Jesus walks the edges. Wherever centers form, the calling of Jesus becomes clearer: find me at the margins. For Christians and Muslims caught up in the struggle for control - political power, cultural superiority, numbers - this book is an invitation to a better path.
And the key is simple: become guests of one another. Good guestwork teaches us to be better peacemakers. It frees us from the traps of violence, rigid identities, and competition. It delivers us from false and half gospels. It gives us fresh courage and creativity to witness to our faith. Good guestwork also makes us into better hosts. We come to the Scriptures with new eyes, and find both our neighbors and ourselves on its pages.
Most important of all, becoming strangers allows us to witness genuine miracles: relationships between Muslims and Christians transformed from hostility to love. The author draws from personal experiences of pain and joy as a guest in Somaliland, Zanzibar, Chad, Iran, and more. Peacemakers in Kenya, Burkina Faso, and Indonesia give insight into the power of good guestwork.
Ideologies of separation and security are captivating religious communities. Finding Jesus at the edges is not just an optional path for his followers - it is the only way. The opportunities are waiting for us - to leave the comfort of the center and find Jesus as the guest of the religious other. Good guestwork is a liberation that is sorely needed: a missiology of peacemaking, of evangelism, of welcoming and becoming strangers.
Peter M. Sensenig has served with Mennonite mission agencies in majority-Muslim East and Central Africa since 2015. Born in Eswatini, he was ordained in Mennonite Church USA in 2008. He holds degrees from Eastern Mennonite University and Palmer Theological Seminary, and a PhD in Theology, Christian ethics concentration from Fuller Theological Seminary. Peter has done multi-faith peacebuilding work in Chad, Tanzania, and Somaliland. At the Zanzibar Interfaith Center (Tanzania), he and his team developed an interfaith peacebuilding diploma program. Additionally, he has taught and presented in such diverse contexts as Iran, Ethiopia, Denmark, Kenya, Sweden, Oman, Djibouti, Congo-Kinshasa, and the US. His book Peace Clan: Mennonite Peacemaking in Somalia describes an Anabaptist missiological approach in an Islamic society. In partnership with the organization Discover Islam, Peter was a writer and host of the Allies for Peace film series (2021).Along with his spouse Christy, Peter is a member of Eastern Mennonite Missions' Christian-Muslim Relations Team. With this team they connect to a broad network of Christians building life-giving relationships with Muslim people in many different parts of the world. They also relate to churches in North America, encouraging Christ-followers in every context to reach out to Muslim neighbors as guests and hosts.
