mission statement
Thursday, 08 July 2010 19:22
According to our understanding of Bible prophecy, all those who worship the true Creator of heaven and earth share a common destiny, regardless of their communal identity. We see our mission task as sensitizing Seventh-day Adventists to Jewish concerns in order to effectively communicate our experience of God. We are a people of hope. At Beth Shalom Seventh-day Adventist we dare to hope that the power of repentance is stronger than the historic estrangement between Israel and the Church.
our challenge
Why would anyone even attempt joint Jewish and Christian worship? For longer than anybody can remember Jews and Christians have happily been separate. Indeed, our respective self-identities have largely been defined in conscious distinction over against each other. While we wouldn't wish to ignore the good things we've each developed during our time apart, we believe God is leading us to once again share our walk with him. For Seventh-day Adventist Christians joining the Jewish people in spreading the joy of Torah obedience is an integral part of our mission task. We understand ourselves to be a movement called by God to recover ancient truth and ancient forms of obedience which were lost during a long period of oppression. Traditionally, we've understood ourselves in terms of "repairer of the breach, restorer of streets to dwell in" [Isaiah 58:19]. For Jewish people in turn, rubbing shoulders with another vibrant Shabbat-worshiping community strengthens the Jewish aspiration that someday all God's children will "serve him with one shoulder" [Zephaniah 3:9]. As the traditional alenu prayer has it, God's oneness will come to full expression in the unity of his children: "the L-rd will be one and his name will be one" [Zechariah 14:9]. This aspiration may be closer to realization than we've imagined. We believe the challenge of joint Jewish/Christian worship is worth the risk.
