August 26, 2007

About 200 years ago an immigrant to the United States was asking a lot of questions about his denomination’s traditional church doctrine. He was challenging those beliefs in ways that would shape the face of the religious experience for millions of people. Thomas Campbell went on to write some of the earliest works later identified with the Restoration Movement, and his son, Alexander, built on those foundations through independent partnerships with other leaders such as Barton W. Stone.

About two decades ago, an Arab preacher living in northern Israel began asking some of the same kinds of questions. He was preaching in a denominational church, but then nearly everyone who was preaching Christianity in Israel was doing so in a denomination of some sort.

This modern-day Galilean, Suhail Ramadan, was not only asking questions about doctrine. He was teaching the love and grace of Jesus Christ for everyone, even the Muslims in nearby villages and the Israeli “occupiers” of what used to be his family’s homeland.

Suhail was also reaching across denominational lines. With the number of believing Christians in the Holy Land dropping dramatically, and with help from Christians around the world declining, Arab-Israeli believers felt more and more “on their own” in the kingdom. Suhail believed they needed to work harder to be brothers and not competitors.

Just two years ago the Convention of Evangelical Churches was formed in Israel and invited all believers to come together for prayer, worship, and fellowship. More than 400 people attended that first gathering; this was nearly 5 percent of the identified evangelicals in the entire nation. On the organizing committee of this new movement was a man named Saleem Hanna, a longtime educator from Nazareth.

A few months before, Saleem had acknowledged God’s call on him to the full-time ministry and had his last name legally changed. Saleem felt the name Ramadan was too connected with the Muslim faith and feared it would be an obstacle in ministry, so with the blessing of his father he took the last name of his Christian ancestors from several generations back.

This preacher’s kid, the son of Suhail Ramadan, was building on the foundations laid by his father and others for unification and reconciliation among Arab-Israeli believers. That movement has now extended into the Jewish Messianic community, which may make up as many as half of the believers in Israel. Unprecedented meetings and ministry are now taking place between Jews and Arabs in the name of Christ Jesus.

At Saleem’s side is his wife and partner, Andera. She has a degree in special education and taught in a school in Turan for more than a dozen years before responding to God’s call on her life. She now helps lead five other couples that have come together asking the same question: How do we seek God and worship him in the name of his Son and in the model of the New Testament church, without the baggage of denominational traditions and creeds?

God’s Call
Saleem began verbalizing his questions in April 2003. That’s when he told Andera that God was calling him to something more than he could imagine in the ministry. He was not comfortable with the calling but said it was unmistakable.

In that same month a man unknown to Saleem and Andera, George Awwad, suddenly died at his home just north of Jerusalem. George had been working alone for more than two decades supported by a group of U.S. Christian church preachers and leaders organized as the Christian HolyLand Foundation, Inc. (CHLF).

The CHLF executive committee looked for two years for someone to take up George’s work and to continue benevolence and evangelism in the Holy Land. The committee grew weary of the search and considered shutting down because God had not shown them a man to replace George.

In April 2005, two members of the committee traveled to Nazareth to interview six men who had been recommended by various ministries with ties to the Middle East. Their task was to interview the men in their homes and identify the best candidate to CHLF.

From the first night when they fellowshiped with all six families together, both committee members were convicted this was already a team of evangelists. They were already trying to do what the Christian HolyLand Foundation was hoping to do, and a way needed to be found to come alongside these men and women to proclaim the New Testament message in Israel. Each committee member was reluctant to share his convictions with the other because of the absurdity of picking up salaries for six families. But it became so obvious this was God’s leading that when they made the recommendation to the whole executive committee, the response was a resounding and unanimous affirmation to hire all six!

When someone asked how they were going to pay for it, the very serious response from one of the longtime members of the committee was, “That’s God’s problem. He wouldn’t have brought us to this point if he didn’t have a plan for the details.”

A partnership agreement was signed with all six families in June 2005, and in March 2007 the government of Israel officially recognized the ministry as an Amuta, or nonprofit organization.

Showing the Love of Jesus
This work has been labeled by some as the Israeli Restoration Movement. Significantly, these Arabs had never heard of Campbell or Stone. They didn’t know about the Restoration Movement, and for the most part still don’t. They didn’t know what happened in the 19th century when these questions were asked repeatedly in the United States. They didn’t know what would happen when they began asking these questions in Israel.

Not all of the questions have been answered, of course. But six families in Israel are now working full-time as a team of the Christian HolyLand Foundation: Hani and Shifa Billan in Cana, Bishara and Randa Khazen in Banni, Elias and Rose Obeid in Turan, Ibrahim and Ekhlass Sadran in Cana, Hanna and Lina Eid in Eliboun, and Saleem and Andera in Nazareth.

Four of the six men left higher-paying jobs to work with CHLF, and it wasn’t because of job security. They all understood from the first day what a step of faith this is for CHLF. They all believe that something more than they can hope or imagine is coming to the kingdom, their lives, their communities, and to their nation. And they have a front-row seat.

This Israeli team of Arab evangelists has not set out to create a new movement to be like the Americans. As Saleem has said repeatedly, “We do not know where this is taking us or what God’s desire for this is, outside of our reaching out every day to our broken friends and neighbors who need to see the love of Jesus Christ lived out in their community.”

In other words, they have accepted the work they are called to do, but recognize the results will belong to Jesus Christ who has called them.

John W. Samples is American team leader for the Christian HolyLand Foundation. He lives in Noblesville, Indiana. John C. Samples is his father and a member of the CHLF Executive Committee, and is on staff at East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis.