by Rev. William E. Currie
December 1998
A look inside the Israeli Kehilah Church. A venerable building on a city street, a new structure rising near a subdivision, or a public facility rented with few or no questions. A line of cars dropping off passengers near the vestibule, or worshipers alighting from a city bus. Organs, choirs and drama teams. Pastors with seminary training. At least two, perhaps three Sunday services, with more activities throughout the week. The list could go on, as we tick off the amenities enjoyed by many of our local congregations in the United States. What does "church" mean in Israel? How would an Israeli believer describe his "church?" He would start by calling his congregation a kehilah, Hebrew for "assembly or congregation." Usually the word connotes a gathering of people for religious purposes. If you visited Israel and tried to find this believer’s kehilah, there would be no sign on a building or listing in the Yellow Pages to guide you. You would locate the assembly the same way any believer in Israel does – by the invitation of another Messianic Jew or through a tract or other leaflet. Back to the basics So many things we in the West take for granted in our churches are unavailable to Israeli believers. One of the most basic is a spacious meeting place owned or at least rented by the assembly. Few congregations in Israel can rent a building for the use of a Messianic assembly. Jewish owners of the building usually will not rent to them. If someone did rent a building to a Messianic assembly, religious Jews would probably come and ask to rent the same structure at a higher price so as to stop the believers from meeting there. The Jewish owner of a hospice in the Galilee was offered a higher rent by religious Jews seeking to close a kehilah. The religious Jews were not even going to use the building on Saturday, the kehilah’s meeting day. Fortunately, this owner continued to rent the hospice at the lower price to the assembly.Most of the kehilot (plural of kehilah) meet in private homes where they are squeezed for space as they grow. One new congregation in the Negev has been provided a meeting place by the founding elder who rented a home with a large salon where this sizable congregation could meet each Shabbat (Saturday). He pays the rent himself, though the home is larger and more costly than his family needs. But "home" to most Israelis, including most Messianic believers, means an apartment building. Few live in houses such as we are accustomed to in the United States. Houses (called villas) are too expensive, plus most Israelis like the security of an apartment building. (One couple even told me they need to live with the sound of people above, below and around them.) But to hold a meeting of believers who loudly sing, testify, preach and pray brings questions from neighbors. In one Galilee congregation the man living below the apartment meeting place grew hostile. He did all he could to disrupt the meetings by starting a smoky fire in a barbecue pit so that the smoke would float into the apartment above, where the windows were open to the fresh air required in Israel’s mid-summer heat. The kehilah purchased a large air conditioner, but the disruptions didn’t end; the man began to throw basketballs against his ceiling. The congregation grew in spite of the disruptions, and now rents a large villa on the edge of the city. This presents a new problem: getting people across town to services in a large city with no public transportation on Shabbat. The Israeli kehilot meet on Saturday because it is their only free day for worship. To meet on Sunday would drastically limit attendance by faithful believers since they must be at work on Yom Rishon (the first day of the week). But in many parts of the country everything shuts down on Shabbat with no buses or other forms of public transportation. Since there is hardly a church on every corner, some people walk long distances, are picked up by other believers, or hire a private Arab taxi to get to their place of worship. Once inside the service, language differences are an interesting but challenging factor. The opening song service only starts after believers have found a seat with their language group. Usually at least three or four languages, including Hebrew, are represented within each assembly. The many immigrants who don't speak fluent Hebrew must depend on a translator. Delays for translation, including discussion among several individuals about the meaning of a phrase, are common. Few kehilot take an offering during services. If an offering is to be received a box is provided in the room where believers can unobtrusively give. The very act of taking an offering can cause difficulty for the leaders of a congregation. Who places the money in the bank? In Israel one cannot set up a bank account for a church that is not legally recognized by the government. To gain that recognition requires an expensive legal process called amutah, which few congregations can pursue. If someone places the offering in a personal bank account there is not only the problem of keeping the sanctity of the funds but also the tax consequences. Elders in each kehilah usually take turns preaching. Sermons are typically exhortations about some area of the Christian walk such as outreach or personal devotions. Each elder tends to bring his own emphasis to the pulpit, so there is a great need in Israel for consistent expository teaching. There are very few full-time pastors in Israel. Only a handful receive a small wage for their ministry, so most work outside of their pastorates to support their families. There are also few seminary or Bible school-trained pastors, and few commentaries or helpful books for ministry written in Hebrew.
