Pierre Houssney with Horizons International explains, “We’ve seen people from a Muslim background hanging around churches for many years but still are not understanding basic things in the faith because nobody explained it to them based on their former worldview.”

Similarities between Islam and Christianity often present a stumbling block. “For example, if you take the word ‘sin,’ they have that word in Islam, and we have that word in Christianity, but they mean totally different things,” Houssney says.

“In Islam, sin is like a rule you break. If you do a good deed, it will balance out or wipe out the impact of that sin in your life.”

(Graphic courtesy of Horizons International)

This Islamic understanding means that believers from a Muslim background often don’t fully grasp teachings about salvation.

“When you preach a message of grace [about how] Jesus can wipe away your sin, they’re seeing Him as another way, like, ‘Oh, I could either go on a pilgrimage, or I could accept Jesus, or I could, you know, give to the poor. Those are all good deeds that would wipe away my sin as an act,’” Houssney says.

Pierre’s father, Georges Houssney, drew on decades of experience to develop Cubs to Lions, a discipleship curriculum for MBBs or believers from a Muslim background. The material presents truth in a way that’s familiar to Muslims yet clearly separates Christianity’s teaching from Islam.

“They (Muslims) don’t understand that the wages of sin are death,” Pierre Houssney says.

“They need to understand what sin is according to the Bible before they can understand what salvation is and who Jesus is.”

Connect with Horizons here to learn more about Cubs to Lions.

“Soon, [listeners and readers will] be able to read the book my dad is writing about how to disciple Muslim converts effectively,” Houssney says.

“We’re [also] going to be doing an online training, and we do that periodically; we can bring people into that online Zoom training to learn how to disciple Muslims.”

Header image is a screengrab of the “Love Muslims” campaign. Photo courtesy of Prayercast.

Either way, Georges Houssney of Horizons International says it’s every Christian’s mandate to fulfill the Great Commission.

“Every church is ‘glocal’ – global and local at the same time. Every church has to have the Great Commission on their shoulders and not only send some money to missions but be involved,” Houssney says.

(Photo courtesy of Helena Lopez/Pexels)

Christ’s final instructions, as recorded in Matthew 28, are not optional. Additionally, the call is not limited to a people group or location God has placed on your heart.

“[The] Great Commission is about calling the world into the sheep pen. It used to be just Jews, then it spread over to the Greeks and then all over the world,” Houssney says.

“He says, ‘I have other sheep. You go and get them because they must come and join the Church.’”

So, what can YOU do today? “In one city in the US, you’ll find people from every nation, tribe, and language,” Houssney says.

“We should not just pray for them. We should reach out to them.”

Learn how to share the Gospel with Muslim neighbors or coworkers here.

Ask the Lord to help you move outside your comfort zone and to view the people around you with eternity in mind.

“Why don’t we look across the street and see the Asians, Africans, Arabs, and Middle Easterners not as an invasion of our country but as God’s strategy to bring the Gospel to those people?” Houssney suggests.

“Every individual is a missionary. It’s not about going overseas a million miles or a thousand miles away. It starts where you are, but God may also graduate you into the world.”

Header image is a representative stock photo courtesy of NIC LAW/Pexels.

It’s easy to sit back, passively receive the latest news, and form opinions about current events like these. But is that how Jesus wants His people to respond?

“A lot of people have opinions about whether Russia is right, or Ukraine or Hamas or Israel. But as Christians, we cannot sit back without a heart of compassion for those suffering on all sides,” Georges Houssney with Horizons International says.

“Whether it’s Russians who are dying, or Ukrainians, or Sudanese, Muslims, or Hindus, we must have a heart of compassion.”

Christians should be aware of current events and Gospel opportunities so that they can turn compassion into action, he explains.

“Every Christian needs to have a heart of compassion as they watch the news and not take sides from a political perspective,” Houssney says.

“When Jesus looked at the crowds, He had compassion on them. With compassion comes a desire to save people from darkness, sin, violence, [and] hatred.”

Making a difference without “picking sides” and maintaining your Christian identity is possible.

