Gateway Teams

"Herodian" - the great man-made fortress constructed by Herod the Great in the first century BC just south of Bethlehem.

GYI Israel continued...


March 9, 2008 (journal)

Each of the next 3 full days of the GYI conference would be literally packed with morning and evening sessions as well as full afternoons in Jerusalem. Sunday March 9th started with a great session (the worship team, a multi-national group of conference participants, was great at each session) where Mark Tittley from J-Life based in South Africa shared what was for me the message with the most impact during the entire conference. Mark shared about ‘My Religion Meets the Master’ emphasizing how Jesus confronts us with the Kingdom of God and how it seems to be glaringly lacking in our Gospel presentations and at odds with religious culture and the culture at large. Profound insights regarding ‘religion’ were presented as well regarding the fact that Jesus observed religious practices, James described acceptable religion and Christianity being a religion is not a call to legalism but a call for people to enter the Kingdom of God!

Mark really struck a chord with me. And it was great because that afternoon while we were in Bethlehem (go figure!) having lunch, Mark asked sat across from me and we were discussing his message and really resonating on many topics as well as current Christian authors/leaders that were inspiring us and Mark’s message that morning (can you say ‘The Secret Message of Jesus’)!

But let me back up, before we would go to Bethlehem, it was necessary for us to cross into the West Bank territory which is occupied by the Palestinians. The difference between this area and Israel is quite graphic, namely because of the huge wall separating the West Bank and Bethlehem from Israel. Old images of Berlin and new images suggesting a wall between the US and Mexico were mentioned by many….
Part of the West Bank wall at Bethlehem seperating the Palestinian occupied territory from Israel.

But, we continued through Bethlehem (for now) and on to the Herodian; a massive man-made hill south of Bethlehem constructed by Herod the Great (Rome’s appointed ‘King of the Jews’ when Jesus was born in the first century BC). It is an incredible fortress that Herod constructed largely to protect himself from his enemies which he amassed in quite a large number by his policies as well as his paranoia (he killed many members of his own family out of suspicion). There were many tunnels, sisterns and much of the palace ruins intact that we had the chance to go through. We also heard Dann Spader share with us about these fields being where the shepherds of the Christmas story heard the angel chorus, right there in the shadow of Herod’s palace.

After Herodian, we went to lunch in Bethlehem (as was mentioned above) sang Christmas Carols (!) and listened to the testimony of a Palestinian pastor (Johannon) who has and still does endure incredible hardships as a Christian, but even more because of his ethnicity. Pastor Johannon shared how God had used dreams to draw him to Himself and he asked us to pray for Palestinian Christians and their plight behind these walls…. We also saw an incredible (and huge) scale model of Jerusalem at the time of Christ that had the entire temple constructed.

Pastor Johannon sharing with us over lunch in Bethlehem.

Our evening session (and the other 2 to follow) was one of worship and debriefing what we had experienced that day which was very helpful for the whole day’s experience.