Newsletter

Reconciliation World Watch


MEN AS INTERCESSORS

The massive repentance prayer rally in Washington D.C. mobilized more male intercessors than perhaps any other event in history. Promise Keepers is expanding its vision repentance, intercession and reconciliation and hopes to become a worldwide movement. John Dawson, who led the segment on racial reconciliation in Washington, believes that the recent movement of reconciliation between cultures is a prelude to the biggest healing of all. He believes that the wounds inflicted by men and women on each other constitute the fundamental fault line running beneath all other human conflicts. Deborah and Barach type partnerships in leadership have become increasingly evident in the prayer movements of today. It seems that God will allow the Church to be troubled with continuing controversy until our traditions line up with His true intention for male and female in ministry.

REPENTENCE PROCLAMATIONS

Japan
Linked with days of fasting and repentance on December 8th (the day of Japan's Declaration of War) and August 15th (the day of Japan's defeat), the Nippon Revival Association has released a proclamation of repentance to governments, members of the international press and the international church and their representative organizations. In addition, traveling delegations of Japanese intercessors will offer apologies in several countries.

England
Linked with a Prayer Summit for intercessors from the Commonwealth in London, June 1998, a proclamation of repentance will be discussed by English delegates and communicated internationally. Recent news from the U.K. Tony Blair, Prime Minister, apologized in May, 1997 for the English sins in relation to the Irish Potato Famine. Announcing that he is also ready to apologize to the Irish Catholic community over the Londonderry indiscriminate shooting of civilians by the British army in the 1970's. This incident triggered the era of terrorism in North Ireland.

Australia
British reconciliation leaders Brian Mills and Roger Mitchell will travel with a team of British intercessors for multiple events in every state. All major events will include aboriginal participation.

UNITY IN MESSIANIC COMMUNITY INCREASES
The UMJC and the MJAA are the two main international alliances of Messianic Jewish congregations. There has been a history of conflict and distrust between the two groups but recently significant reconciliation has taken place culminating in an exchange of representatives and warm fellowship during the international conventions of both groups.

BREAKTHROUGH IN JEWISH/GENTILE UNITY
The MJAA News Brief, a newsletter which has been serving the Messianic community since 1915, reports on a recent conference involving 1400 Rabbis and delegates.

For the first time ever, we had a Gentile Christian address the conference at a main evening meeting. Well-known Christian leader John Dawson of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) one of the world's largest Christian missions, was invited to speak. John has been involved for several years in the reconciliation movement (i.e. helping to bring healing and unity among various divided people groups). He has close relations with many leaders within the Messianic community and has a heart for our Jewish people.

After speaking at the evening conference, John Dawson and Don Finto (pastor of the Belmont Church in Nashville, TN) as representatives of the Christian world knelt down before the crowd of 1,400 and confessed many of the sins of persecution by the church against the Messianic Jewish community and the Jewish people.

The response of the people was overwhelming. The honesty and the humility of the confession released a spirit of love and unity between the Messianic Jewish community represented there and the Gentile Christians in attendance. The atmosphere was electric in the presence of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit). There was much weeping as well as rejoicing.

More to Come
This conference was just a taste of what is in store for us in our prophetic future. Many of our leadership can foresee the scenario of repentance being repeated on larger stages. As never before, we will see healing between the emerging Messianic community and the Gentile Christian world. It is simply God's time.

PRAYER JOURNEYS

Among the huge number of prayer journeys dealing with reconciliation issues are two significant initiatives dealing with residual antagonisms from the Spanish Inquisition and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The Inquisition
The first significant breach in the foundations of Church history occurred around 140 AD when Gentile Church fathers began to reject the honor previously given to Jewish believers. The rebirth of Messianic Jewish congregations in the last thirty years has provided the opportunity for repentance and healing of this ancient division. 1800 years of Christian anti-Semitism is coming to an end. The following is one intercessor's report of the historic prayer journey just completed in March 1998.

