‘Am I allowed to love Jesus?’

“How long will it take?”

That question, especially in December, almost always refers to holiday shopping. However, Mike and Samya J. put that question to the information technology team at Call of Love for an undeniably greater reason.

“The Lord gave us an idea,” Samya J. said. “Why don’t we have an online church for new converts coming from Islam?”

There are many worship services for Arabic speakers, but the risk of government persecution intimidates people in Muslim countries, Samya explained. So, she and Mike asked Call of Love’s IT team if they could create a secure, digital platform for Muslim background believers to worship Christ.

“They asked us for 10 months and within 10 months the IT team had done it,” she said.

Related: Converge’s assessment connects ministry gifts to ministry goals.

Through those high-tech skills, Arabic people can know Christ and make him known. The online church started in June 2021 with 20 converts and five mature believers who function as mentors.

There are now more than 500 believers and 80 mentors. Entire families of former Muslims are part of this online church. They worship the Lord weekly and receive discipleship.

“Every week there are three to five new Muslim converts,” Samya added.

Call of Love offers several platforms, tools to make disciples

A new church may be the most recent advance in the call of God’s love among Muslims through Mike and Samya’s ministry. But Call of Love has been offering far more for 21 years.

The ministry, based in the United States, offers one-on-one discipleship, evangelistic social media engagements, a satellite TV station broadcasting gospel content and a Scripture search page for Arabic speakers on the TV station’s website.

“There’s nothing like it in the Arab world,” Samya said of the Scripture search in Arabic. “We’re calling Muslims to experience the love of God instead of following rituals that would lead them nowhere.”

A couple of creative communicators

Mike and Samya got started on that priority long before they married in 1992. Mike, born in Egypt, came to Christ as a teenager. Mike created 27 albums of gospel music in his life and did evangelism in more than 25 countries. Those albums exalt Christ around the Arab world on TV and satellite radio.

Meanwhile, Samya’s family raised her to follow Christ in Lebanon. Then, she went to work at a Christian radio station in college. At that job, she wrote programming and answered questions from Muslim seekers eager for hope.

“As I learned to answer their questions, I saw many of them accept the Lord,” she said. “This is when God called me to serve Muslims.”

Such a commitment in her life is completely a work of God. Samya grew up in Lebanon during more than a decade of civil war between Muslims and Christians. During that time, she nearly died three times. She lost many school friends and neighbors.

“Although I was a believer, I kept a small dark place in my heart where I kept all my anguish, hatred and fear of Muslims,” she said.

Not anymore, though. God worked deeply in Samya’s heart because he had plans to use her to do great works among Muslims. After Samya and Mike married, they served in the Egyptian church, which meets underground to avoid persecution.

During their time in Egypt, they produced radio programs and met people one-on-one to help them know and follow Christ. They moved to the United States in 1999 and felt called to continue as missionaries to Arab people.

Related: How can you grow in loving those who are different from and far from you?

Many Arabs are moving toward atheism, agnosticism

Samya said Muslims are generally terrified of death because they are terrified of Allah. There is no love or security, she noted, from Allah toward his people. She said Arabs often learn their religion and Allah don’t offer them hope outside of martyrdom.

“If you visit any Muslim country and live in it for two weeks, you will feel the spirit of Islam,” Samya said. “It’s a very oppressive spirit.”

In particular, disillusionment with Islam is making agnostics and atheists out of Arabs. The men and women who’ve given up on faith choose to keep going through the motions of Islam. Therefore, millions of Arab hearts disengaged long ago.

“But God in his mercy finds them and he allows them to meet Jesus and become followers of Christ,” she said.

That’s why a ministry is needed among them to hear the call of love from the Father who sent Christ to seek and save an unreached world.

A 13-year-old boy saw the Jesus Film on Call of Love’s satellite Christian Arabic TV channel in 2017. Then he texted Call of Love’s team. He shared he’d been having dreams about Christ for eight years without realizing who Jesus is.

“Am I allowed to love Jesus and be a Jesus follower?” the boy texted after seeing the Jesus Film, according to Samya.

That boy embraced Christ as Lord and spent the rest of his youth living in a very devout, strict Muslim community. He kept his faith a secret even as he followed Christ with help from Call of Love servants.

Those servants utilize the satellite TV station and the online church to make disciples of the least-reached Arabs around the world. In addition, Call of Love uses WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and a weekly blog. These powerful, digital tools enable a wider and deeper ministry to people of Muslim backgrounds.

Related: Online church can even be virtual church, decided one Arizona congregation.

Even so, Samya and Mike J. recognize disciples aren’t made without disciples.

“He prepares these people, but they need to hear it,” she said. “How can they hear it if we don’t tell it?”

A partnership to embrace Arabs begins

Converge has been a key partner since 2003, when Call of Love affiliated with the movement of churches. There was a desire in their hearts to do ministry under the direction of a faithful organization.

“We wanted to be a part of a bigger body of Christ to be accountable to and to have men and women of God to guide us and counsel us and to have prayer warriors,” she said.

At the same time, Samya said Call of Love counts it an honor to resource congregations with content about influencing Arabs toward Christ. For example, Samya has written Dare to Explore, A Simple Truth and a guide to loving Muslim neighbors. She applies 30 years of learning how to evangelize Muslims so Christians of Western heritage can reach out with confidence.

The new church that Call of Love started during the pandemic is the latest move of confidence through creative, technological means. That online church that took 10 months to securely create has grown from 25 Muslim background believers to more than 500 people.

“Multiplication is happening,” Samya said. “The redeemed are becoming courageous to tell their spouses, their kids, their friends, their neighbors. Now we have entire families watching and learning and praising the Lord.”

The Christ who promised to build his church overcomes every obstacle so that Arabs find out about his love and enter into eternal life. An IT team that worked long and hard reveals there are no limits or boundaries to what the Lord can do.

“There are no countries that can stop these services from happening,” she said. “The walls of Islam are breaking down in front of the gospel. The Holy Spirit is working in amazing ways.”

Converge is asking God for a gospel movement among every least-reached people group — in our generation. Learn how we are playing a role in accomplishing the Great Commission and how you can be involved.