Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ, Demographic Issues

July 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment

In this excerpt from my dissertation, I provide demographic information about those who participated in my study. Feel free to interact in the comments or download my dissertation as a free PDF!

The following information is ©2014 University of Pretoria and Craig Dunning and, if used elsewhere, should be cited as:

Dunning, CA (2014) Palestinian Muslims converting to Christianity: effective evangelistic methods in the West Bank. Pretoria, South Africa: University of Pretoria, PhD thesis, pp. 185-189.

4.7 Demographic Issues

In this section, I explain my design rationale for selecting respondents as well as my division of the West Bank into regional districts.

  4.7.1 Number of Participants

In purposive sampling, the number of respondents is “. . . less important than the criteria used to select them” (Wilmot 2010:3). The criteria for the respondents in this study are outlined above in 4.4 Purposive Sampling.

My goal was to gain detailed information from the various West Bank regions, which are described below in 4.7.4 Regional Districts. My attitude was the more participants I could find the better the study would be, but I also had to consider both time and expense. Additionally, since I was completely dependent upon my gatekeepers to identify and recruit respondents, I was limited by their availability and recruiting success.

With those considerations I set a goal of four to seven respondents from each region, totaling twenty to thirty-five interviews. My gatekeepers thought this was a reasonably achievable goal, and it is similar to Greenham (2004) and Kraft (2007) who interviewed twenty-two and thirty-three, respectively. This goal was also within the range of twenty to fifty that Wilmot (2010:4) suggests for in-depth one-on-one interview projects.

In the end, I was able to interview twenty-four respondents.

  4.7.2 Gender

Since this is a non-probabilistic study, the gender sample was not an important consideration for answering the research question. That my research question did not seek to determine effective methodologies specifically among men or women, only among Palestinians, further suggested gender samples were not necessary. However, I did hope for a fairly even sampling of men and women because such a mix might give more specificity to which methods have produced results among men and women rather than the generic Palestinian. But, due to the nature of the people group and my complete dependence upon gatekeepers to recruit respondents, it seemed unwise and impractical to attempt to set a number of male and female samples at the outset. Nevertheless, the interviewed respondents were fairly evenly mixed with thirteen males and eleven females.

  4.7.3 Age Range

Similar to the issue of gender outlined above (4.7.2), the non-probabilistic nature of this study made age considerations unnecessary. Apart from the minimum age of eighteen to participate (see 4.6.5), the gatekeepers were not instructed to recruit respondents from any particular age group.

While there was no attempt to project probability in this study, it is interesting to see the ages of the respondents, which spanned from eighteen to fifty-three years of age, with the bulk of the respondents being between twenty and forty-nine years old (see Figure 8).

Figure 8 - Ages of the respondents at the time of their interviews.

Figure 8 – Ages of the respondents at the time of their interviews.

  4.7.4 Regional Districts

West Bank Divisions

Figure 9 – West Bank region designations. Photo: Public Domain, Product of US Gov’t. Modified by Craig Dunning

Initially, I had divided the West Bank into regions with the following region/city pairings: North/Nablus, Central-West/Ramallah, Central/Jerusalem-Bethlehem, Central-East/Jericho, and South/Hebron. Since I did not need an even sampling to satisfactorily answer my research question, I did not try to pre-determine the sampling locations. However, because I was curious if similar methodologies would be represented in the various regions, I had hoped that I would be able to get fairly even sampling. Ultimately, though, the sampling locations would be determined by my gatekeepers’ abilities to recruit respondents.

Jericho was a surprising disappointment and became the major alteration in my initial division of the West Bank. In spite of having contact with two gatekeepers in Jericho, I was unable to secure a single interview there. As a result of this lack of representation, I removed Jericho from my regional districts.

I also was surprised to see the connectedness of my respondents in Ramallah, East Jerusalem, and Bethlehem, which caused me to reevaluate and group them as one region rather than two as I had initially suggested.

The final regional divisions (see Figure 9) as represented by my respondents were North, Central, and South. The North region, which provided thirteen respondents, is paired with the city of Nablus and its surrounding villages. Ramallah, East Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and their surrounding villages make up the Central district, and accounted for eight interviews. Finally, the Southern district, which accounted for three respondents, includes Hebron and its surrounding villages.

Sources Cited:

Greenham A. (2004) Muslim conversions to Christ: an investigation of Palestinian converts living in the Holy Land. Wake Forest, NC: Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Ph.D. thesis.

