The streets of Vilvoorde leading to the church are quiet on Sunday morning, the Belgian pastry shops shuttered. Churchgoers pass beneath a 16th-century bricked archway on an otherwise modern street of apartments, a cell phone store, and a corner grocery. Inside the courtyard is a sign marking the Arab Evangelical Church of Vilvoorde and another beneath it reading in Dutch, In Jezus geloven wij, or “In Jesus we believe.”
Through the doorway the sounds of children and adult conversation bounce around a room of dark wood paneling and bright chandeliers. As families settle into chairs arranged in rows, a young man steps to a front platform and begins to read Psalm 40. He prays, and the worshippers stand to sing. The setting may be rusticated European, but the Scripture reading, prayer, and singing are in Arabic. Musical accompaniment comes from a Persian drum and an oud, a short-necked stringed...
