A New Congregation.

[All Becomes New]

Hello.

I have started attending a new congregation. It is both part of the Evangelical Free Church and the Chosen People Ministries.

I really enjoy it! I will still try to go to my other church, which my father, mother, and brother attend, but since there are no time conflicts, I can go to both.

The question I would have is if this could be considered a Messianic Congregation. I ask because even though they are part of Chosen People Ministries, they are also a part of the Evangelical Free Church. So they would be hard to categorize, I think.

The preaching is great, the corporate worship is great, and they do communion every Sunday, which I love.

 

[tampasteve]

Hmm, without knowing more on their specific beliefs it is hard to say for sure. But it sounds more "messianic leaning" than actually Messianic. By and large, most Messianic congregations worship on the Biblical Sabbath (Friday night to Saturday night), observe the Jewish holy days, observe some level of Kashrut, etc.

There are some Messianic congregations that are affiliated with major Protestant denominations, including a branch of the Seventh Day Adventists - but again they worship on the Sabbath as well. Honestly, the Sunday worship is a "problem" for being considered a congregation that is truly aligned with Messianic Judaism as most all Messianic's believe in some level of the necessity of the Biblical Sabbath, the Sabbath matters a lot to Messianic Believers.

Most MJ believers tend to see ourselves as a branch of Judaism, not a branch of the "Church", although there is of course a very wide spectrum of how that plays out. You have everything from people adamantly refusing to be called a "Christian" because of the historic connotations, to people that are perfectly happy in either a church or synagogue. MJ is a very big tent.

It is important to not let other people define your faith, if you do that then you won't ever feel "accepted". The different streams of Judaism don't always accept each other, and certainly don't always accept each other's conversions. None of them recognize Messianic Judaism as a valid stream of Judaism at all, they consider Jews that believe in Yeshua to be apostates. Simply taking steps to be more aligned with the 1st century Church and how that likely really looked and worked is a great start.

 

[tampasteve]

I should add, not all Messianic or Hebrew Christian groups or organizations follow what I wrote above. There are some groups that are intertwined with a denomination and follow those denominational teachings but incorporate some Judaica into their worship or prayer life. For example, there are groups of Hebrew Catholics that believe and follow the Catholic Churches teachings but also incorporate some Jewish lifecycle and such into their lives. These groups are usually mostly comprised of ethnically Jewish people that convert to Christianity, Sunday Christianity as it were, but don't want to give up all of their "Jewishness" in their conversion, it helps them preserve their identity and heritage but within the "normal" Christian church structure.