Habbakuk 2
I will stand at my watchpost; I will station myself on the rampart.
I will look to see what [God] will say through me and what I will answer when I am reproved.
Then Adonai answered me; he said, “Write down the vision clearly on tablets, so that even a runner can read it.
For the vision is meant for its appointed time; it speaks of the end, and it does not lie.
It may take a while, but wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay."
OUR PURPOSE, VISION, MISSION AND GOALS
The purpose for which this Congregation and spiritual community exists is to glorify God, to worship Him in spirit and truth, and to serve Him in full submission and surrender.
As a Congregation, it is our vision to establish and maintain a place of convocational worship of the One True God – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – according to the Holy Scriptures and to urge Jewish and Gentile believers to become true disciples devoted to serving Messiah Yeshua and one another.
In response to the Great Commission outlined in scripture (Matthew 28:18-20), it is our mission to proclaim through word and deed the Good News of the love of God in the redemptive sacrifice that Messiah Yeshua provided to the world, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile (Romans 1:16).
Our goal therefore is to train up the body of Messiah for the work of the ministry: to become disciples spreading the Good News of Yeshua, to promote unity between Jew and Gentile in the Messiah, and to foster worship, instruction, fellowship, and accountability in Him.
Understanding the roots of faith in God through Yeshua the Messiah, we are committed to rekindling the understanding of and teaching the inherent Jewish foundation of all the Scriptures in order to...
...proclaim Yeshua (Jesus of Nazareth) as the Messiah of Israel and of the whole world
...be witnesses of His resurrection and the indwelling power of the Ruach HaKodesh [Holy Spirit]
...bring Jew and Gentile alike to a redemptive knowledge of Yeshua through faith in His sacrifice as the full and only atonement for all of mankind's sin
...provide believers in Messiah Yeshua an opportunity for weekly Shabbat worship and annual Feast days' convocational fellowship in accordance with the Holy Scriptures
...foster the spiritual growth of those who have received Yeshua as Messiah into their lives, which comes only by a life fully surrendered to Him
...provide for the spiritual education of both adults and children in a manner consistent with and in fulfillment of the Holy Scriptures
...advocate, among the body of believers in Yeshua, a reconciliation between Jew and Gentile and a restoration of the first century Jewish roots of the Faith
...provide a setting where believers in Messiah Yeshua who have acknowledged a call to the restoration of first century Jewish roots of the Faith can express their faith without compromise
...identify all believers in Messiah - Jew and Gentile alike - as natural as well as adopted members into the original “Olive Tree,” of equal value and preciousness to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
...identify with, uphold, support, love and defend in obedience to scripture and in fulfillment of biblical prophecy, the Jewish people and their importance to the world and to worldwide redemption as well as the right of self-determination without persecution of the Nation-State of Israel - the historical and biblical homeland of the Jewish people
...support worthwhile and biblically sound causes that promote the Good News of Messiah through active and practical participation
...impact our local and other communities for good through charitable giving, involvement in community programs, and practical activities that promote God’s love for humanity
WHO ARE WE?
We are a Spirit-filled, Scripturally-founded, uncompromisingly prophetic ministry of reconciliation and restoration, proclaiming revival to the world and each other in preparation for the second coming of our Messiah Yeshua.
Beth Yeshua means House of Salvation - House of Jesus. He is whom we are about. We realize that whether we are Jewish believers in the Jewish Messiah or Gentile believers and grafted into the original olive tree, we are brought equally into a profoundly intimate relationship with God (Romans 11:23) through Yeshua. We are family - a living example of what the bible means when it says, "Jew and Gentile, one in Messiah" (Ephesians 2:11-13).
CBY is a place for everyone who wants to celebrate their faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is just as importantly a place for those who are seeking to find their Creator and want to explore more of the uniquness of Who scripture claims to be the One True God of creation. To be clear, we are not called to help people become more Jewish. We are called to help people become more "Goddish" - more like Yeshua.
By the same token, we all know that Yeshua is Jewish and since we are all partakers in the rich sap of the original olive tree (Ephesians 3:6) and fellow citizens of the commonwealth of Israel (Ephesians 2:19), we realize our faith is rooted deeply in the Judaism of the bible. It is the faith of Jesus, the faith of the original followers of our Messiah. Jesus did not come to establish a new religion, but to fulfill an eternal promise. It's not US - the Messianic Community, and THEM - the Christian Community...but rather WE, the Believing Community, united as one in Messiah.
Our congregational family consists of committed followers of the God that is the same yesterday, today and forever, the God of Israel (Luke 1:68), and our relationship with Him is established through the atoning blood of Messiah Yeshua (Isaiah 53:1-10) - the King of Israel (John 1:49).
HOW MIGHT WE BE DIFFERENT?
There are differences in the way we all express ourselves when it comes to our faith. The Messianic Community recognizes several things based on a purely biblical precedence:
THE MESSIANIC MOVEMENT - THE EARLIEST BELIEVERS?
The Messianic Movement is not a "new" denomination. In fact, it is not a denomination at all. It is a spiritual renaissance. In differentiating from historical Rabbinic Judaism, the Messianic Movement predates the destruction of the second temple in 70 AD. After the Temple was destroyed, the Rabbis had to reorganize Judaism. They did so by emphasizing the Oral Traditions (Oral Law), the requirements and rules that broadly expounded upon the biblical narrative. Their writings and commentaries are contained in the Talmud - the Mishnah and the Gemara - the central texts of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (halakha).
In contrast, the Messianic movement relies entirely on Scripture, while gleaning wisdom and inisght from all historical Jewish thought and debate as we reflect on its applicability to Scripture - both the Tanakh (what some call the "Old Testament") and the writings of the New Covenant (what some call the "New Testament"). Our faith is the faith of the Bible, "Biblical Judaism," and is centered on the Messiah and the ultimate redemption that comes through Him. We now have direct access to God (Hebrews 4:16) because of the great atoning work of Yeshua the Messiah, He alone is the ultimate fulfillment of true Biblical Judaism.
Historically, Yeshua was Jewish (Matthew 1:1-2), was raised in a Jewish home (Luke 2:21-23), and ministered to Jewish people in a Jewish land (Luke 4:15-16). His disciples and early followers were all Jewish. The writers of the Bible were Jewish. And for a time, the faith was exclusively Jewish (Romans 9:4-5). It is estimated that there were upwards of 1 million Messianic Jews in and around the first century.
Today, there are tens of thousands of Jewish believers, and many many more Gentile believers who have captured the beauty of the Messianic movement with congregations in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, North and South America. In fact, Beth Yeshua International has planted flourishing congregations in Kenya, India, Germany, Australia, Ethiopia and elsewhere.
Jeremiah 31
“Here, the days are coming,” says Adonai, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Isra’el and with the house of Y’hudah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day I took them by their hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt; because they, for their part, violated my covenant, even though I, for my part, was a husband to them,” says Adonai. “For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Isra’el after those days,” says Adonai: “I will put my Torah within them and write it on their hearts; I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will any of them teach his fellow community member or his brother, ‘Know Adonai’; for all will know me, from the least of them to the greatest; because I will forgive their wickednesses and remember their sins no more.”