the 10/40 Window. Use the Joshua Project material and prayer points to pray for
specific countries and specific people groups https://joshuaproject.net/resources/articles/10_40_window
In the same year, 1987, I was appointed in a Synodical Ministers position "2de Indiër Leraarspos" for the Northern and
Eastern Transvaal Dutch Reform Church - a very vast area.
I started with a new paradigm – training ordinary congregation members on how to reach out with the Gospel to local
Muslims.
This ministry took off in many towns in these provinces and mainly in Pretoria where a large number of Christian
students became trained and involved in reaching out to Muslims in Laudium and in towns nearby Pretoria like Brits,
Bronkhorstspruit, Witbank, Middelburg, Warmbath and many more.
The training on "How to reach Muslims" grew and in 1989 I found myself involved with the Lausanne movement and
with the Haggai Institute - emphasizing and training on "How to present the Gospel to Muslims"
The work of Eternal Life Outreach spread, and I found myself training people in our neighbouring countries to reach out
to Muslims in their own countries.
I took teams to Malawi, reaching out to the Yao in Malawi, an unreached Muslim
people group.
Prayer Point: Pray for Muslims and Christians at large who live for so long beside each other but still know so little about
one another and one another's beliefs and practices. As the Lord entrusted the message of reconciliation to us as
Christians (2 Cor 5:17-20) pray that Christians will accept the responsibility to make missions part of our daily lifestyle
and reach out to Muslims. Pray that we do not get influenced or distracted from our Christian responsibility by the
information regarding Islam at large. Pray that we as Christians do not get confused about what is real Evangelism and
Missions towards Muslims verses "showing the contradictions etc" in Islam, the Quran and their Prophet – take note
those who do it, are not busy to win Muslims for Christ, but are maybe breaking bridges to Muslims instead of building
bridges.
Through the Haggai Institute I have been training people since 1990 to present the Gospel internationally - from Africa
to the Middle East, India, Pakistan, South East Asia - especially Indonesia which is the largest Muslim country in the
world, Russia and many other parts of the world.
Prayer Point: Pray for the Haggai Institute internationally and locally. The Vision, Aim and Goal of the Haggai Institute is
Advance the Leadership, Evangelism and Mission skills of Christians from developing countries. People who qualify for
the training are committed Christians, have a proficiency in English, a heart to train others in their own countries and
make a commitment to train at least a 100 other people in their own countries or community after their Haggai Training.
Please visit Haggai International for more prayer points. https://www.haggai-international.org/
Pray for these Haggai Alumni who live out their commitment to the Lord, most of the times in extensive hostile
environments, especially in predominantly Islamic countries.
Today my training on how to reach Muslims with the Gospel is known as, "The Gold Nuggets of Communicating the
Gospel to Muslims – Telling Muslims that Jesus loves them" It is now available on DVD in 8 sessions including a
workbook.
It is one of the elective courses of Teach Every Nation (TEN) and can be downloaded from the internet at
https://www.tencourses.org/goldnuggets/ together with the workbook, or can be ordered from Eternal Life Outreach
as well.
Prayer Point: Pray for Teach Every Nation (TEN). Their focus is to help churches to disciple their congregation members
as well as to train new pastors all over Africa, South East Asia, the Philippines and many other countries. TEN already
developed full training courses with 5 main courses and 5 electives in each box, called "The Bible School on Wheels" red
and blue box – they are working on a third box.
In Africa and all over the developing world there are Christians who
really experience the calling of the Lord in their lives to become full time involved in the pastorate and even Church
planting. One of these people's greatest obstacles is the fact that they do not have the money or the means to go for
full time theological studies. The Bible School on Wheels train these people to go into the pastorate with sound Biblical
knowledge.
Pray for our TEN African leaders where there are people busy with the training material in English as well as in French.
Pray that the Lord will open a door that we will be able to have Gold Nuggets translated soon into French as well, as a
large number of African countries are predominantly French speaking where there are also large numbers of Muslims in
their countries.
On invitation Fred presents the Gold Nuggets training on how to reach Muslims with the Gospel to churches all over the
country and internationally.
With a total lockdown now because of the covert-19 virus this year Fred started presenting the Gold Nuggets training
LIVE to individuals as well as to groups interactively through the Internet and Zoom. This opens the doors for the future
to present the training LIVE and INTERACTICE to Churches and groups in small, far off places where there are a few
people who really have a burden from the Lord to share the Gospel with the Muslims in their town but the travel cost
of the past just made it impossible for them to have brought the training to their town. Now it has become absolutely
possible and they can get firsthand training to present the Gospel to their local Muslims so that Muslims not only hear it
but also understand it.
Pray for Eternal Life Outreach and Fred who are:
i. Researching more material to make available for those who want to work among Muslims.
ii. Working on the development of new tracts for Muslims.
iii. Pray for the presence of Eternal Life Outreach on the internet through a website, Facebook, Zoom
and YouTube.
iv. Training others to reach out to Muslims.
v. Reaching Muslims with the Gospel.
Contact details:
Fred Nel
Cell: +27 81 762 8134
Email: frednel2010@gmail.com
