Deep Dive
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First Person is produced in cooperation with the Far East Broadcasting Company, who rejoice in the stories of changed lives through the power of Jesus Christ. Learn more at febc.org. We've learned a lot from Turkish followers of Christ. They go through far more than we do. Watching the way these Turkish followers of Christ follow the Lord and patiently endure, it's a lot to learn there.
How much do you know about the country of Turkey and what is happening spiritually there? Coming up now on First Person, you'll meet George Bristow, who has lived there the past 35 years and has seen God at work firsthand. Welcome to First Person. I'm Wayne Shepherd. Thanks for taking the time to listen to these weekly conversations meant to give you a perspective of how God uses people from all walks of life to serve Him faithfully. First Person is a free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free
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Let's turn to this week's guest. George Bristow is a veteran church planter who lived in Turkey for many years and still travels there often for ministry. He's a senior research fellow at Institute for the Study of Religion in the Middle East. And when we met in a men's Bible study recently and I heard his story, I knew we would all benefit from his experiences. It's a great country. Lived there 35 years. Love it. Very hospitable, warm people.
Very historic place, of course. You can take it all the way back to Bible times, Asia Minor, and bring it up to today, a NATO member state just surrounded by water, Black Sea on the north, Mediterranean on the south, Aegean on the west. Sounds beautiful. It is beautiful. You can ski in the country. You can swim on the Med. Yeah, it's a beautiful place. How do they view North Americans?
Well, there's a difference in how they view Canadians and how they view Americans, interestingly enough. When we first went to Turkey in 1987, Americans were viewed very positively, and that has changed. Recent events over the last 15, 20 years in the Middle East has...
turned most Turks against America and American policy even though they still are relatively positive towards Americans but a Canadian passport gets you better treatment so
So you didn't feel you were out of place living all those years there? No, no. Very hospitable people, and they are usually able to make the distinction between governments and politics and interpersonal relationships. What is the religious makeup? Mostly Muslim? It's mostly Muslim, about 99%. I'd say mostly, yeah. Majority Muslim country. Uh-huh.
What do we need to know about Turkey that we don't know from all that experience living all those years there? Well, we lived there as Christian workers, as people trying to help the small minority of Christians there. There are perhaps maybe 10,000 evangelical believers in the country. So a very small number. There were about 300 or 400 when we went there in 87 years.
So, for those who are trying to see the gospel spread and to see churches established, it's a country that is seen as very...
a place where we would like to see more people hear the gospel in a clear way. There are a lot of preconceptions or misconceptions about what Christians believe and that sort of thing that come from both an Islamic background and from a long history, Turkey's history of wars with so-called Christian Europe, 500 years ago.
uh... of uh... wars long history of battles and right strife there uh... is so it's not illegal to be a christian believer in turkey no it's not illegal
Most people don't like it when a Muslim person becomes a Christian, a follower of Christ. In certain parts of the Muslim world, it is seen as treason and you can lose your life. In Turkey, that's not usually what happens. It's not illegal. The government is a secular government, nominally at least, and its constitution is a democratic republic.
And it's constitutional freedom of religion. So you're allowed to change your religion, which is not the case in many Islamic majority countries. But there's still a lot of opposition to it in many ways. You can lose your family connections. You lose your friend circle. You can lose your job. And the government...
doesn't persecute you directly usually, but it's not an easy thing for a person to become a Christian, a follower of Christ in a Muslim-majority country like Turkey. So what's the key to reaching someone like that spiritually? Spiritual key is really what the Lord is doing, I would say, on his kind of behind the scenes. There are people who are seekers who have become disillusioned for one reason or another with God
Islam or whatever other religion they might have, and they begin to search. Typically, the people that we know who have become followers of Christ in Turkey are those who responded to some sort of a public advertisement. In the early days in Turkey, they would put a small one-line ad in newspapers. Have you ever read the Injil or the New Testament? People would write into a post office box and
And over a period of time, sort of correspondence course methodology, people would be given names to visit and we would meet those people. And it was people who were already seeking and asking questions. And from among those people, we found some who repented and came to follow Christ. Is it mostly young people?
In the early days, early days for me being 40 years ago, roughly, it was mostly young single men. They were the only members of the society that were
free to do what they wanted without intense family pressure. They were expected to be a little, you know, to explore things. Single women, not so much so. Married couples had a lot more family connection pressures, so they were not investigating those kind of things so much. That has changed now with internet and with
many other radio and Turkish Christian television. George, tell me about your own calling to Turkey. How did that come about? And was there any resistance on your part early on? Did you go as a married man already? Tell me more about that. I went when I was 30. I was married to my wife, who was 28 at the time we met. We moved to Turkey in 1987.
