Israel Summit Ends with Praise, Pledge to Prayer

By John Waage

CBN News Sr. Editor

Monday, February 09, 2015

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LOVELAND, Colorado -- Participants in the first gathering of FIRM, the Fellowship of Israel-Related Ministries, closed their three-day summit Friday evening with the launching of a new website and an affirmation of founder Wayne Hilsden's call to pledge 1 percent of his day -- 14 minutes daily -- to pray for Israel and the Jewish people and for God's purposes to be fulfilled on earth.

One of the youngest members of FIRM, 22 year-old Michael Mistretta, introduced the closing speaker, 80 year-old Pastor Jack Hayford, founding pastor of Church on the Way in Van Nuys, Calif., who told several hundred people in attendance that the future of Israel is one of the central spiritual battles of our generation.

The leaders placed special emphasis on the younger generation throughout the summit, and on the last day, hundreds of high school students heard an exhortation from Calev Myers, an Israeli human rights attorney and activist dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism around the world and spotlighting injustices against Palestinians by their own people.

Hilsden, co-founding pastor of King of Kings Community, stressed the importance of humility for Christians in approaching the global conflict over Israel.  One of FIRM's central scriptures is from the apostle Paul's letter to Ephesians:  "Remember that at one time, you were separated from the Messiah, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.  But now in the Messiah Jesus -- you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah."  (Ephesians 2:12-13).

Hilsden says the group will expand its outreach through the website and other projects, but that the success of the collective effort to bless Israel and the other peoples of the Middle East in a time of growing persecution is prayer from individual Christians and Messianic believers on every continent.

Young Israeli Believers Boldly Share Their Faith

Thursday, January 29, 2015 |  David Lazarus   ISRAEL TODAY

"A lot of Messianic friends said that they were encouraged to speak out about their faith once I took the step of openly talking about Yeshua on national TV," Shai told Israel Today

The full interview appears in the February 2015 issue of Israel Today Magazine.
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Messianic Believers in Israel

Jewish anti-missionaries take on Messianic believers

Thursday, May 23, 2013 |  Israel Today Staff  

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Messianic Jews

The ultra-Orthodox organization Yad L'Achim has long been a thorn in the side of Israel's Messianic Jewish community. Sometimes more than a thorn - Jack Teitel, the Jewish terrorist who almost killed Messianic youth Ami Ortiz, is believed to have strong ties to the group.

Now Yad L'Achim is targeting a blossoming Messianic community in the coastal city of Bat Yam. The local edition of the Hebrew daily Yediot Ahronot reported earlier this month that Yad L'Achim had received many complaints from residents upset about receiving "missionary material."

According to the article, local Messianic believers had visited homes in the area to share their faith. Yad L'Achim backers quoted in the piece also took offense at the reported recent founding of a new Messianic congregation, which they tried to paint as a "cult-ish" and "secretive" enterprise.

"We have a problem dealing with this issue, because the meetings take place in a private residential home in one of the apartment buildings so that naturally the activity there is very hidden and secretive," said one rabbi.

Oded Raban, a local Messianic Jew, refuted such nonsense, telling the paper that “there is nothing inappropriate in the [Messianic community's] activities ... [there is] no truth in the claims that we behave in an underhand manner. And if it comes across that way, the only reason is that we face such extreme antagonism, that it doesn’t leave us with many options.”

Raban reiterated what many other Messianic Israelis have stressed before:

"We have tens of thousands of believers in this country, and we are all citizens of this state. We are loyal to it, serve in the army, give to it, but our worldview is slightly different from other Jews’, and for that reason, other Jews see us as an anomaly. We, as our Jewish brothers, believe in God and see Him as the center of everything in this world."