Messianic Synagogues.That Meet In
Churches?
By Rabbi/Brother Moshe Yoseph Koniuchowsky
As an infant movement re-birthed in the
late 1960’s, the modern Messianic Jewish synagogue movement, truly had little
choice regarding their meeting venues. Truly almost all the Messianic synagogues
had to nurse and nest under church roofs, since as a new born infant, she had no
ability to spread her wings and fend for herself. We in the movement ought to be
grateful for this shelter that these sponsoring churches provided for us in
order to allow the infant movement to be sheltered and encapsulated from much of
the pitfalls that any newborn movement would have encountered. No doubt that had
we not been under the church’s wings in those early days (late 60’s, early
70’s) ,the King Herod Antipas’s of this present wicked age, led by zealous
but blinded traditional Judaism and other loveless branches of Christendom,
would have tried to murder the movement, even as all of Bethlehem’s babies
under two were murdered. We must be grateful to those Christian Pastors and to
Hebrew Christian pioneers, who created a womb that was nice, cozy and warm,
wherein the infant movement could flourish. We must not forget our modern day
roots.
Just recently as I surfed the Messianic
synagogue congregational directory in the Messianic Times, I was struck by the
frequency of listings in which modern day synagogues still meet in churches,
mostly Baptist churches. My initial thought was that our growth and maturity as
a united movement, may not be as advanced as we’d like to think it is. A
maturing movement that has passed infancy needs to be crawling, walking and
standing on it own two feet.
Should Messianic assemblies continue
this disturbing trend of meeting in church buildings then there are several
repercussions that we must be prepared for, for surely they will take place.
Attacks will come from those outside the movement both by well meaning and by
some not so well meaning people. Our movement certainly does not need more
excess baggage, attached to its currently misunderstood theologies. Some of the
numerous wrong perceptions that are sure to come our way should this current
trend continue are:
- Messianic Nazarene Yisrael and Messianic
Judaism are just new church methods to convert Jews.
- Every Messianic work is in essence a
para-church ministry, run, funded and influenced by the historically anti-semitic
church system.
- The rabbi is in essence a
"church" staff member.
- The Messianic movement cannot
have been birthed by Yahweh, since it can't stand on its own and has never
severed its umbilical cord.
- The Shabbat service is merely one
"short hallway" away from the "main sanctuary" on
Sunday, where all good church folks should wind up.
There are many other strong and yet
false accusations that satan will prepare to throw at us, if we erroneously
continue to believe that Yahweh will not or cannot supply funding for us to be
totally autonomous, financially, governmentally and building wise. Of course Ha
Satan being the father of lies, continues to deceive many Messianic leaders into
staying in their safe womb like (rent free) church buildings. What happened to
true leadership and vision? What happened to faith, trust and dependence on
Yahweh? Don’t you think that the same Yahshua that was Yahweh-Yireh to Abraham
in Bereshit ( Genesis 22) will also be Yahweh-Yireh to you and your synagogue,
if you would only let Him? The same Elohim that birthed Messianic Judaism as a
prerequisite to Messianic Nazarene Yisrael, out of a sea of 2000 years of church
sponsored religious apostasy and anti-Semitism, is ready to provide for you if
you are willing to realize that the very essence of the Messianic Nazarene Yisrael
movement is to allow Jews and Ephraimites the incentive and freedom to remain
children of Israel, both during and after salvation, apart from churchianity and
"church settings". While we have removed offensive symbols generally
associated with Jewish sufferings from our meetings, we still meet in rooms that
will advertise these same symbols just a mere ten minutes after our
"Shabbat service" is over! Jewish people (saved and unsaved) sometimes
stand around after the meetings and carefully watch us put the cross back up on
the wall as we restore the room to its original setup. Jewish people are not
stupid or fooled easily. Either you and your people are functioning children of
Israel or you are church
religionists in costumes, masquerading Hebraic practices. Do traditional Jewish
synagogues allow so called "Christian" tenants to put up their cross
ten minutes after the Jewish service? Of course not! They are culturally
sensitive to their Jewish people! We must be no less sensitive to our brethren!
Obviously there may be some small
under-financed groups who must meet in a church facility. We do not in any way
condemn these groups. However we strongly believe that the presiding rabbi or
leadership of such groups, must have a large enough Messianic vision, to see the
church facility as the temporary and acceptable will of Yahshua and not His
perfect will. We would encourage these groups who are stuck "meeting in a
church" to strongly begin planning to move out and into a more proper
setting for a true synagogue, such as a storefront or plan on embarking on a
building construction project.
The real underlying question here is
not how big or small your congregation's budget is, rather how big your Yahweh
is! He birthed these two great movements, now let Him nurture it through its
growing years, by your obedience to oversee a Messianic Nazarene Yisraelite synagogue. Not
a church-agogue!
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