Russia's Messianic Jews to Strategize for Intensive Outreach

By Michelle A. Vu, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Some 100 Russian Jewish church planters gathered Tuesday to kick-off the first training conference event focused on ways to share the Gospel with Russian Jews.

Jewish leaders will meet for five days, Sept. 5-9, for intensive training, networking and discussions aimed at reaching Russian Jews with the Gospel and increasing the number and quality of Russian Messianic Jewish congregations. The On the Rock training program, held in Berlin, is designed especially for national missionaries among Russian Jews from countries both within and outside the former Soviet Union.

New York-based Chosen People Ministries noted that although Russia’s Jewish population numbers about 3 million, there are less than half a dozen ministries specializing in evangelism and planting churches among Russian Jews.

Get Our Latest News for FREE

Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.

Subscribe

The training conference is addressing this issue by accepting 50 percent of its participating leaders from nations that were formerly part of the Soviet Union and the rest from a “broad cross-section of Diaspora Russian Jewish communities.”

Speakers are all natives of the former Soviet Union and speak Russian as their first language. They are each successful Russian Messianic church planters with years of experience, according to CPM.

The conference is sponsored by Chosen People Ministries, the Friends of Soviet Jewry and other ministries among the Jewish people.

Chosen People Ministries, founded in 1894, is a ministry focused on evangelism among Jewish people. The organization has staff in 12 countries and starts Messianic Centers and Congregations.