The articles below were written by our chairman, Rev Phil Hill, 
for Baptist Times (1) and Evangelicals Now (2) in 2003.

(1) NEW DEVELOPMENTS WITH BAPTISTS IN ISRAEL

Four years ago, the Bedfordshire Association (now part of Central Association) began a twinning relationship with the Association of Baptist Churches in Israel (the ABC). These strongly evangelical believers have nineteen congregations, thirteen of which are Arabic-speaking, two are Hebrew-speaking, two are Spanish-speaking, one is Filipino, and one is Russian-speaking.

Interest in this work continues to grow more widely among Baptists, with the result that the twinning relationship has been put on a broader footing by the establishment of a charitable trust: Baptist Twinning In Israel. From the outset, it became apparent to the Association Twinning Committee that interest in Israel was bound to be more widespread than just one association. The political situation brings Israel into the public eye regularly. Furthermore, many people believe that Israel holds a special significance in God’s purposes, and are glad to know not only of God working among Jewish Israelis, but Arab Israelis also. Indeed, the well-respected organisation Prayer For Israel has recently adopted the Arab congregation of Cana in Galilee for prayer and financial support. Peter Eyre, secretary of the Twinning charity, says, ‘As the word spreads about the Arab work in Israel, more and more people are seeing the need to pray for, and support the work’.

Recently, a group of eleven ministers and laypeople visited Israel to meet the churches and share together in ways to strengthen support for twinning. All of them returned inspired and enthusiastic to see their links grow. Bill Ives, minister of a High Street Baptist Church, Tring, said of his experience, ‘The privilege is all ours because these people are inspiring in their faith and courage’. Revd Peter Eyre commented, ‘Though the work in Israel is small, its needs are great and we need to raise as much support as we can’. Another party member came home convinced that, ‘We have to tell the story of these people to the evangelical Churches of Britain. And not only that, they need us to become a part of their story as well’. 

Churches and individuals can engage in this work in numerous ways, from receiving prayer information to developing a formal twinning relationship with one of the congregations in Israel.

(2) ISRAEL – A DIFFERENT ANGLE

Many evangelicals pray for Israel and the need to see Jewish people turn to their Messiah. Few have any awareness that an evangelical work has been going on among the Arabs of Israel and Palestine since the 1920s. Southern Baptist missionaries took advantage of new liberties offered under the British Protectorate and began church planting among the indigenous Arab population. Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, this work has been divided into separate Israeli and Palestinian groups. The group in Israel is known as the Association of Baptist Churches in Israel (the ABC). It consists of 13 Arabic-speaking congregations, together with 2 which are Hebrew-speaking, 2 Spanish-speaking, 1 Filipino and 1 Russian-speaking. The 
total membership of these churches is around 1500 and this is the largest single evangelical body in Israel. The ABC is exclusively conservative in its theology, for example taking a strong stance against women pastors. Some hold to Premillennial beliefs about the restoration of Israel, while many younger Arab believers are increasingly exploring Amillennialism. Israel has not always been fair to its Arab citizens, but these evangelical believers welcome and respect the parliamentary democracy under which they now live. 

Those are some bare facts about these courageous and spiritual people. They fail to convey the reality of their Biblical faithfulness, their close fellowship and their missionary vision. When you meet these believers, you meet people with a passion for God. Nothing else can sustain them, given their precarious position in Israeli society. 

Take, for example, their neglect by western Christians. The Arab believers live mainly in Galilee, where for generations now they have watched thousands of Christian tourists pass them by, visiting the ‘dead stones’ but not the ‘living stones’ of Israel. They have felt desperately alone in their struggle to maintain a faithful witness to Christ.

Then there is their diminutive stature in the population of the country. They are a minority of Arabs in a Jewish state. Within that minority they belong to a minority of Christians in a largely Moslem Arab population. And within that minority (about 130,000 people) they are a minority of evangelicals in a predominantly Catholic and Orthodox group of people. On one hand, the Moslems berate their desire to win all people for Christ. On the other, many priests seek to turn the traditional Christian community against them by branding them members of a cult, akin to the Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses. Despite this, they are regularly seeing people turn to Christ.

Finally, add to this mixture the fact that unemployment is high among Israeli Arabs, while at the same time wages are generally lower than for Jewish citizens. Consequently, the ABC churches face a constant struggle to maintain any premises they own, to engage in mission activities, or to train and support pastors. Indeed, few of the pastors have adequate training and virtually none are paid enough to provide for their families.

In short, these are people who need to hear from their fellow evangelicals around the world. They need, above all, encouragement: such as letters, emails, and visits. But they also need financial help to fulfil their mission to Israel. Despite their smallness, their aim is to plant twenty new congregations in the next ten years.

To respond to these needs, a new charity has been established: Baptist Twinning With Israel. The charity aims to facilitate relationships with the ABC on behalf of any church or individual who is able to endorse the evangelical basis of the Twinning relationship. It offers regular prayer information, low-cost familiarisation tours to visit the ABC churches, information about the needs in Israel, and a means of developing a twinning relationship with churches in Israel.

One example of a twinning relationship is my own church in Leighton Buzzard. We set aside finance so that the ministers can visit Haifa Baptist Church once a year and so that at least one person from Haifa can visit us. We exchange prayer information regularly, have encouraged individual members to enter into personal correspondence with members of the church, and we contribute to the pastor’s salary. Next year, we shall be taking about thirty church members to hold a joint conference with the Haifa church at a Christian residential centre near Tel Aviv. Our young people are especially looking forward to building relationships with their counterparts in Haifa. Our experience is that God has enriched us greatly through our relationship. We have been inspired by our Arab brothers and sisters in Christ, especially by their biblical faithfulness, their courage under severe difficulty, their love for the Lord, and the way in which they so freely bless those who persecute them. We feel that the privilege is ours, rather than theirs, in this  relationship. Ours is a fairly large church with good financial resources, but this is not essential. 

There are churches of thirty members who are building twinning relationships. 
The story of the Arab church in Israel remains largely untold in the west. Readers who would like to know more, receive a visit from a representative, make a gift, visit the churches in Israel, or explore a twinning relationship, are invited to contact us.