Showing posts with label Christ Church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christ Church. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Christ Church in Jerusalem, where Derek & Ruth Prince went to services. Walk with me, Steve Martin, Love For His People Ministry

 

Christ Church in Jerusalem, where Derek & Ruth Prince went to services. Walk with me, Steve Martin, Love For His People Ministry

April 30, 2023 Love For His People Ministry in Charlotte, North Carolina

Come walk with me inside Christ Church, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel, where Derek and Ruth Prince were members. Christ Chruch is the oldest church int he city. Steve Martin, Founder, Love For His People

Steve Martin

STEVE & LAURIE MARTIN - LOVE FOR HIS PEOPLE FOUNDERS My good wife Laurie and I (married 45 years), founded Love For His People Ministry in 2010. This work gives love and support to our friends in Israel and other nations with friendship and humanitarian aid. Through social media, Steve's messages, and our Ahava Adventures trips to Israel, the ministry is a growing, effective outreach. Steve has also authored and published 36 books. We live in the Charlotte, NC area and have four adult children, spouses, and eight grandkids. Ahava and shalom with blessings on ye head!

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

A Missionary Trap in Jerusalem's Old City? - Ryan Jones ISRAEL TODAY

A Missionary Trap in Jerusalem's Old City?

Tuesday, June 14, 2016 |  Ryan Jones  ISRAEL TODAY

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish anti-missionary groups were up in arms last week after a number of fellow Israeli Jews visited Christ Church, the oldest Protestant Church in the Middle East, during the annual Jerusalem Light Festival.
The Light Festival, which draws a large number of Israeli families, begins at the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City. Christ Church is situated just inside the gate, and opposite the Tower of David.
Given its prominent location along the Light Festival route, Christ Church was the backdrop for some of the first major light displays that visitors saw.
Naturally, Christ Church opened its gates and its popular coffee shop for any and all that wished to learn more about this steadfast Christian ministry.
In speaking to Artuz 7, the head of the anti-missionary group Lehava, Bentzi Gopshtain, expressed outrage.
Gopshtain claimed that Christ Church had deceptively lured unsuspecting Israeli Jews onto its premises and then presented them with material about “that guy”, meaning Yeshua.
The charge was nonsensical given that the gate of Christ Church, its coffee shop and the adjoining Christian Information Center are very clearly marked as Christian facilities. Those Jews who did enter most likely did so out of genuine curiosity.
Gopshtain and his crew were having none of it, and stood outside Christ Church for long hours holding signs reading “Warning: Missionaries” in order to dissuade fellow Jews from entering.
He seemed most perturbed by the fact that Christ Church houses a small museum featuring famous models of Jerusalem and the Temple. In fact, the sanctuary at Christ Church is littered with Hebrew inscriptions and biblical Jewish symbols.
To Gophshtain and those like him, this is a nefarious attempt to present “that guy in a Jewish disguise.” Such is the unfortunate history of Christianity that many Jews fail to recognize that Yeshua is every bit as Jewish as they.
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Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Israel Steps Up Efforts to Protect Christian Community


Israel Steps Up Efforts to Protect Christian Community



JERUSALEM, Israel -- Israel prides itself on protecting minorities within the Jewish state.

Still, some Christian sites have been attacked by fringe groups over the past few years, prompting government officials to take new steps to protect Israel's Christian community.

Dr. Moti Zaken, special advisor to Israel's Ministry of Internal Security on Minority Affairs, organized a series of meetings between government ministries and Christian leaders.

"We think it's very important that we will be cooperating to solve problems (and) to improve the relations because we value the Christian groups and their representatives as a very important asset to the Jewish state," Zaken told participants at the fourth meeting in the series.

David Pileggi serves as rector at Christ Church, the oldest Protestant church in the Middle East.

"Our relationship with Israel as the Christian community is good, but it can be better," Pileggi told CBN News. "What we appreciate about this meeting is that we can raise practical concerns and hear reports from different government ministries, the police, the army and find out how they are improving the situation for the Christian minority."

The government also wants to improve services to Christian pilgrims from around the world.

"It is one of the major, I would say, issues for the Ministry of Tourism to get to know how to approach the Christian world, both outside the country of course -- abroad, all over the world – and, of course, inside Israel," Ahuva Zaken with the Tourism Ministry told CBN News.