Growing assemblies reach out In spite of the difficulties faced by the Israeli kehilot, we have witnessed in our ministry in Israel over the past nine years a Church that is growing and coming alive in evangelistic outreach. Just look at these statistics (provided by the Messianic Action Committee, or MAC, a consortium of believers in Israel who lead the battle for recognition of the Messianic Jews in Israel as a legitimate movement): "In 1948 there were probably no more than a dozen believers who came to help settle the land. By 1990 the figure had grown to about 3,000, and today the estimate is nearly 7,000. This does not include those who have not made their profession public out of fear of the consequences. "Among Messianic Jews that arrived from the former Soviet countries it is thought that there are 2,000 believers; half came to faith while living in the Land. The Ethiopian congregations number their adherents at possibly 400. Considered estimates of Israeli-born Messianic Jews are between 750 and 800. "For the present, Messianic Jewish leadership is largely populated by immigrants from Western nations. However, these proportions are expected to change in the years ahead, with one-third to one-half of our community still minors. As they mature to adulthood, they are expected to be more assertive, more linguistically authentic, and without other national roots. It is this future prospect that, for some, causes our small numbers to be so threatening." When my wife and I came to Israel in 1990 for a year of ministry we saw 12 to 13 congregations scattered throughout the Land. Today there are 53 congregations and approximately 70 home groups, again according to the MAC. Indeed there is scarcely a town in Israel that does not have some form of witness for the Messiah. In addition, many kehilot are actively involved in reaching out to their Jewish friends, new immigrants, and foreign workers from Europe and China who are in Israel under contract to large building trades firms. Hundreds of these workers have made professions of faith and have been baptized while in Israel. Bible classes are held among them, led by people who know their languages. Believers work together to see them return to their native lands as witnessess to spread the Gospel. One such Bible class is led by a Romanian Messianic Jew and an Arab Christian doctor. This illustrates the somewhat limited, but growing cooperation between Jewish and Arab believers. I often speak in a congregation in the Galilee where an Arab believer from a nearby village comes to the service. He translates Hebrew to Russian for those in the service who understand only Russian, and has also started a Bible class among Muslim people in his village. It’s exciting to see individuals such as this Arab believer making an impact on the Church in Israel! "I had a lot to learn" What are some of the major challenges facing the Israeli kehilot? The proposed Pinchasi bill now before the Knesset is the most unsettling. This bill proposes: "Anyone who preaches with the goal of causing any other person to change his religion is liable to three years imprisonment or a 50,000 Shekel ($12,500) fine." Passage of this bill would make the witness of both Messianic Jews and Arab believers in Israel illegal. At present the bill is awaiting the first of three required votes in a full session of the Knesset. Another serious challenge is the recent significant increase of persecution of believers in Israel by the ultra-Orthodox movement. One incident occurred in late November when a congregation in Beersheva was surrounded by an estimated several hundred screaming ultra-Orthodox Jews. The police had to escort the 30 frightened believers and their children to the police station for safety. Such incidents are increasing throughout Israel, even though the kehilot are meeting legally. A third challenge to the assemblies is the often hidden doctrinal agendas brought to Israel by believers from other countries. Pushing such personal viewpoints can divide the Church, and will only make Messianic Jews more foreign to unsaved Israelis they are seeking to win to Messiah. During my first visit to Israel to work with the kehilot I discovered that I had a lot to learn! Initially I questioned the lack of any signs outside the places of meeting, the custom of services on Saturday, and the lack of celebration of holy days such as Christmas and Easter. My biases rebelled against these seeming heretical practices. But I learned that God is not turning out "little blue marbles" who are all alike in every way. Israeli believers accept their Jewishness, still trusting the finished work of Messiah on the cross for their salvation, while also remembering cultural observances that are as Biblical and meaningful to them as Christmas and Easter are to us. SUBHEAD: The completed Church Praying for the peace of Jerusalem is not to pray that political peace would come to the Land (it won’t until the Messiah returns to reign following the Tribulation), but that the promised remnant of Romans 11:5 will come to Messiah. Pray for the congregations in Israel. Pray as they deal with the practical issues of meeting space and transportation. Pray that God would raise up more pastors, with more and better training in the Word. Pray as believers in Israel face resistance, harrassment, and sometimes persecution. Pray that their numbers would continue to grow, and that they would continue to be bold in their outreach. Pray that the Church will be completed in Israel, as well as throughout the world.
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