‘His Heart Beats for the Lost’

by Linda Piepenbrink

Honoring him for his tireless service as a professor of Intercultural Studies since 1997, Moody Bible Institute presented Dr. Samuel Naaman with the 2024 Faculty Citation Award during its annual Founder’s Week Bible conference on October 25.

“I can’t think of a colleague who’s more worthy of the award,” says Moody Provost Dr. Tim Sisk, who has worked with Dr. Naaman for two decades. “I’ve always been challenged by his passion for missions; he doesn’t lose it! He practices it, he lives it out.”

Dedicated to serve God and Muslims

Born and raised in Pakistan, Dr. Naaman has been passionate about reaching his own people with the gospel since February 1980. As a college student, he encountered an outreach team from Operation Mobilization, a global evangelism ministry founded by Moody alumnus George Verwer. “I saw their zeal on the streets sharing the gospel, and I heard their testimonies and thought, How come they’re so zealous?” He soon rededicated his life to Christ and joined OM as a missions worker.

“We faced many difficulties,” says Dr. Naaman, who completed a degree in Social Work while serving with OM and Cru. “Many times we were hit or spat upon. Sometimes we were thrown in prison. All of this drew us closer to God as we learned to trust Him more.”

Dr. Naaman’s renewed zeal was an answer to prayer for his parents, who had dedicated their son to full-time Christian service at birth when they named him after the faithful Old Testament prophet Samuel. His father had converted from Islam and served as a pastor and evangelist, suffering persecution and death threats for preaching the gospel.

Dr. Naaman was working on his MDiv and a ThM in Korea when he heard the news that his brother had been assassinated—shot dead in Pakistan—because of his father’s evangelistic work. The Muslims had carried out their threat to harm his family if he didn’t stop preaching.

Urged to not return home to Pakistan, Dr. Naaman finished his degrees and followed his parents’ wishes to serve the Lord in the US. He earned a doctorate in Missiology from Asbury Theological Seminary of World Missions, compelled by a passion for reaching East Asians, especially Muslims.

“Islam is one of the world religions, 1,400 years old,” he says. “Over a billion Muslims and adherents are there. Jesus died for them and they’re lost, and we need to bring the gospel to them.”

Reaching South Asians, teaching students

After much prayer, he and a group of missionaries started the South Asian Friendship Center (SAFC) in the heart of the Indian marketplace in Chicago. “This is the first center of its kind to reach Muslims and Hindus in North America,” he says. It was 1997, the same year he was hired to teach Intro to Islam at Moody. Students began fulfilling their weekly Practical Christian Ministries assignment at SAFC, and Dr. Naaman soon added courses like Contemporary Islam and Islamic History. Full time at Moody since 2000, he teaches World Religions, Intercultural Engagement, and Making and Leading Disciples to undergraduate students as well as missions courses in Moody Theological Seminary.

Whether tutoring children, teaching English, witnessing on Devon Street, or helping refugees through SAFC, many of Dr. Naaman’s students have applied what they’ve learned and gone on to serve overseas.

“I’m inspired by Dr. Naaman’s passion,” says Ellie, an Intercultural Studies major who attends Sabka Sahaara Church, a storefront church on Devon Street that partners with SAFC in offering homework centers and worship in Urdu/Hindi.

Staying connected with his homeland

Dr. Naaman also serves as vice president of Call of Hope, an organization focused on ministry in 27 Islamic countries from the Middle East and Africa to Southeast Asia. He ministers in the Muslim world at least once each year.

In August 2023, for example, when 29 churches and hundreds of homes of poor Christians in Jaranwala, Pakistan, were burned down by Muslim extremists, Dr. Naaman traveled there within weeks to encourage and pray with the pastors and displaced families as well as network to provide help.

“That’s the kind of person you want as a professor around students so that they catch that passion and that vision that he has,” Dr. Sisk says. “When we needed someone to run the Missions Conference, he jumped up and grabbed it, directing it for four or five years. And it’s not an easy task, but he did it with joy.

