Loving Muslim Neighbors Seminar for Christians

LOVING MUSLIM NEIGHBORS is a seminar for Christians who want to understand and bless Muslims with grace and friendship. It navigates through a maze of conflicting information and stereotypes, then equips Christians with biblical solutions to challenges that have vexed Christian-Muslim relations for centuries. Learn how to build bridges of respect and understanding that will deeply touch Muslim hearts. Online, flexible, and convenient, it's available wherever and whenever you are.

Attend Loving Muslim Neighbors and discover ...

Introduction

• What Muslims really believe about God, Jesus, and Christians.
• Muslim sensitivities every Christian should know.
• Expressions of Christian faith that Muslims appreciate most.

Part I : Understanding Muslims

• Islamic origins from both a Muslim and Christian perspective.
• Helpful parallels between Islam and earliest Jewish Christianity.
• Common ground and difference between Islam and Christianity.
• Keys to avoid frequent barriers in Christian-Muslim relations.

Part II : Responding to Muslims

• How to respond to complex textual and theological issues regarding popular Muslim belief that the Bible has been corrupted, Jesus was not crucified, and Jesus is not the Son of God.
• How to express Christian faith with gentleness and respect so it can be properly understood within a Muslim worldview and Islamic contexts.
• How to explain Bible verses which most Muslims believe constitute clear evidence of its corruption.
• How to address Muslim stereotypes of Christians with biblical righteousness.

Part III : Studying Scripture with Muslims

• How to study Scripture with Muslims.
• How to communicate biblical truth in ways Muslims deeply appreciate.
• How to avoid offense by studying sacred texts with appropriate reverence.
• And much more!

Our world is experiencing shifting populations, unprecedented change, and growing religious extremism...

Muslims and Christians together make up more than half the world’s population. Christians and Muslims must therefore find ways to coexist peacefully if future generations will enjoy any meaningful peace together. Acknowledging this, global Muslim leaders, intellectuals and clerics sent a letter to top church leaders everywhere to extend a hand of friendship. Entitled “A Common Word Between Us and You”, their letter pointed to the teachings of Jesus as the basis for peaceful coexistence:

'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:29-31)

After identifying these commandments as the common ground between Islam and Christianity, Muslim authors of the letter closed with a colossal challenge:

So let our differences not cause hatred and strife between us. Let us vie with each other only in righteousness and good works. Let us respect each other, be fair, just and kind to another and live in sincere peace, harmony and mutual goodwill.

How will you respond?

 Attend this seminar to learn how you can respond for the glory of God.

Accessible, Flexible, Online

•  Attend anytime anywhere.
•  Watch on any computer, tablet, smart phone, or TV with your home Bible study group.*
•  Recorded before a live audience at Lincoln Glen Church in San Jose, California.
•  100+ page seminar notebook included.
•  20 sessions, each uniquely suited for individual study or church Bible study groups.
•  Average session length: 47 minutes. 

Instructor

Rod Cardoza, AAi Founder and Executive Director

Rod Cardoza is a cultural, theological, and linguistic anthropologist. He has published ethnographic research on Muslim ritual and lectures internationally on Muslim-Christian relations. He earned a degree in anthropology at San Jose State University, conducted theological studies at Columbia Biblical Seminary, then moved to India with his family to study the Urdu language at Delhi University and Jamia Millia Islamia. He worked closely with leading Muslim scholars in India to publish faith-based, peacebuilding Urdu texts. He later moved his family to Egypt where he studied Arabic and researched the role of Muslim cinematography in teaching Islamic knowledge. Rod is the author of "New Paths in Muslim-Christian Dialog: Understanding Islam from the Light of Earliest Jewish Christianity," presented in Washington, DC at the Annual Conference on Muslim Peace, Justice and Interfaith Dialogue, and published in The Muslim World, a journal devoted to the study of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations. Rod also served as an interim pastor and now attends a Mennonite church in San Jose, California, where he lives today with his wife and three children.

What seminar graduates are saying...

"Informative, eye-opening and challenging. It even helped me understand my own faith better."

—SUSAN, Pastor and Bible Teacher, SAN JOSE, California

"Doors are continuing to open as a result of your awesome seminar. Several of my Muslim students have even greeted me with the 'bearded rub' on my cheek!"

—RANDY, ESL Instructor, CALGARY, Canada

"Awesome! The seminar has opened up my mind and widened my heart. I’m really surprised that it has not already been published as a book!"

-LUCA, Ph.D. Knowledge Manager, HEMSBACH, Germany

"I feel like I went from knowing nothing about Islam and Muslims to knowing exactly how to love and bless them for the glory of God."

—RANDY, College Student, ATLANTA, Georgia

"This seminar is the solution to the confusion that began with the Tower of Babel."

—MICHAEL, Enterprise Architect, SILICON VALLEY, California

"We've been living among Muslims from childhood, but only now have we finally learned how to really minister to them."

—TIMUR, Pastor, TBLISI, Republic of Georgia

"I feel like I just took a graduate course in theology, taught so clearly even I could understand it."

—FRANK, High School Teacher, LOS GATOS, California

"I got more out of this seminar than my entire semester of New Testament theology."

—KELLY, Seminary Student, PHOENIX, Arizona

"I'd still be an Islamophobe had I not taken this seminar."

—BRENT, Entrepreneur, SILICON VALLEY, California

"This seminar helped me see Christianity through Muslim eyes."

—CHRIS, Teacher, LUCKNOW, India

"I can't wait to share what I've learned with friends here in Afghanistan!"

—GARY, Humanitarian Relief Worker, KABUL, Afghanistan

"The thing I liked least about this seminar was that it ended."

—JOAN, Alpha Course Director, LOS GATOS, California

* Seminar video can be streamed to any flatscreen TV configured to display web content via Chromecast or AppleTV via AirPlay. AAi member churches can also project introductory seminar videos to a large screen for congregational viewing.