RICHMOND, Va. (BP)–Amjad* marked Easter morning by being baptized, then leading the first Lord’s Supper he had ever attended.
The young Uighur Christian’s baptismal clothes were still damp when he stood to lead five other Uighur believers in a communion service in a home in Central Asia.
Amjad has to rely on the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit to guide the first steps of an emerging church among the largely unreached Muslim people group rather than base the worship service on the imported patterns of Western-style church, explained an International Mission Board worker who watched the service.
“We had just studied 1 Corinthians where Paul talked about God’s wisdom, power and the ability of the Holy Spirit to speak through us,” the worker said.
Amjad was nervous at first as he spoke to the other believers, the worker recalled.
But as Amjad led in the Lord’s Supper, “I felt chills run through me,” the worker said. “I was watching the birth of a Uighur church. This is when you realize it really is a privilege to be here and see all that God is doing.”
For Amjad, his first moments of nervousness were replaced with a sense of awe, the worker said. “The amazing thing to see was the Scriptures coming alive for him. I could tell he was seeing the promises God gave in the Scripture coming into being in his life. It was an amazing thing.”
This worker and others on the Uighur team have worked for more than 15 years to nurture a church movement in Central Asia. The work is led by Jonathan*, a strategy coordinator who has made it his life’s goal to help bring the Gospel to the Uighurs. Jonathan works with other Great Commission Christian groups in his ministry to evangelize this unreached people group.
“What Amjad experienced is what we have all been praying for,” Jonathan said. “There is now an infant Uighur church, and praise God, it is starting to take hold of God’s promises.”
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*Names changed to protect believers.
