Reaching the Gospel to the Muslims of West Bengal

Calcutta – Carter Bolin (name changed for security reasons) of South Carolina, USA, was a football coach for a high school team before he joined the ministry staff of his church, East Cooper Baptist. Having spent 18 years mobilizing other believers in his church, Bolin himself decided to work for the Lord and spread His Word in another part of the world – to the Muslims of West Bengal, India.

“It was miserable, it was hot, it was all the things India can be,” Baptist Press quoted Carter as saying, as he recalled one of his trips to India. “But the people just broke our hearts. There was a spiritual void, and they were filling it with idols.”

Surrendering everything to God, Carter and his wife, Vienna (name changed for security reasons) ended up mobilizing themselves and their kids to India. “We just felt, ‘If not us, who? If not now, when?’ It was time for me to put up or shut up, because this is what I’d been preaching,” he recalled.

That was five years ago. Today, as a Southern Baptist missionary strategy coordinator, Carter faces a bigger challenge than he ever encountered as a coach and his challenge lies in West Bengal, India, where William Carey launched the modern missionary movement more than two centuries ago.

Today, West Bengal is home to more than 80 million people, where one out of four is a Muslim and at least there are thousands of villages where Bengali–speaking Muslims predominate.

Carter’s vision and goal as a strategy coordinator is simple – see Jesus Christ glorified through a church–planting movement among the 27 million Muslims of West Bengal and nearby areas. How? By planting a jaamat –— or house church –— in each of those villages.

It is a vision that fits both parts of William Carey’s famous motto: “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”

And, great things have happened – more than 100 jaamats – with about 1,000 former Muslims who have become baptized followers of Isa Masih (Jesus Christ) – have sprouted across West Bengal during the past two years.

About 30 of the 100 jaamat leaders are personally known to Carter, while the rest are “second–generation” disciples – led to faith, nurtured and trained by other jaamat leaders or the Bengali church planters Carter and his missionary team have trained.

“We feel like we’re on the end of the runway getting ready for takeoff,” Baptist Press quoted Carter as saying. “Things are starting to happen.”

Carter has identified at least 15 districts in West Bengal where the population is predominantly Muslims and intends to set up “reproducing” jaamats in all these regions.

“We want to build this into the DNA, into the very fabric and backbone of every jaamat: Now that you’ve heard the Good News and received it, you must share it with neighboring villages,” he explained. “It’s the principle of reproduction, of multiplication, rather than addition.”

Response has been very optimistic, Carter claimed. Bengali Muslims – many of whom follow a form of “folk Islam” that incorporates Hindu and animistic beliefs and practices – hunger for the truth most have never heard about God.

Making relationships is important, Carter admitted, while sharing his experience about reaching out the Gospel to the Muslims. When Carter or other missionaries and volunteers on his team accompany a Bengali church planter into a new area, they ask about village life, make friends and inquire about religious traditions. They intentionally seek out the local imam (mosque leader) or village head to discuss the Koran, Islam’s holy book, and what it says about Jesus. That serves as a bridge to the “before books” – the Old and New Testaments – which the Koran commands good Muslims to read.

“It’s a bridge,” Carter noted. “You don’t camp on it; you cross over it. It gives Muslims ‘permission’ to look into the New Testament.”

And, as each visit progresses, they pray that a “man of peace” will emerge – whether it is the village leader or someone in the crowd that eagerly gathers around – who will become the key to reaching the community with the Gospel.

“If you go as a learner and spend an hour just getting to know them, love them, play with their kids, talk to them about their goats and their harvest, have tea with them, that goes a long way,” Carter said.

However, every encounter has not been a positive one, Carter shared. On one occasion, an imam of a village grew hostile during a group discussion and Carter and his team had to leave.

“The crowd actually rallied around me, siding with me and countering his points,” Carter recalled. “He was very angry, so as we left I said, ‘Peace, brother,’ embraced him and thanked him publicly for allowing us to talk.”

Nonetheless, two Muslims who “followed us back to the vehicle, asked for the Book [Bible]…they wanted to know how Jesus could make our lives so loving and caring. So in the midst of what I thought was a bust, since we didn’t get anywhere with the imam, these guys saw our message of love,” he said.

In most occasions, God has been kind to them, Carter said. On another occasion, a man, drenched, suddenly appeared in the middle of a village discussion. When asked about his whereabouts, he replied, “I’m from across the river…We heard there were some people here talking about Isa [Jesus], so I swam over to hear it.” Today, he leads a jaamat in his village.

“In the final analysis, what brings radical change and conversion is two feet walking into a village, finding where God is at work and joining Him there,” Carter stressed. “You don’t have to have all the answers to everything in Islam or all the answers about a person’s ancestry. You just need to know what his needs are. Basically people are lost and need hope. The Holy Spirit is already at work drawing people to Christ.”

As strategy coordinator for 27 million Bengali Muslims, Carter mobilizes every partner he can find for the task: prayer supporters, new missionaries for his team, evangelical churches in India, Muslim–background Gospel workers “on loan” from Bangladesh, volunteers from South Carolina. A recently completed “Muslim–friendly” edition of the Bengali Bible, he said, is a landmark on the road to sowing the Word of God throughout the land.

But the key to the success lies in the tried–and–true training method: Model, assist, watch and leave.

“We’re cheerleaders, we’re encouragers,” he said. “We’re going to model it for you, assist you to do it, watch you do it – and then we’re out of here. We’ll go do it somewhere else.”

“I’m there trying to gently move a group or a person in a direction until they conclude they were going there all along,” he added. “That’s what you want to do in discipleship — model, assist, watch and leave — in the real world, not in a classroom. That’s every pastor’s dream, to get his people to own their faith...That’s real transmission of the Gospel.”

According to Carter, Bengali Muslims need boldness for once they commit themselves to Christ, they will face hardships, discouragement, opposition and persecution, which will only increase as the Gospel spreads. But, “When Bengalis see a white guy go into a mosque and sit down with an imam and share his faith, they say, ‘Man, these guys are bold. I can be bold, too,’” Carter said. “Boldness is something that’s caught.”