(Photo Courtesy of Global Outreach Day)

“My goal in ministry is not to take sides but to minister to both sides,” Houssney says. “Jews need Jesus, Muslims need Jesus, and even nominal Christians need Jesus. That’s my approach.”

There’s a lot of need in our world today. The Lord will reveal where and how He wants you to serve. He only asks for a willing heart.

“I heard a pastor once say that every soul without Christ is a mission field, and every soul in Christ is a missionary,” Houssney says.

Ask the Lord to help you see the world through His eyes. Then, keep first things first. Instead of commenting on the latest political developments, watch for opportunities to share your faith.

“From a spiritual perspective, all of these things are happening because Satan wants to destroy, kill, and steal, as Jesus told us,” Houssney says.

“We need to go back to the basics of the Christian message, which says God loves you and He will give you eternal life if you accept Jesus, His Son, as an atonement for your sin.”

Header image is a representative stock photo courtesy of Eepeng Cheong/Unsplash.

Georges Houssney with Horizons International says the crisis has been an opportunity for Lebanese to love their enemies as Jesus taught.

War and Family Tragedy

Lebanese know the pain of living as refugees and displaced persons. Between 1975-1990 when their country was in civil war, there were an estimated 900,000 displaced Lebanese. Many like Houssney’s family were forced to flee their homes due to Syrian fighters invading their homes and cities.

Houssney says that two years into the war, Syrian invaders reached his parent’s home:

“They knocked at the door and said you have 10 minutes to leave, because there’s an invasion of the area. But it turned out to be themselves invading the area. And my dad didn’t even wait 10 minutes, he just walked away with my stepmother, his wife, and walked into the field, running away from what they thought was going to be an invasion. It turned out the Syrians looted the whole house. They even dug out the marble from the floor, pulled the wires from the wall, just they took the house, the skeleton, and then they put a bomb in it.”

Houssney’s father remained displaced as a refugee for year after the bombing. Once he was able to get in touch with family and return, he rebuilt his home. Then it was bombed four more times during the fifteen-year war.

God’s Intervention and Compassion

In addition to the loss of his family home and witnessing the pain of his father, Houssney faced personal trials due to the war. However, the Lord was present:

“I was kidnapped and there was no way I would have been let go. But the Lord didn’t want me to die. So they let me go. They kept me for a few minutes in the camp. There were about 300 guns pointed at me – and he (the chief) was going to order one or more of them to shoot.

“I was already backed up to a wall and then he came to me and he said, ‘You know, you seem to be a nice guy, we’re gonna let you go.’ I said, ‘thank you.’”

Through all he experienced and saw, Houssney did not give into hate. He brought Bibles with him to checkpoints and distributed them to the Syrian soldiers. He wanted to live by Jesus’s teaching to love your enemy.

Georges Houssney, President and Founder of Horizons International (Photo courtesy of Horizons International)

When he was threatened, he would remember the attitude of Jesus in Matthew 9:36, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

A Calling and a Ministry of Love

God began to prepare Houssney for his future ministry before the war even started. He was saved at age twelve and then felt God’s call to minister to Muslims at age fourteen. Even then he began to look for ways to share His faith.

Years later, as Syrians began to flood Lebanon a second time, due to civil war tearing their own country apart, the way to share Christ became clear.

Now Houssney’s organization, Horizons International has seen thousands of Syrians profess faith in Christ. And dozens of them are serving Christ in ministry roles. In fact, one third of Horizon’s International staff is made up of Syrian refugees who came to the Lord because of Houssney’s ministry.

“It’s love – like God loves us though we are sinners. We must love the sinners, whoever they may be. They may be my brother, my sister, my wife, my children, my relatives, my neighbors, or people I’ve never met before or people who have come to hurt me. That’s what Jesus taught us, to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. . . By loving them, we win them.”

Help Horizons International love more refugees by supporting their ministry today.

Header image courtesy of Horizons International.

Pierre Houssney, Executive Director of Horizons International, says these Muslim-background believers face unique challenges as they grow in their new faith in Jesus.