According to the Interior Ministry, that includes visas for Christians.

"We want to give a good answer to the Christian population, also to the Christian foundations in Israel, and this is also important to the State of Israel, and I am doing my job, to give every service with all my heart, whatever we can do to make things easier for the Christian population in Israel," Cesare Marjieh, director of Christian Communities for the Interior Ministry, told CBN News.

With Christians under severe persecution throughout the Middle East, Israel remains an island of refuge.

"It's the only country in the Middle East -- in the whole Middle East -- that actually has a growing Christian population so that says a lot because (in) all the other countries around this region, the Christians are fleeing as fast as they can because of the persecution, Islamic persecution," Chuck Kopp, senior pastor of Jerusalem's International Congregation, told CBN News. "So we can be happy that Christians are well represented and that they are an integral part of this country."

Pileggi believes Christians in Israel may have more freedom than their American counterparts.

"There's certainly no comparison between the Christian population here and what's happening all through the Middle East and in many places in Africa and China -- and certainly even in the United States. I would say that in many regards, we might have more religious freedom here in Israel than folks would back in the United States," Pileggi said.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Pakistani Christians Mourn Deadly Church Attacks

Pakistani Christians Mourn 

Deadly Church Attacks


The Christian community in Pakistan is in mourning Monday following Islamic attacks on two churches that left 14 people dead and more than 70 injured.


Christians gathered in protest throughout Pakistan as their tiny minority community prepared to bury the dead.

On Sunday, suicide bombers blew themselves up near two churches in the city of Lahore as Christians gathered for worship. The blasts occurred in quick succession in a Christian neighborhood known as Youhanabad.

Joseph Francis survived one of the bombings. He said the first blast occurred at a Catholic church where security was tight.

"Second attack was the Church of Pakistan, Christ Church, and two person is arrested at the moment," he said. "[They are] Pathan (Pashtun), so many people is injured. Personally, three dead bodies I can see in the Church of Pakistan (Christ Church). Mostly people is injured."

Christians took to the streets immediately after the bombings, demanding justice and an end to the targeting of their communities.

"We demand the government to provide protection to all places of worship of all religions, including Muslim prayer places," Father Bernard Yousus Bhatti, a local Christian community leader, said.

"In Pakistan, minorities are insecure and we want security. We are well wishers of Pakistan and loyal to the country," he added.

But instead of awaiting legal justice, some of the angry Pakistani protesters took matters into their own hands, burning to death one of the suspected bombing accomplices and reportedly killing another.

A faction of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the church attacks. Meanwhile, a police investigation continues.

