Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

Ses s i on 6: Shared Sp i r i tua l i t y and Chur ch P l ant Movement s 121

2. Limited number of missionaries allowed to work, Jedidi NT published, experimentation with new forms of church contextualized to the “Muslim worldview,” Garrison, p. 111

3. Insider movements and Tradition: converts still referred to themselves as “Muslims”: the case in favor and against “ insider movements ” today

4. The significance of persecution to advancement of the Gospel: the story of Sharif: Garrison, p. 111-116

a. Ostracism and persecution from community and family, pp. 113-114

b. Courage in the face of brutal cruelty, p. 115

c. Compelling testimony of persecution for the sake of the Gospel, ibid.

d. Extraordinary fruitfulness: 1991, Bilal and Sharif led their first Muslim family to Christ, and started the first church of Muslim background believers. Over the next decade, they would seek nearly 4,000 churches planted and more than 150,000 Muslims come to Christ!!, Garrison, p. 115. e. Movement was Christ-centered, church-oriented, Kingdom-focused: believers came to share a fundamental theological, devotional (liturgical), and evangelical identity that (for all intents and purposes) placed Sharif in the place of a bishop of the Jedidistan Movement.