“I attribute much of my understanding of missions in the Muslim world to Sam,” adds Dr. Sisk, whose missionary service took place in Japan and Bolivia prior to working at Moody. “He’s made me a more well-rounded missiologist.”

‘His heart beats for the lost’

Rev. Stefano Fehr, president of Call of Hope US, has traveled to various mission fields around the world with Dr. Naaman for nearly two decades and is thrilled to celebrate his recognition with the Faculty Citation Award.

“I have personally witnessed his tireless devotion to the mission field and his unwavering commitment to bringing the message of Jesus Christ to Muslims,” he says. “His heart beats for the lost, and despite the dangers he may face during his journeys to Pakistan and other nations, he walks forward with steadfast faith, trusting fully in God's guidance. We are deeply thankful for Dr. Naaman’s selfless dedication and his inspiring efforts to advance the kingdom of God around the world.”

‘I have come back with a new zeal’

Dr. Naaman recently returned energized from the 50th anniversary of the Lausanne movement in South Korea, where he traveled with two Intercultural Studies colleagues, Andy Pflederer and Travis Williamson. He attended the third Lausanne conference with Dr. Sisk in South Africa in 2010. (The first Congress on World Evangelization was established by Rev. Billy Graham in 1974.)

“I have come back with a new zeal to be sensitive and learn from the new generation,” Dr. Naaman says, referring, for example, to the need to adopt and adapt to 21st-century technology. “What can I learn from them that will empower me and them both?

He is also excited to teach what he learned about collaboration, the urgency of gospel proclamation, and the importance of intergenerational discipleship—“all critical for the future of missions.”

The conference drew 5,000 Christians and was an opportunity to highlight Moody. “The name of Moody globally is very well respected,” says Dr. Naaman, who also connected with a growing WhatsApp group, Evangelical Muslim Outreach.

Mentoring students to embrace evangelism and missions

Dr. Naaman maintains relationships with former students here and abroad, responding to their newsletters and sharing their prayer requests. Recently he visited a graduate who operates a community garden and ministry center in a Muslim community in Michigan.

“It was a joy to see his ministry among Muslims and how warmly they have accepted him and his family for over 11 years,” he says. “This area was a total run-down area with a lot of drug joints. But he and his team have been a shining light for Jesus.”

Dr. Naaman continually shares what the Lord is doing and makes students aware of opportunities they can invest in, such as attending the Summit on Opposing Antisemitism cohosted by Moody and Chosen People Ministries on November 9.

“Moody students are the best trained—I am not exaggerating,” he says. “I have seen a lot of Christian colleges here where evangelism and missions are not the focus, not even emphasized that much. But for us here at Moody, the centrality of the Word of God and Christ is very, very important.

“We are creating practitioners. Of course we want them to be scholars too. But ultimately, we are training soul winners. And our students are soul winners wherever they are because that’s their DNA.”

At home and beyond

Dr. Naaman and his wife, Deborah, adopted two boys from Mother Theresa’s home in Pakistan—Blaise in 2002 and David in 2005. Without regret, his wife set aside her medical career as a doctor to stay home and tend to David’s special needs. Today David is in a transitional program in Elgin, Illinois, and Blaise is completing a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling at Moody Theological Seminary. He has also traveled with his dad on mission trips.

“Blaise had a fruitful time of ministry in Macedonia, Greece, and Albania for eight weeks of summer ministry,” Dr. Naaman says.

With each new generation, Dr. Naaman’s fervent dedication to discipling students for the Lord’s service continues. “I want them to realize, to have the eyes of Christ and see the lostness around them. Secondly, I want them to remember the uniqueness of Christ, that Christ is the only way. There is no salvation in Islam, in Hinduism, in Buddhism, in all the isms we’ll cover.

“Third, when Christ is the only way and we have the good news, then it is incumbent on us to be a soul winner. Every generation will do it in their own way, and that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be my way. But the passion to be a soul winner is foundational. Life will be full of pain and persecution, but remember that you have been called to serve Christ.

“Once you have that DNA, you can go anywhere and serve. Start across the street, then across the ocean. We need solid churches in this country that will produce people who will carry on gospel proclamation. Go ahead and plant churches—and be passionate.”