Watch video: Pakistani Christians

Monday, December 1, 2014

Jerusalem Remembers General Who Halted WWI

Jerusalem Remembers General Who Halted WWI

Monday, December 01, 2014 |  Charles Gardner  ISRAEL TODAY
The World War I British officer who gave the order to lay down arms in 1918 is the subject of a year-long exhibition in Jerusalem that opened last week.
On the 50th anniversary of his death, Lt.-Gen. Sir William Dobbie’s life is being celebrated at Christ Church, an Anglican community with strong links to the family and located within the ancient walls of the Old City.
When in 1929 riots broke out in what was then part of the British Mandate of Palestine as Arabs became anxious about growing Jewish immigration, the then Brigadier Dobbie – a distant cousin of T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia fame) – successfully brought calm to the situation as he sought God’s guidance!
With very few troops and widespread disorder throughout the country, the career army officer and devout Christian was faced with a dilemma.
Rejecting outright such suggestions as placing the country under martial law or requesting RAF bombing raids on Arab villages, Dobbie turned to prayer.
It was hardly a textbook tactic but, when reinforcements arrived, he spread his men very thinly to cover as wide an area as possible, and the violence ceased in the early stages before things got out of hand.
Out of gratitude, the Jewish community of Hebron presented Dobbie with a silver Hebrew Bible.
As the staff officer on duty on November 11, 1918, Dobbie (then a Lt.-Col.) signed the telegram calling for hostilities to cease at 1100 hours. He actually fought on the front line in all three major wars of the twentieth century, starting with the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902. Then in April 1940 he came out of retirement and helped turn the tide of World War II as he led the defence of Malta, the most bombed place on earth.
Also covering the contributions his family have made to Israel’s welfare, the exhibition includes historic photographs, a film montage, Dobbie’s books and the silver Bible.
The general’s son, Colonel Orde Dobbie, was a member of Christ Church with his wife Flo while living in Jerusalem during the 1970s and 80s. And his grandson, Jos Johnston, has set up the exhibition.
In the foreword to his memoirs – A Very Present Help – Gen Dobbie wrote: 
“During the course of a long, varied and interesting military career I have had many tokens of God’s great goodness to me. I have seen his overruling control in my life and his guidance in my affairs… I desire to emphasise, especially to the rising generation, that it is a practical and intensely real thing to let Christ come into one’s life, and that today, as ever before, it is no vain thing to trust in the living God.”
And it was while commanding troops in the Holy Land in 1929 that he gave New Testaments to his soldiers, with the following inscription:
“You are stationed at the place where the central event in human history occurred – namely the crucifixion and death of the Son of God. You may see where this took place and you may read the details in this Book. As you do so, you cannot help being interested, but your interest will change into something far deeper when you realise that that event concerns you personally and that it was for your sake that the Son of God died on the cross here. The realisation of this fact cannot but produce a radical change in one’s life – and the study of this book will, under God’s guidance, help you to such a realisation.”
The oldest Protestant church in the Middle East, Christ Church is the headquarters in Israel of CMJ (Church’s Ministry among Jewish people), was built in 1847 to double as a chapel for the British consul, and continues to reach out to both Jew and Arab with the message of Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah.
PHOTO: General Dobbie pictured with his wife and daughter, both Sybil, in 1941 – the latter being mother to Jos, who has set up the exhibition.
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Sunday, May 25, 2014

Israeli Pastor Speaks of Mid-East Awakening - ISRAEL TODAY

Israeli Pastor Speaks of Mid-East Awakening

Sunday, May 25, 2014 |  Charles Gardner  ISRAEL TODAY
A Jesus movement among both Jews and Muslims in the Middle East has been described by a Japanese-American pastor as a spiritual awakening that has never been seen before.
Peter Tsukahira was addressing a conference in Jerusalem aimed at strengthening the bonds of reconciliation between the sons of Abraham (Isaac and Ishmael). An invitation-only event, At the Crossroads was hosted in the Old City by Christ Church, the oldest Protestant church in the region.
Arab, Iranian, Turkish and Kurdish delegates attending from countries perceived as enemies of Israel risked their lives to come and enjoy the hospitality of their Jewish brothers, quite apart from the fact that Christians are suffering severe persecution in many of the Muslim-background nations represented.
Pastor Tsukahira, who is co-leader of a church on Mt Carmel in the north of Israel made up of both Jews and Arabs, said an awakening was taking place along the so-called ‘Isaiah 19 Highway’, which runs from Egypt to Assyria (including much of the Arab Middle East) via Israel. The prophet Isaiah had foretold of a time when these nations would become a blessing to one another.
The pastor said the church at large was in danger of entering a ‘dark age’, but could change the world if they affected every facet of life and culture with biblical foundations.
“Christianity is at a crossroads,” said Tsukahira. “One day Islam is going to fall, and then the Christians are going to have to step up with the answer and fill the vacuum. However, the kingdom of God is more than a gospel of church growth.”
One area in which the church had failed over the centuries was in cutting itself off from its Hebraic roots. But the last few verses of the Old Testament (in Malachi) speaks of how the hearts of the fathers will turn to their children, and the children to their fathers – paving the way for the Messiah’s second coming.
This, he says, refers to Christians re-connecting with their Jewish founding fathers. After all, God’s promise to Abraham was that he would be a blessing to all nations.
“I think it’s like going to a long movie after the intermission. We never understand why it ends the way it does, or learn of the part played by characters earlier on.”
Tsukahira believes that a big breakthrough among Arab Moslems would come quickly and suddenly, and would provoke the Jews to jealousy, paving the way for Israel’s national acceptance of Jesus as Messiah.
Photo Credit: Carino Casas, Christ Church


Charles Gardner is author of Israel the ChosenHe recently reported live from At the Crossroads in Jerusalem. His previous reports can be found here:
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