Pierre Houssney, Executive Director of Horizons International, sharing at a discipleship festival for refugee women in Beirut. (Photo courtesy of Horizons International)

“We have actually observed that some people who have believed in Christ from Muslim backgrounds, they will be attending a church for years and years…and they will be hearing Christian teaching, and all this time they are interpreting this Christian teaching with their Islamic lens from their background without having noticed it — like a fish who doesn’t know what water is because they have never experienced the air.”

The confusion comes with certain terms and phrases in the Bible and Christian teaching that other believers often take for granted.

“Many of these elements actually are situations where you have common terminology between Islam and Christianity, but those terms in each religion mean something completely different. So if you say the nature of God, the nature of man, the nature of sin, how you earn God’s favor, salvation, things like that, there is a completely different worldview that is underlying.”

Georges Houssney, President and Founder of Horizons International (Photo courtesy of Horizons International)

This challenge inspired Georges Houssney — Pierre Houssney’s father and the founder of Horizons International — to create Cubs to Lions, a discipleship curriculum specifically for Christians who come from a Muslim background.

Pierre Houssney says, “In a way, sometimes the trappings of Christianity are being painted onto an Islamic worldview and it’s causing friction for them and it’s causing a lack of growth and a lack of fruit in their life.

“Those basic areas of worldview are where this curriculum really goes in and talks about those foundational issues, and then how do you live as a Christian? How do you belong to a church? What is your role in that? How do you carry out your Christian life in your family, in parenting, in marriage?… That’s really where the rubber hits the road for them.”

Another challenge, besides confusion on worldview, is the transitional struggle between communities. Pierre Houssney points out that for Muslims, converting to Christianity is harder than merely leaving the mosque and going across town to the church instead. It means a loss of the Islamic community, a loss of friends, and sometimes even a loss of family members.

For some, the loss is too great. When the Church community fails to fill that gap, these young Christian converts are tempted to return to their old Muslim faith and community. In Georges Houssney’s new book, this concept is called the “revolving door syndrome.”

(Photo courtesy of Horizons International)

“This is something that we’ve observed time and time again, where Muslim converts will come into a church and they’re looking for a community. They have left often some tight-knit communities where they’re just living life together with their Muslim brothers and sisters and they’re hoping to find a replacement for that in the Christian community.

“Often, the Church just falls short. They’ll come in on a Sunday morning, lots of warm greetings and things like that, and then they go through the service, and then maybe a little potluck afterward, and then ‘see you next Sunday’. So when they go Sunday to Sunday, they often don’t stick into the community because they don’t feel that they have been really taken in by a loving community that is a replacement for the community that they had before.”

Pierre Houssney says Cubs to Lions encourages Muslim-background believers with the importance of really investing in the Body of Christ. Often, those who complete the Cubs to Lions training find themselves taking a more active role in the Church afterward.

However, he also emphasizes to churches the spiritual importance of holistically embracing these new Christians.

(Photo courtesy of Horizons International)

“One of the key elements of our teaching for churches and for people that want to serve Muslims is how to help your church become a friendly environment for somebody that does want to leave Islam and accept Christ and come into the Body of Christ.”

Since its inception in 2007, the Cubs to Lions curriculum has been in high demand. Horizons International first started offering Cubs to Lions conferences in Colorado. Since then, it has expanded to Canada, Australia, Lebanon, North Africa, and will also be offered in Paris this summer.

“If you know of any person that has come to faith from a Muslim background that is in your church or anybody that you’ve heard of, I would highly recommend you refer them to us so we can reach out to them and offer them this training!” Pierre Houssney says. “We do provide scholarships for the training for those who can’t afford it and we have found that there is just a night-and-day difference.”

If you would like to find a Cubs to Lions training near you, you can find the list of events at EngagingIslam.org.

You can also find the Cubs to Lions videos in Arabic and English online here!

Please pray for Christians who come from a Muslim background to feel fully embraced by their new church community. Ask God to guide their new faith journey. Pray that through discipleship resources like Cubs to Lions, their understanding of and witness for the Gospel would be strengthened.

Header photo courtesy of Horizons International.