Five tips for engaging with Somalis
[estimated reading time: 2 minutes]
With 12.5 million Somali people living outside of Somalia – including hundreds of thousands in North America and Europe – Christians may not have to travel to the Horn of Africa to have meaningful encounters with this people group.
How do you respectfully build a relationship with Somali people that can point to Jesus?
1. Just go. Be their friends. Don’t be afraid.
2. Be a learner.
Don’t be afraid to make cultural mistakes, Larson said. “There are only a few things you can really do to super-offend them or break the relationship.” Avoid obvious taboos – don’t insult Muhammad – and you’ll probably be OK.
3. Don’t be afraid to talk about religion.
“For Somalis, they want to talk,” Larson said. “For them, faith is not a private matter, so one way that I talk to my Somali neighbors differently than I talk to my white middle-class neighbors is that I don’t have to hold back at all about any of that.” Somalis think that if you’re not talking about your faith, it must not be important to you, he said.
4. Don’t tell them what they think.
“From my perspective, I let my Muslim friends define Islam,” Larson said. “I don’t tell them that this is what the true Islam is or isn’t. I might say, ‘Oh, the Quran says this. What do you think about that?’ Because I don’t appreciate it when they tell me what Christians believe in. … So I try to be respectful in that matter.”
5. Be willing to listen.
Every relationship is a two-way street, Larson said. “If I’m willing to listen to them, even about their faith, then I think they’re going to be more willing to listen to me.”
This article is part of a bigger series called Reach the Last. We’re calling attention to unreached people groups in the world – those who lack enough Christ followers and resources to evangelize their own people. We’re showing how God is using TWR’s media ministry as one of his tools to call the last people to himself.
