OLDENBURG, GERMANY (ANS) -- Open Doors Founder Brother Andrew challenged the 3,000 delegates at the mission-net Congress in Oldenburg, Germany last week to overcome their enemy attitude towards the Muslim community and love them as Christ would, saying that Islam should stand for I Sincerely Love All Muslims.

Brother Andrew challenges delegates at the mission-net congress to sincerely love all Muslims

The Dutchman best known as "God’s Smuggler" for his best-selling book of the same now, is now in his 80s but still hasn’t lost his passion for reaching what many would be perceive as the unreachable and he told me the key to impacting Muslims for Christ is humility:

He said, “We need to go in a humble attitude and what I do personally is I go to Muslims, like in the university in Iran or Libya and Hamas and ask forgiveness because we did not love them the way Jesus told us we should love them. We’ve not loved them enough to go and share Christ with them. We’ve just left them alone in total loneliness. Their aimlessness turns into fundamentalist and fanatical people.

“I think it’s our fault not there’s and I feel very strongly that it’s my personal conviction. So when I go there I don’t apologize for Western behaviour because there’s is just as bad, but that’s not the issue. It’s a personal thing. Jesus changed me. He wants to change you. Only a changed person before God is going to make a difference in this world and make it a better world little by little by little. But let’s start now you and I and then we take it from there.”

Brother Andrew was very encouraged by the mission-net congress that he believes would help young people make the right choices in their life: “It really excites me because I figure that a congress like this should happen in different places in Europe not only every two years but every year because we as a church have failed to reach the young people. There are too many alternatives that are available free of charge almost. They have so many choices they can make. It’s so easy for a young person to make the wrong choice. Here they get confronted with the right choices radical life for Jesus not fanatical.

And that means that I’m willing to die to give you life. That’s what Jesus did. Are we willing to step in his footsteps?”

I asked Brother Andrew what he saw as the biggest challenges in reaching out to Muslims in Europe: “First of all in loving them as Jesus does. So far there’s a cultural gap which we seem to strengthen because we barely greet them we don’t accept them. We expect them to integrate, but we must accept them as they are and again offer to be their friend, to help them with language, with shopping as the supermarket. Just little things. But at least greet them on the street. People in Holland don’t do that. So we have to accept them before we expect them to integrate. Then maybe after a while we can share Jesus in words but first with our attitude.”

Brother Andrew said another key to getting alongside Muslims is by meeting them at a point of need: “I usually start with them when they are in a tremendous need like when they’ve been deported or they’re in the refugee camps or in hospital or in prison where they need help now. I concentrate on that because I also must first find an opening to their heart. I cannot just say ‘here I am now you have to listen. I have the truth.’ For them that is not truth, they have their own truth. They must first see my heart.

“I go to them in hospital. I go to Muslim hospitals when they’re overcrowded, wounded and dying after one of those bombing raids in Gaza. Then I go to the hospital and share Christ with them as they’re so open in those times because there’s not comfort in the religion of Islam. It’s all Allah’s will. God doesn’t make war, the devil doesn’t make war. Man makes war and that’s why God sent Jesus to change people. You and me. He changed me. How about giving Him a chance to change your life.”

Much of Brother Andrew’s ministry has involved supporting the work of Christians in Gaza. However tragedy struck in October 2007 when Gaza Bible Society worker Rami Ayyad was murdered and his body was recovered near the teachers' bookshop in Gaza where he worked. Brother Andrew says he’s hoping to return there soon with the Gaza Baptist church minister who’s had to move to America: “The Gaza Baptist church minister is presently living in America. He’s going back soon. We hope even to go together. We’re arranging now for his return. Unfortunately at this moment his wife can’t come with him because she has a Jordanian passport so she can’t travel to Israel. There are all kinds of man-made badges that are so stupid. Why can’t people just let them be united and minister to the church. But the church membership is picking up in Gaza again. It was down to ten from two years ago when I preached there to 250 people. Now they’re back to about 35. So it’s climbing up.”

Now at the age when many people would’ve retired I asked Brother Andrew why he still keeps travelling to these challenging places: “I have no choice," he said. "The apostle would say 'the love of Christ constrains me'. I always feel bad if I stay at home. I feel good when I’m there.

“But my prayer and my hope is that the next generation will carry on this work, which is one reason why I’m here. It will not come through one single message so my presence and my books and my prayer for them and my friendship with them and my speeches or sermons; all that should be added up and this is one more unique opportunity when thousands of Christians from across Europe come together because they want to know.”

Brother Andrew with his latest book Secret Believers about the stories of Muslim converts

To highlight the plight of Muslim converts to Christ Brother Andrew wrote the book Secret Believers along with Al Janssen:

“It is more or less written at the request of these Muslim converts because they say nobody ever speaks about this, nobody writes about this,” Brother Andrew explained. "I said we have to tell the story so that we can pray. We understand the price they have to pay which is considerable. Also the story in my book about those who got killed for their faith because that is the price. My own friends, the people that I have baptized in recent years and a number of them ordained in the ministry at least 12 have been murdered and that hurts me very badly and yet they’re up in heaven.”

Peter Wooding is a freelance TV, radio and print journalist and media consultant. He is married to Sharon and they live in North Wales, UK with their three children. He has traveled extensively reporting from countries including Russia, Serbia, Ukraine, Dubai, South Korea, Zambia, Gambia, Mozambique, Croatia, Israel and India. He was news editor for UCB radio in the UK for more than 10 years. Having previously been a missionary for five years with Youth With A Mission, Peter still has a real heart for missions work and in the past few years has led short-term mission trips to Zambia, Beslan, Russia and Ukraine. He is also the director of ASSIST Europe which is involved in helping children's projects in Eastern Europe including the Hearts of Love Centre in Konotop, Ukraine. Peter is available for freelance and media consultancy work. To contact him email: woodingpeter@hotmail.com, tel. +44 1244 549167/+44 7500 903067.