Each year, when preparations for Easter begin, I find myself feeling a mix of great joy and great sorrow. The Easter season is of course a time of great celebration for Christians, where we rejoice in the completed work of Christ through his resurrection. For me, it is also a time when I remember the loss and sacrifice of some of those brothers in Christ who came before me.

It was Saturday, October 14 last year. The BBC Radio was about to play a pre-recorded interview with a spokesman for Hamas and needed to explain to listeners something in advance…

We live in tumultuous times. But we can take comfort, as do our brothers and sisters in hostile areas and restricted nations, in trusting that our loving heavenly Father holds each of us in the palm of His hand.

What do Muslim believe? That there is no deity but Allah and that Muhammad is his prophet. That is the shahada of Islam.

I am an Anglican priest in Madrid, Spain. I often observe this practice of letting the practices of our tiny Protestant community be determined to a great extent by not doing what the Roman Catholics do. I understand the historical and contextual reasons for this practice. But in the long run it is not a recipe for fruitfulness. In the same way, the winsomeness of the Christian faith should be allowed to stand on its own.

This is now the fourth installation in my series on pastoral care for Christians who have converted from Islam. We started by addressing the issue of baptism, then the personality of God as portrayed in the Qur’an v. the Bible, and then the role of history in helping to form a firm identity for the convert.

Familiarity with history also allows for the recognition of self-worth and value for one’s local Christian community. It was striking to see how CMBs in North Africa were energized by hearing that their local bishop martyr, Cyprian, had made such a lasting and profound impact on Christian theology and ecclesiology.

In October of 2018 we founded al kanisa al masihiya fi Madrid—the Christian Church of Madrid—an Arabic-language weekly fellowship. We were meeting in a borrowed space from a Latino Assemblies of God congregation in Tetuan, a neighborhood with a large Muslim population north of downtown.

When considering the safety of converts from Islam, a recommended practice, if possible, is preparing converts for baptism in groups.

The number of people converting from Islam to Christianity has never been higher than what we’re seeing today.

I live about 40 minutes from the Anglican Cathedral of the Redeemer here in Madrid, and I often walk rather than take the metro. Indeed, I find myself walking all over the place in this city.

Over the years I’ve done a great deal of teaching on Islam and Christianity.… I note that there is one question that people almost always ask: what exactly is the shari’a? Where does it come from?

More Muslims have converted to the Way of Jesus Christ in the last four decades than in all the other years since the advent of Islam in the 7th Century. Something is certainly happening among Muslims and there is an openness in their society that was not there before.

I’ve been an Anglican minister working for, with, and among Muslims now for well over a decade--much of that in Muslim-majority cities and countries. In the Muslim world there is no concern about integration.