Posts

Cafe Night

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We have  had two wonderful coffee shop night events.  When we started the Gospel Cafe Thursday night events in 2005, we never dreamed of the success that such an event would generate. Our idea was fairly simple. People who may be interested in getting to know us as Messianic Jews might not be comfortable going to a congregational service. So I sat with a group of friends and we planned a coffee shop event, one night a week. We wanted a cool atmosphere that would create opportunities to discuss spiritual things. That's how the Gospel Cafe was born.  In 2005, about 35-50 people came every Thursday and the numbers grew to average about 120 on Thursday nights in 2010. After not having this event open since 2013, we reopened again this month (September 2017). It will take us some time to build a new crowd, but looking at the numbers there is one set of numbers that means the most to me. In 2012, FORTY FIVE people came to faith through this event. I can't know for sure how many

Family Update

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Today is the Day of Atonement I'm sitting down to write this on the morning before Yom Hakipurim (the Day of Atonement). There is a mixture of anticipation, excitement, reflection and contemplation. The typical Israeli greeting leading up to this Biblical Holy day is "GEMAR HATIMA TOVAH" meaning, "may your name to be sealed in the book." As believers in Messiah, this greeting is a difficult one to respond to. We have a promise from our Messiah that our names are ALREADY sealed in the Book of Life.  The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!”  And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.  Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.  Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”  (Luke 10:17-20). &

Several Great Events last week

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Over the last couple of weeks, we had a few amazing events with lots of people coming. At one event, about 50 people came and among them were about 12 that don't yet know Messiah. The host of this event is a student that will be volunteering with us in the USA, while going to college. He organized a time of prayer, praise and worship. Everyone had a wonderful time and the Gospel was transmitted through love not, necessarily words. These kinds of events are really important for us right now, so that people, especially believers learn about our center and how they can minister with us.  At the events we held over the last two weeks, Jason had several conversations with believers about how they can be a part of what we are doing! This week we have a couple more exciting activities. We are organizing a meeting for volunteers and musicians who would like to perform at our "cafe night." And we also have our first parenting workshop, this Friday.  It was amazing fo

AWESOME event

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Almost two dozen "not-yet-believers" came to hang-out and catch up. There's more to the story... Our ministry, Chosen People Ministries, operates a Youth Hostel in New Zealand and as part of their outreach, they offer Israeli backpackers three free nights. Several of these backpackers were invited to "reunion" back in Israel at our Greater Tel Aviv Messianic Center. They had a great time and so did we!

Physical Needs for the Greater Tel Aviv Messianic Center

Some people have asked if we have any needs at the Greater Tel Aviv Messianic Center. At the moment, there are needs and you can help if you would like. Here's a list of things that we would really love to have. But before you get too excited, please keep in mind that if you want to buy something and ship it to us (which would be awesome!) that Israeli customs does make some things a little more challenging. Any package that has a value of $75 is taxed 17% by the recipient. And that doesn't mean that they assume the sender valued it correctly, they have their own price lists.  In many cases, it's probably easiest to purchase things locally here in Israel, but certainly, you can send something in the mail if you want, as long as the package is valued less than $75. List of needs: 1. A simultaneous Translation system 2. COOL coffee mugs. We really need these! 3. Stage Lighting. We need a few of these.  or similar. 4. Children's Books in English - Big ones for rea

Parenting Workshop Update

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This seminar will fill an important need by providing parents with significant parenting tools that are catered to and designed for parents with young kids. The course is specifically targeting the needs of parents in their preparation to cope with the Israeli public education system. There is a real need for this kind of workshop and we are excited that we are able to provide meaningful help. For most of the people coming, this will be their first time ever meeting a Jewish believer. It will likely be their first time that a professional uses the Jewish scriptures as relevant source material in a lecture and it will likely be the first time these Israelis will ever have the opportunity to ask a believer questions about our faith in Yeshua (Jesus). One of our goals is first and foremost to be faithful representatives for Messiah, by sharing HIS love. We also hope that this workshop series will help overcome many of the misconceptions that Israelis have about the Gospel and about Yeshua

Story hour

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 A couple weeks ago, we began an English story hour. One of our native English speakers reads a couple of stories for children in English and for about an hour we keep them non-native English speakers immersed in the English language. We have done this for two weeks in a row now and  we think it's working pretty well. To begin with we have only invited a few families because we want to build a solid core group before opening it up to the general public.  So far, the response seems to be pretty good.  We ran into one dad on the street shortly after the class and he reported that his son thought the English story hour was "awesome!" It's exciting to see how engaged the  children are in spite of the vast age differences. We split the groups into two by level so that those are the capability of reading will have the opportunity to do so. Of course the goal for us, is to provide a service that's needed, and also meet the spiritual needs of the parents while the c