by Asher Intrater
August, 2004
Revival in
Yet before all
And before having even a
few saved, sometimes it feels that we are completely alone ("For I also am
an Israelite" - Romans 11:1). It all starts with
each individual person's decision. Those Messianic Jews who came to the Lord in
the late 60's or early 70's remember the experience of "I must be the only
one ..."
Revival for
At the turn of the year
2,000, we reached the point of 7,000 believers in
By faith, we envision
144,000 believers in Yeshua (Jesus) who are
Dave Garrison, in his new
book, "Church Planting Movements" (WIGT press, 2004) gives an
insightful analysis of massive revivals over the last decade, particularly in
Dave notes that a team of
people, which he calls "church planting strategy coordinators", often plays a key role in fostering the revivals. In our
terminology, we refer to this as a "five-fold" or
"apostolic" ministry team (Ephesians 4:1-16).
The concept of training local believers to multiply congregations throughout
For this reason my
intention is not to become a pastor myself of a congregation, but to
"equip" others to lead their own. This is a transition from being a
"player" to being more of a "coach". Yeshua Himself was a
revival preacher, but He placed more importance on training the twelve to
multiply the kingdom after He was gone. Following this example, Betty and I are
looking to invest our lives in 12 young men and 12 young women, to help them
fulfill their destinies, and in turn train others.
A pastor focuses on
tending the flock, an evangelist on reaching the lost, a teacher on discipling the saints through the Scriptures and a prophet
on responding to the Holy Spirit. An apostolic ministry team seeks to combine
and coordinate these gift ministries into the goal of multiplying
congregations. Planting new congregations is the distinctive mark of apostolic
ministry.
The key to multiplying
congregations is to train local believers to be able to lead home cells. Some
of those are called to be cell leaders within a larger congregation, and others
are called to start new congregations. For this reason, our program will focus
on a discipleship-training center. The goal is to train, send out and provide
long-term "back up" for home cell/congregation leaders.
The DTC will include
daily prayer and praise ministry in which the prophetic gifts will be
encouraged. We will plan strategic evangelistic outreaches, as well as personal
sharing with "not-yet-believers." And of course there will be daily
teaching and impartation from the scriptures. For each of the trainees, we seek
to have a local pastor take charge of the personal mentoring and follow-up.
[Note: Along with these
ministries, we must always remember to give to the poor. Revive Israel
Ministries is involved in three funds that provide financial assistance to
needy believers in
The vision is for
national revival in
The backing comes from a
network of prayer support from believers around the world. Paul prefaced his
prophecy that "All Israel will be saved" with the condition that the
international community of faith would first receive revelation about the
importance of revival and restoration in
One of the godly benefits
of the Internet is that it provides a network of prayer, information and unity
in His body internationally. It is so important for us to link up with
Christians around the world in our weekly email update in order to pray in an
informed and accurate way concerning end-time events in
Simply stated, here's our strategy from the Lord:
1) International prayer network [the backing]
2) Discipleship training center [the program]
a. Prophetic prayer and praise
b. Evangelistic outreaches
c. Teaching to produce local leaders
3) Multiplying congregations [the goal]
4) Revival in Israel [the vision].
Thank you for standing in
agreement with us as partners for the restoration of the kingdom to
İOctober, 2003: Our guiding vision is for a great revival in the nation of
Romans
11:28
"And so all
The core of this revival
is that myriads of local Israelis will come to faith in Yeshua. We have set our
goal to be a part of God's work in this land to see 200,000 Israelis come to
salvation.
While this number may
seem outlandish to some people at this time, we do not see it as unrealistic,
as God will give us grace. In the mid 70's there were barely a few thousand
Jewish believers in Yeshua (Jesus) in the
At the fall of communism
in
Since the late 1970's
there has been a steady, albeit slow, growth of local Israelis who believe in
Yeshua, particularly from secular Israeli backgrounds. We believe that the next
decade will show a rapid increase of faith in Yeshua among local Israelis.
Commission
for Revival and Restoration
We find a commission and
guidelines for this revival in the following discussion between Yeshua and his
disciples:
Acts
1:6-8
"When they were gathered together, they asked Him, saying, 'Lord, will you
at this time restore the kingdom to
The season for revival
and restoration of
From these words of
Yeshua we understand that revival here will have three basic parts:
1. An outpouring of the
Holy Spirit and power among the believers within
2. Wide spread evangelism to local Israelis across the country.
3. A positive and Godly influence upon the government and society of
Following these
guidelines we find our first step to be fostering the move of the Holy Spirit,
together with all the prophetic gifts, among the believers in
Some
Personal Background
During the 1980's I was
privileged to serve in a network of ministries that later became known as Tikkun International. The director of that ministry is Dan Juster, and has included such men of God as Eitan Shiskoff, Paul Wilbur,
Michael Brown, Thurlow Switzer, Don Finto, and many others too numerous to mention here. My
international ministry connection remains with the Tikkun
network to this day. During the 1980's I was involved with them in such
projects as Beth Messiah Congregation in
In the early and mid
1990's, after our immigration to
In the mid to late 1990's
I was privileged to serve as assistant to Ilan Zamir, (who has gone on to be with the Lord), in helping to
establish the Messianic Jewish Alliance of Israel and
During that time, both in
discussions with Ilan, and in an ever-growing burden
in my personal prayer life, I saw the need for native-born Israelis to come to
salvation in Yeshua. This became a passionate desire of my heart. I began to
seek new avenues to be able to share the gospel with Israelis.
At that time I started to
work together with Rachel Natanel. We began to share
the gospel in personal home settings. We were surprised at the openness of
Israelis to hear the gospel when it was presented to them in love, in the
anointing of the Holy Spirit, in Hebrew, and in an Israeli cultural setting.
At that time as well, a
young Israeli woman by the name of Sarah, from an ultra-orthodox background,
came to faith in Yeshua together with us. Her faith resulted in persecution
against her (including beatings), and general attacks against us from the
ultra-orthodox. With both Rachel and Sarah, we saw many new opportunities,
breakthroughs, and challenges for evangelism in
In the late 1990's, I
joined and began preaching at congregation Tifferet
Yeshua in Tel Aviv, led by Pastor Ari Sorkoram and Elder Eddie Santoro. We had a similar vision
for the power of the Holy Spirit, direct evangelism, and a totally Hebrew-Sabra cultural framework for the congregation. We began to
see great spiritual blessing in the congregation.
At that time I was split
between the personal evangelism ministry in
During this year (2003)
we began to see again yet another break through as the pastoral and
evangelistic ministries were combined. We have seen a steady stream of new,
native-born Israelis come to faith in Yeshua and join the congregation. This
has been an exciting and unprecedented experience.
Through this season of
harvest we find ourselves blessed with a new challenge: How to raise up new
cell group and ministry leaders, and how to multiply these beginning streams of
revival across the country. It is with this challenge in mind that the Lord has
been renewing in our hearts the vision for a comprehensive and intensive
discipleship training center, located in the Judean hills outside of Jerusalem,
which would serve the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and surrounding areas.
http://www.revive-israel.org/