Kraft K. (2007) Community and identity among Arabs of a Muslim background who choose to follow a Christian faith. Bristol, England: University of Bristol, Ph.D thesis.

Wilmot A. (2010) Designing sampling strategies for qualitative social research. UK Office for National Statistics (Online). Available at: http://tinyurl.com/lrv5hcv. [Accessed 03 JULY 2013]

Download my dissertation as a free PDF!

NEXT: Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ, Story #1

Filed Under: Arabs, conversion, cross-cultural, Culture, Evangelism, Intercultural Studies, Islam, Middle East, missionaries, Muslims, Palestine, PhD, PhD excerpts, testimonies, West Bank

Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ, Invitation

July 16, 2014 by Leave a Comment

This entry is an excerpt from my dissertation that begins a new series in which I highlight my doctoral research, which was an investigation of the process of West Bank Palestinian Muslims coming to faith in Christ. The goal of the research was to find out what these people thought were important and helpful in persuading them to trust Christ.

I interviewed 24 converts, and their conversion-story summaries will be provided as individual blog entries for this series. These stories also will be supplemented with other entries that explain my research process and important findings.

Feel free to interact in the comments or download my dissertation as a free PDF here.

The following information is ©2014 University of Pretoria and Craig Dunning and, if used elsewhere, should be cited as:

Dunning, CA (2014) Palestinian Muslims converting to Christianity: effective evangelistic methods in the West Bank. Pretoria, South Africa: University of Pretoria, PhD thesis, pp. 1-2.

Preface

I like stories. I like to hear them and I like to tell them. One of the things I enjoy most in meeting new people is hearing their stories. Where are they from? What was life like in their childhood? And, if they are Christians, I want to hear the story of how they came to faith in Jesus. I am always thankful to hear a testimony of God’s saving grace, but I am a missionary/pastor, and that makes me also want to know how the good news of Jesus Christ was delivered. That is the focus of this project, finding out how people heard the Gospel. What were the challenges they faced in believing? What solved those challenges? What moved them from unbelief to belief?

I’m not interested for the sake of marketing another method. Honestly, I’m quite disheartened at the marketing madness of the Western church, which seems so hungry for the next fad in marketing the gospel. It is very discouraging for me to receive email advertisements of crafted sermon series that have been used in this or that church and “caused a 50% increase in attendance.” This project is not about finding the next wave of methodology. I agree with Scott McKnight, who said, “Conversion can’t be reduced to a formula anymore than love can be set out as an equation” (2002:77).

Certainly conversion involves methodological considerations, but this project is primarily about hearing individuals tell the story of how they actually heard the gospel and learning what we can from their experiences.

Because I like stories, and this report is actually the story of how the gospel is being effectively shared among Muslims in the West Bank, I have chosen a more personal, narrative format to report my findings.

Without shame I will use the personal pronoun “I” in telling the story of my research. The process of decision making will be detailed and personal, often elaborating on the various possible methodological choices, and how and why I made certain choices; why I did it this way and not that way, as well as stories of things that were said or done that confirmed my decisions along the way. This story will include much about the personal aspects of how I went about my research, and, when necessary, in an appropriate way that protects my respondents, I will share portions of their stories.

The researcher and the nature of the project are appropriately represented in this narrative style of presentation, which is well supported in the literature (Weiss 1994:193-210; Newman 2006:498-500; Emerson, Fretz &Shaw 1995:169-210). It also accurately reflects my research findings, which is the main thrust of the project.

Please join me as I tell the story of how the greatest story ever told is being told in the West Bank.

Sources Cited:

Emerson RM, Fretz RI and Shaw LL. (1995) Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. University Of Chicago Press.

McKnight S. (2002) Turning to Jesus: the sociology of conversion in the gospels: Westminster John Knox Press.

Neuman WL. (2006) Social research methods: quantitative and qualitative approaches. Allyn & Bacon.

Weiss RS. (1995) Learning from strangers: the art and method of qualitative interview studies. Free Press.

NEXT: Palestinian Muslims Coming to Christ, Demographic Issues

Download my dissertation as a free PDF here.

Filed Under: conversion, cross-cultural, Evangelism, Intercultural Studies, Islam, Middle East, missionaries, Muslims, Palestine, PhD, PhD excerpts, testimonies, The Gospel, West Bank

Apologetics, Theism, and Conversion

May 31, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Screenshot 2014-05-26 08.37.51

I recently retweeted the above quote because I believe it to be true. However, it may be misleading for some, and I want to address that issue.