I was working in Chicago as an architect. I worked five years here as an architect. And during that time frame, I had a Christian background, had been a believer for quite a few years. And during those five years working here, I was becoming more serious, reading books about knowing God, like J.I. Packer's classic, and began to read missionary biographies. And people gave me different ideas.
things to read and I was attending a monthly missionary meeting just as an attendee and helping to support and encourage that sort of thing in the churches that we were connected with. And gradually, month after month, meeting people, I began to sense that perhaps the Lord would call me, call us, began to look at the parts of the world where there was not a national indigenous church that could reach the population.
and the Muslim world came to the forefront. Eventually met some people from Turkey and over several years we pursued different contacts in Turkey. We visited 1984 and I was ready, my wife was not ready at that time. She was expecting Istanbul in those days was not beautiful. The Istanbul I described at the beginning of the discussion was not the way it was then. It was very dirty.
A very, still cold heat, massive city full of stray cats. And, you know, it was not a pleasant place to live and she was not feeling it at the time. I think I could understand why. Yeah, right. But so we prayed and we both felt, I felt very strongly that until we are both convinced and called to,
We would not go anywhere. And so we waited and the Lord spoke to my wife through various things, through reading the scriptures in different ways. And we both were persuaded and convinced that we were being called to Turkey probably around the end of September.
1986, we were sure. I quit my job as an architect in March of 1987, and we moved to Istanbul in August. So you raised your family there? We had a two-year-old. Our oldest daughter, Amy, was two years old when we went, and we had three more children. They were born in Turkey, and they all grew up knowing Istanbul as their home. They could all grow up speaking Turkish.
What was that early work like for you? What were some of the surprises you encountered? We didn't expect it to be an easy process. We were blessed by the hospitality and friendliness and helpfulness of Turkish people as we began to learn to live in the Turkish world, learned how to learn Turkish, began to just figure out how to live and have neighbors and all that sort of thing. We were
I think pleasantly surprised by how we were welcomed as foreigners, as people who couldn't speak the language. It gives me a great sympathy for those who arrive in the U.S. and can't really speak the language very well. They're outsiders. But you having lived in another country and been welcomed largely, so that would be one surprise. So you learned the language as you went? Yes.
Yes, we didn't know Turkish before we went. It's the kind of language that's better to learn by immersion. It must have been daunting. It was a challenging language. Eventually got to where...
can do radio programs in Turkish and teach. Everything we did was in Turkish. You can't do much in English in Turkey. So speaking Turkish, we met with two other families. That was another sort of surprise, I suppose you might say. We didn't go with a particular team ready-made, and we met a couple from Spain and another American couple who were there who were also praying about the same part of the city that we did, that we were, where we were living.
So we began to meet with these other two couples. Our only common language was Turkish. And we'll pick up George Bristow's story right there as we continue with this edition of First Person. Stay with us.
Hi, I'm Ed Cannon. And as you know, situations around the world are changing quickly. Stay current with FEBC's ministry and get a deeper understanding of people who need to find hope. Hear how you can feel the pulse of God's Spirit moving through the hearts of believers dedicated to reaching the lost. Be sure you join me for the podcast until all have heard. Discover how the gospel is making a difference around the world.
Search for Until All Have Heard on your favorite podcast platform or hear it online at febc.org. My guest is George Bristow. We're talking about his many years of ministry in the country of Turkey. I have so much I want to talk to you about. First of all, let's talk about your educational background. I mean, you were trained as an architect, right? That's right. I grew up in Pittsburgh, studied architecture.
Architecture, Carnegie Mellon University. All right. MBA at Northwestern in Chicago. Yeah. My father believed that architecture was a business. He was a businessman. He said, George, you need to get an MBA. So I got into Kellogg's School there and studied there. Didn't really like the business world so much, so I took a job as an architect. Okay. And eventually a Ph.D.?
Yeah, that was a completely different track. So I did not have formal theological training when we went to Turkey. We spent 20 years there and then we took a sabbatical year. I was more self-taught in reading and studying and that sort of thing. Went to Wheaton College in 2006. 2006, 2007 did a master's in theology there.
And that whetted my appetite, kind of gave us some retooling, and I did some study on Abraham in the Old Testament and beginning to think about it in the Quran, the Islamic book, the Islamic scriptures.
And who is Abraham to Muslims? Because they will always talk to you about Abraham. How has God used that training then on the field, so to speak, in the country of Turkey? In what ways have you seen God use you because of that experience? Yeah, I love architecture and still do, but kind of in one sense gave it up to go into this ministry.
But over the years in Turkey, there have been some opportunities, not formally, but informally to do architectural work. We were able to buy, with the help of supporters, to buy an apartment building, burned out building in Istanbul. And so, using some architectural background, we renovated it, turned it into a church building in the year 2000. And there are camp works during this period.
This recent earthquake in Turkey, for example, in the city of Antioch, which is in the southern part of Turkey. Where they were first called Christians. Exactly. Several months before the earthquake happened, some believers that I know from the southeastern Turkey down there where I had done teaching asked if I would use my architectural background and look over their ideas for a church building.
I had done that earlier in the city of Diyarbakir. And then, so I was able to draw some rough plans for them, look over their things, their plans. And then the earthquake happened and they had a Turkish architect at that time who had done the actual working drawings. And three floors had gone up.
