Mike’s Sea2sea Blog

Zwemer’s been on my mind, since a colleague sent me a short message from the Urbana archives – from the first Urbana ever – 1946, in Toronto! (http://www.urbana.org/articles/the-cross-in-christs-commission-1946) Interesting that one of the great missionaries to the Muslims was preaching here, and now it is a city with Muslims from all over the world.

Zwemer was a missionary pioneer who devoted his life to Muslim evangelism. Just today I looked up some things about him and found out he was a gifted writer, motivator and recuiter for missions and believed in the power of the printed word to make a difference in reaching Muslims for Christ. He lost his two young daughters to the rigors of living overseas (dysentery), and in his lifetime saw limited spiritual fruit in terms of new believers.

I recall having  coffee with my grandfather and one of his friends – a man who was an alumni of Nyack College ( the Alliance school in the U.S. founded by Simpson as Missionary Training Institute), I would guess from the late 1940’s or early 50’s. We were having a wonderful conversation about God’s heart for the world, the next generation, emerging church stuff, and in the midst of it he told me a story of a chapel service in which Zwemer spoke. Here’s my best recollection of the story:

Zwemer (who must have been old, nearing the end of his ministry) comes up aisle in a big overcoat. Just before taking the pulpit, he takes off the coat and plops it right onto the altar/chancellery thing (something fairly important in the chapel anyhow). It was kind of shocking. Then he proceeds to preach  on the story of Elijah and Elisha, and relates it to the great need for missionaries to the Muslim world. After the message he asks, something like “Who will take up the mantle?”. Then he leaves, back up the aisle, leaving the coat there. The person telling me the story said “The moment was electric.”

Honestly, I feel pretty small when reading about heroes like this. This guy created his own missions board when he was rejected as a young man. “Samuel never stopped writing” his wife said. 38 years of living in different Arabic countries like Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain and Egypt. Two young daugters are buried there. He worked constantly for churches and new pastors to see the need to reach Muslims for Christ – even dying of a heart attack in his eighties after preaching three times in one day for an Intervarsity group in New York.

On the other hand, his story is like many of ours. In a college chapel service, he heard the challenge of the many who are dying without having heard of Christ. A missionary from India came up with a large map and a metronome as an object lesson. As the metronome kept time, the students were told that for every “tick” another person perished without hearing about Jesus. Zwemer rushed forward to the call, a prompting that time has not changed – we know it well.

Are we really up for what he is calling us to? I guess, from what I’ve gathered about his writings, he would say that is not the most important question. He would call our attention instead to Christ, and if Christ is still sufficient, then all we need has been considered.

So there is the coat, still waiting for you and I and this next wave of missionaries.

(And if you are interested in learning more about Zwemer here’s a good start: http://www.ciu.edu/muslimstudies/samuelzwemer.html)