Clearly, conversion should be the ultimate goal of Christian apologetics. BUT, apologetics is not a zero-sum game, which is to say: Every apologetic encounter that leads to theism and not conversion is not necessarily a failure. In fact, one of the requirements of salvific faith is theism: “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6, bold emphasis added). So, although theism should not be the intended final-destination, it can be an important initial step in the process of conversion.

Conversion is a process. And by that, I don’t mean a process of religious rituals; I mean moving from unbelief to belief. For some that process may appear instantaneous. In these cases, the person typically is raised in a Christian context (whether that be a Christian family or broader Christian culture) and has no doubts about God’s existence, or likely any doubts about the person of Christ. For them, it is a matter of believing (i.e., trusting Christ, or placing their faith in Him). You might hear these converts say something like, “I don’t remember ever not knowing about Jesus, but when I was  __ years old, I trusted him as savior.”

Encountering those types of people, though, is becoming more rare. In an increasingly secular Western world, particularly with the growth of evangelistic secularism/atheism, the general assumption that everyone believes in God is no longer a safe assumption. Thus, in many cases an apologist must first lead a lost person to an active belief in the existence of God (i.e., theism) before pressing further toward the gospel. Busenitz’s overarching point is correct, though: Apologists should not be satisfied with theism, they should aim for the gospel.

I recognize that Busenitz has a specific context in mind with his Tweet, and my clarification may not be necessary for that situation. However, the reason I think it important to offer my clarification is my own context and history. I’m attempting to help those who may live under the false guilt of not “winning [enough] converts to Jesus.” I recently observed a traveling evangelist challenge a fellow minister essentially to “put up or shut up” with the challenge to “tell us how many people you have won to the Lord this past week, month, or year.” His intent, it seemed, was to say, “If you haven’t won as many people to the Lord as I have, you are not doing real ministry.” This type of critique is mistaken for at least two reasons that are intertwined: 1) it fails to recognize that conversion is a process, and 2) it fails to recognize that any convert usually has multiple influences toward conversion.

Something that has been helpful for me in being thankful for theism, though not satisfied with it, is first to recognize that conversion is a process. Thus, my responsibility as an apologist or evangelist is to take someone as far as I can toward faith in Christ. Sometimes, that means all the way to conversion. In other cases, I may only be able to convince someone that theism is reasonable, and pray for others who can add to my witness to come along and participate. No less than the apostle Paul recognized this approach: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth” (I Corinthians 3:6).

Filed Under: apologetics, conversion, Evangelism

Palestinian Muslims Converting to Christianity

January 23, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Palestinian Muslims converting to Christianity: effective evangelistic methods in the West Bank

Free PDF Download

Free PDF Download

This document is my PhD dissertation, which is ©2014 University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.

It should be cited:
Dunning, CA 2014, “Palestinian Muslims converting to Christianity: effective evangelistic methods in the West Bank”, PhD thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria.

Interviews about the contents of this document can be obtained by contacting Prof Craig Dunning at (817) 461-8741, ext. 143.

ABSTRACT
This thesis provides the findings of an explanatory case study that utilized elements of ethnographic research to discover effective evangelistic methods being practiced among Palestinian Muslims in the West Bank. With the assistance of gatekeepers, twenty-four former Muslims were asked to explain how they were evangelized, with a particular focus on evangelistic methodology, the barriers to faith the respondents encountered, solutions to those barriers, and motivations to consider conversion.

This qualitative study follows the research model of Thom Rainer (2001) by asking those who have actually converted to describe the things that were helpful in the process of their coming to faith. For a theoretical framework it utilizes a nuance of McKnight’s (2002) theory of conversion with an emphasis on crisis providing an intersection of the natural and supernatural for the purpose of conversion.

This thesis investigates examples of effective evangelism within the context of the West Bank, giving thorough consideration to Palestinian Nationalism and Islam as overarching cultural influences. It considers fruitful practices being practiced globally among Muslims, comparing those with what was found being practiced in the West Bank. The advocates represented in this report were primarily Palestinians born and raised in the West Bank, with the exception of three messianic Jewish Israelis and an American missionary. Additionally, they were evangelicals who generally utilized a contextually sensitive, traditional mission approach rather than an Insider model.

The end result is a knowledge base that can be helpful for future evangelism of Muslims in the West Bank or other similar contexts.

