Mitch Meets Mitch

I.                   Outreach, Outreach , Outreach!

As we enter the winter season and everyone’s favorite family holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas, we at Christian Witness to Israel North America are looking forward to what GOD has for us in 2023. To begin with, we have a Florida Outreach in January, a June outreach in Pittsburgh, an August outreach in New York, and hopefully a Denver Outreach in 2023, LORD willing.

It is exciting to do outreaches in various cities in North America but without getting the churches to continue the work of sharing the Gospel in their communities and with everyone that GOD puts in their lives, it is all in vain. I learned many years ago that the LORD keeps any of us who know HIM alive on this side of eternity for one reason. That is to use the gifts that GOD has given you to share the Gospel to all that HE puts on your path. The frustration of not being able to spread the “virus” of sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with all, is at the heart of evangelism.

May the church and every confessing believer catch the “virus” and listen to the Holy Spirit with all boldness and unashamedly share the Gospel message everywhere and to everyone in the world.

II.                A Mitch by Any Other Name…

In four years of being in the streets of Squirrel Hill I have never met another Mitch. Well last week, a friendly Jewish man asked me what we were doing. I told him all about the Shalom board and asked the infamous question about true peace. I introduced myself as Mitch and to my surprise he responded that his name was Mitch. That led to the beginning of a wonderful conversation about God, Jesus, and Mitch’s. Mitch had a great since of humor which helped us continue a fantastic talk about our lives growing up Jewish in this country. Mitch then asked me “How a nice Jewish Mitch from Brooklyn came to believe in Jesus?”.

You have got to love it when the Holy Spirit directs the conversation through the other person and makes the conversation flow so smoothly. Even though Mitch said that he was agnostic, that he was very open to hear more about Jesus. The best past was that after a good twenty plus minutes of conversation Mitch gave me his information and promised that he would allow me to take him out to breakfast in the next few weeks.

The two Mitch’s have a breakfast meeting in the first week of December after Thanksgiving week, LORD willing. Pray for this to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship as another Mitch meets his Messiah!

Mitch and Mitch

III.             My Burden

Many years ago it became obvious to me that I need to share the Gospel with everyone that GOD has put in my life, whether family, friends, or any stranger I meet along the way in my life journeys. To get to this place, we need good theology. This means we need to study The Word of GOD daily, have a good prayer life, be discipled by strong Christian brothers, and disciple those younger and weaker brothers to know and live this out in their lives.

As the universal church we need to get to a place in life that the Gospel flows out of us as the Holy Spirit uses us in our daily walk with Him. To make Jewish people a priority as Romans 1:16 states (“to the Jew first”), we first need to make evangelism a priority in our life. There are many people who profile and target certain groups for evangelism so specifically, that they miss out on opportunities to reach others with the Gospel.

May we all ask GOD to give us the boldness, “grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness,” (Acts 4:29), and unashamedly share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with all flesh.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16)

IV.            Prayer Points

1.     Pray for outreaches for 2023 (Florida, Pittsburgh, New York, Denver, and Heights) LORD willing.

2.     Pray for continued work with Jewish contacts, as well as new connections with Jewish Community Centers and nursing homes.

3.     Pray for a slew of church meetings moving forward.

4.     Pray for the time with my “atheist” dad and my sister in Florida this January.

5.     Pray for churches to wake-up to evangelism and the priority of Jewish people.

Amen and Shalom to all!

-Mitch Tepper, CWI Missionary