One Xplore Study Impacts Countless Arab Lives
Last semester, I sat among a group of believers who shared stories of how God had awakened their hearts to His immeasurable love for the nations. Some explained how they had began praying for the nations regularly, and others explained that they began sharing their faith with their Muslim coworkers.
Though their stories were different, they all were gathered in the room together because they shared something in common. They all wanted the Arabian Gulf to experience God’s love for the nations, and they all ended up in the room together because of one guy named Trevor.
Trevor is one of those guys who talks to everyone. He is quick to encourage and pray for his friends, and he is bold in sharing his faith with colleagues from other faith backgrounds. He gives of his finances to send others to the unreached, and he gives his time to mobilize those around him. The impact this one man has had on the church in Dubai is significant, but Trevor was not always like this. In fact, up until three years ago, he was disillusioned and completely separated from the church. In Trevor’s words, “All of that changed with a cup of coffee.”
After stepping away from the church for thirty years, Trevor found himself re-entering in 2016. Though he was exposed to church in his childhood, he never truly understood the truth about Jesus. So when Jesus began revealing more of Himself to Trevor in 2016, Trevor’s life began to change.
Trevor started attending an international church in his city. After six months of coming in and leaving without really knowing anyone, Trevor was convicted that he should take a course that could help him grow in his faith. He told himself that he would enroll for the next course that he heard about.
That same day at church, Trevor met the CMM Dubai team leader, Matt. As they stood at the coffee station, Matt began to tell Trevor of an Xplore group that he was starting. Obeying the conviction of his heart to get involved, Trevor immediately signed up.
As the course launched, there were 12 Xplore books set out around the table in the room where the class would be held. When only Trevor showed up, Matt and Trevor both decided to go for it anyway. Though they both could have taken this opportunity to bail out, neither of them did. Instead, they faithfully met together over the following four months to complete the Xplore study.
As they met together, Trevor began to understand God’s heart for the nations of the world. Trevor learned about the 10:40 window, and his perspective shifted as he realized that he lived right in the center of the most unreached part of the world. He began to see God’s global purpose as the primary reason he ended up in Dubai.
It was clear that God was molding Trevor’s heart for His greater purposes while also drawing him in to know Christ personally for the first time in his life.
Not only did his understanding of God’s purposes grow, but his understanding of Christ and His love also grew. Something had awakened within Trevor, and he began to take every opportunity to grow personally and to serve in the church. It was clear that God was molding Trevor’s heart for His greater purposes while also drawing him in to know Christ personally for the first time in his life.
During the week of Easter the following year, Trevor showed up at Matt’s villa to announce his decision to follow Christ and accept his offer of forgiveness of his sins. He was baptized shortly after that, and he began to intentionally reach out to his colleagues and unbelieving friends through sports ministry in hopes that they would see the light of Christ. Through this, a few of them have been exposed to Christ-like community and prayer, and Trevor is now praying for their salvation.
Trevor explained that the Xplore study flipped the way he saw the Bible completely upside down, and he finally understood that the Bible was one interconnected story of God’s plan of redemption for the world. Since he wanted everyone to know that story, he convinced Matt to help coordinate the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course in Dubai. Matt agreed — if Trevor would find the attendees.
Trevor did just that. He recruited nearly 15 people to invest rigorous amounts of time to complete the 15-week course! He encouraged them along the way, and even provided the finances and transportation for some of them to attend.
Many attendees joked about how Trevor roped them into the course, but at the class graduation, we saw that he did so much more than that. This one man facilitated an opportunity for the attendees to see the Bible in a completely different light. Because of this one man, nine attendees formed a team to continue mobilization in the region through coordinating the Perspectives course and Xplore studies.
With Trevor in the lead, the team is continually campaigning and envisioning the next class for multiple churches throughout the city. Trevor dreams of seeing a multiplication movement that mobilizes hundreds of believers from many different nations, and is working and praying toward that goal with a team of other mobilized believers at his side. The obedience of just one man, whose eyes had been opened to the depths of Jesus’ love not only for himself but also for the whole earth, has now created an avenue for a mobilization movement in the Arabian Peninsula.