And they were doing it right. Most of what was done was not according to code in the region, which is why there was so much death. But this building was, and so it stood, and it is now being finished down there. So having some connection with that project and some camp projects. God didn't waste that experience, did he? No, and every time one comes, an opportunity comes, I...
I enjoy it. I still like doing that. But even your theological training has served you well and served the kingdom well. And by the way, you're building the kingdom now with a different kind of architect. Well, I thought about that when I was leaving architecture. I loved architecture, designing buildings for people.
you know, for people, but we also, this idea of a spiritual building, the house of God, the church, building people into that grew in my understanding as a really important thing. Paul talks about, as an architect, I laid a foundation, a church planting. So, I was able to do some of that, yeah. Enjoy it. Tell me about your interaction with the imams in Turkey.
Yeah, so part of this dissertation that I did on Abraham in the comparative theology, meaning what does it mean, what does Abraham mean in the Bible?
For me as a Christian, from Old Testament to New Testament, from Abraham to Christ, to us as followers of Christ being true children of Abraham, being joined into the remnant of Israel, Jewish believers, Jews who believed in Jesus as the Messiah, that big picture is Abrahamic.
But in Turkey, Muslims would tell me that no, Islam is the true religion of Abraham. Abraham is a prophet. And so I did studies, research, began to research that. And part of that was interviewing imams, senior imams in the city of Istanbul. Imam being the clergy of a mosque, the teacher who will preach and lead the prayers there.
Interviewed these Turkish men. They very graciously gave me an hour or two of their time. And I asked them, who is Abraham to you? Why is Islam the religion of Abraham? When you do your Friday preaching at the mosque, how do you use Abraham as an example? What do you teach your children in the schools about Abraham?
What prayers that you, because Muslims will do recited prayers and it includes parts of the Quran. Why is Abraham so important in those prayers?
So there are many things we talked about with them, and it made for interesting discussion. I wanted them to read the Old Testament story of Abraham as well, and some of them were willing, and some of them said, no, it's been, either they said it's been changed, we don't have the original Torah, or they say, I'm not exonerated.
expert enough in your book to really give a certain answer. So some of them were not willing to do that. Would you describe it as a personal relationship with these imams or not? Is it just professional only? I have not been able to continue relationships with
The ten men that I interviewed, only with one of them did that continue over into other opportunities, and I visited them again. They were very friendly, very warm as we did it, and served tea, and we discussed these things. But I came to them as a doctoral researcher, so it was more professional level. Sure, yeah. But a seed was planted, you feel?
Well, I don't know. Part of what I was looking at, I hope so, part of what I was looking at was the question, is Abraham really a bridge? Because it's not easy for Christians and Muslims to talk with each other. We talk past each other because we have two different worldviews, even though there's a lot of common names like Abraham. And the question was, is Abraham really a bridge?
jumping off point to talk about the gospel, to lead towards the gospel. And to some extent it is, but the stories are so different. You know, Abraham in the Quran is just a model of all the other prophets. And to a Muslim, the greatest prophet is Muhammad, and Jesus is just one of the prophets. So Abraham fits that mold. Yeah. It's hard to crack that, isn't it?
It is. They do have a sacrifice story where Abraham offers his son. You have that same, quite similar to Genesis 22. There's some common ground, but most of it, it's like the characters from one great narrative have been taken and rewritten into another script.
The names are the same. You still have Job and Moses and Abraham and Noah and David and John the Baptist and Jesus and Solomon and others, Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob. They're all there, but they are all in a new story, and they all look quite a bit alike. They are all – it's more of a – instead of a narrative as we have in the Bible, they're all –
patterns. They're all in the same pattern when the pattern is Muhammad. It was just a prophet. A lot to overcome there then. Yeah, it's not an easy journey, but the key really, you asked earlier about the key. I think the key is Jesus himself, the stories, the gospel narratives. I think it's helpful to tell
Not to summarize the gospel as a series of little points, God loves you, Christ died for you, those are all truths that encapsulate the gospel, but the gospel is also the narrative, the story of Jesus, and Muslims don't believe usually that Jesus even died. But rather than arguing, yes, of course he died for our sins, he's the atoning sacrifice, rather than starting with that, it's perhaps a useful thing to
Just tell the story leading up to the final week of Jesus' life. Just tell it as it is presented to us as the gospel in the four gospels to tell those short narratives. And they are drawn to Jesus. They believe that Jesus is a great prophet. They even will believe, Muslims will even believe that Jesus perhaps is the only prophet
sinless prophet they believe he's virgin born so there are a lot of things to talk about with Jesus and to get when you get to the difficult issues like did Jesus die is Jesus God telling stories where those things come out in story form rather than doctrinal arguments from the Nicene Creed is more helpful I think
You've learned a lot in all those years living in Turkey, and you love the Turkish people. We do. Yeah, I do love the Turkish people. It's always amazing to me how God calls and places people in positions that are key to the advance of the gospel. We certainly heard from one of them today, George Bristow, who started as an architect but ended up helping build the body of Christ in Turkey.
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