Filed Under: Arabic, Arabs, conversion, Evangelism, Helpful Tips, Hope this Helps, Islam, Israel, Life in Christ, Middle East, Muslims, Palestine, Papers, PhD, Prayer, Quran, testimonies, The Gospel, Uncategorized, West Bank

A Muslim’s Heart

February 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I recently purchased A Muslim’s Heart: What Every Christian Needs to Know to Share Christ with Muslims.My first impression was one of disappointment when I realized that that there simply wasn’t much there: The book was fairly small (measuring 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches), including the appendices only 63 pages in length.

It was an impulse purchase that I reasoned might be helpful in my PhD research. After reading it in less than 2 hours, I can’t say that it is completely unhelpful, but the small page size and number means that the amount of information and instruction is quite limited.

Had I investigated a little more, I would have seen that it was reporting only 61 pages on Amazon. And it’s likely, I would not have paid $8.99 for such a small book.

One thing for certain that I learned from buying/reading this book is the value of a good title and subtitle. What is it that every Christian needs to know to share Christ with Muslims? That’s what I wanted to know, and exactly what drew me to buy the book.

Having said all that, I do want to point out some things that were helpful. But before I do, I want to offer a few caveats.

The subtitle is an effective oversell, which both drew me in and ended up creating disappointment. Certainly there is some helpful information inside, but do I really “need” this information to share Christ with a Muslim? I don’t think the book meets the expectation.

“This guide is intended primarily for someone who knows some basic facts about Muslims, but doesn’t know what to do with them” (xiv, emphasis in original). The simplicity of the book (e.g. Islam 101) suggests that it is actually for the raw beginner, which is not bad or wrong, it just doesn’t seem to match the author’s expressed audience. Further to this point, I didn’t really see where the reader gets help in “know[ing] what to do with them [the facts].”

Almost every chapter could be improved with more detailed explanation or application.

The Positives:

The book was easy to read. Even though the author recommends not to read it at one sitting, it’s very easily done (I read it in 2 hours), which makes it easier to go back and re-read more interesting/important parts.

Based on his bio and various references within the text, the author apparently has extensive experience and connections in various parts of the Muslim world, which lends some credibility to the things he says. Along these same lines, Hoskins was candid in explaining that over a 20-year period he and his family have had the opportunity share the Gospel with some 100 Muslims, and have seen 4 come to faith in Christ (xiv-xv). The reason that I see these statistics giving him credibility is that many who are unaware of the realities of witnessing in the Muslim world might think 100 and 4 are quite small numbers for a 20-year span. He doesn’t shy away from the possibility that others might judge him to be ineffective or worse. I appreciate that.

The chapter themes are logical and helpful in preparing for ministry among Muslims.

Chapter Two, The Muslim Worldview is probably the most important chapter in helping a Westerner understand the “Muslim mind” and be able to develop a relationship that might lead to effectively sharing Christ. The Worldview Contrasts chart on page 10 is very helpful in comparing Western and Eastern (i.e., Muslim) values.

Chapter Three, Relational Tips also offered some helpful cultural information that can make relationships with Muslims more likely. While many of these weren’t new to me, they serve as a good reminder of some important and common social differences between Westerners and Arabs/Muslims.

Chapter Four, Emergency Apologetics: Answering Common Objections was instructive. The objections listed are, in my experience and research, among the most common offered by Muslims. His answers were reasonable and helpful to move the conversation along.

I also appreciated a few things in Chapter Five, Six Keys to Communicating the Gospel. He suggested that saints should pray, “asking God to bring about crisis situations in [Muslim] friends’ lives” (40). Crisis has been a major theme in the conversion testimonies of my research respondents.

Focusing on the long term (42) is an important principle in trying to develop relationships in the Muslim world. He correctly connects this to issues of trust, which often differ between the East and West.

Also in Chapter Five is the good suggestion to ask questions (42). Questions are a wonderful method of engaging a Muslim because it gives them the opportunity to speak for themselves, and oftentimes reveals what that person does/doesn’t actually believe.

The Suggested Reading List (Appendix 2, 57-9) might be helpful for some. It is arranged topically and covers a number of important themes in this field.

I might recommend this book for the beginner to get a simple overview of Islam, but would suggest a more studied person take a closer look at other resources.

Filed Under: Arabs, Bookshelf, Evangelism, Islam, Muslims
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