We were joined in the south of Spain by representatives from fourteen countries, including many of the main leaders of the international Messianic Jewish networks, Spanish pastors, and three Catholic leaders, including a leading theologian priest sent by his bishop and a high level representative of a cardinal. In each city we were joined by local Christian leaders.

Picture the ancient throne room of Ferdinand and Isabella in the Alhambra near Grenada. The palace is buzzing with tourists coming to see where Columbus was commissioned. In walks a large crowd of Christians speaking different languages, including a contingent of Jews wearing yarmulke. The whole atmosphere changes from gaiety to grief. It was here that the expulsion of the Jews from Spain was proclaimed by these same Christian monarchs five hundred years ago. A Catholic priest and a Protestant Spanish pastor lead out in a statement of repentance to the Jews and the throne room is turned into a solemn place of prayer as the intercessors grieve before God over the sins of the church.

Come with me to the hilltop site of the ancient council of Elvira. Here only three hundred years after the Jewish messiah gave his life for all peoples, the first anti-Semitic decrees were made by Christian leaders. One decree disallowed a Jew to even bless a field, stating that it would amount to a curse. Hear the repentance of the Spanish intercessors and the proclamation of blessing from the messianic rabbis as they look down on the twinkling lights of the cities and villages below. Night is falling, but a spiritual light is rising over Spain as the ancient Hebrew blessing is spoken over the land once again.

Stand in the ancient synagogue in Cordoba. The Jews are weeping. Grieving for the thriving community of their forefathers that is gone completely. Swept out of homes and country by brutal edicts enforced by the sword.

Worst of all, witness the devastation on Jewish faces when they gaze up at the cross of Jesus on the cathedral in Toledo. The high walls of a church still festooned with hundreds of rusted chains and manacles once used to hang Jews as a public example to terrify the large Jewish community into conversion or flight. They cannot stand it. Walking away one Jewish woman sits in the dusts, uncaring of the hostile crowd. The rest gather around her sobbing. The Gentile Christians simply hold them. It seems there are no appropriate words. They are still silently embraced as the plaza empties and night falls on the city.
Come with me to the plaza of the great cathedral on Sunday morning. The intercessors are reading with tears the unspeakable edicts of the Inquisition. Christian leaders are repenting – repudiating and revoking the cruel words, finally burning the paper on which they are written.

The crowd parts and a small Spanish boy now stands at the center of the intercessors. He looks forlorn and his hand and arm are heavily bandaged. A Jewish boy in his teens stretches out a hand, and touching the little boy on the head he begins to bless him in the name of Yeshua Ha Mashiach, the Messiah.

These are some of the things I have just witnessed. All I can do is join with the psalmist in saying, "Lift up your heads, oh gates, and be lifted up oh ancient doors, that the king of glory may come in." Psalm 24

This inaugural prayer journey is just the beginning of the "Gates of Iberia" initiative, which in turn is part of a worldwide initiative toward healing the foundational rift between Jew and Gentile and the church, stemming from 140 A.D. A reconciliation movement has been launched in Spain, which while focused on messianic Jews is already having a profound effect on relationships between Catholic and Protestant. There will be many more catalyst events and prayer journeys in Spain and throughout the Spanish and Portuguese speaking world. This will eventually include repentance proclamations to the general Jewish communities. In September our leadership team meets again to inaugurate an initiative in Rome and Nicea. Then April 1999, Israel.

West Africa Slave Ports

A recent prayer journey to Togo, Ghana and Benin inviting intercessors from the countries that participated in the transatlantic slave trade will be followed up by and expanded prayer journey in May of 1999. Steven Spielbergs movie "Amistad" is a timely dramatization of Afro-American, Afro-Latin and Afro-Caribbean communities. Intercessors participating in these prayer journeys report a dramatic three way reconciliation between the descendants of Africans, Slaves and Europeans.

URGENT FOCUS

Sri Lanka

A bloody civil war between Tamil and Singhalese continues after fifteen years. In November 1998 the largest gathering yet of Sri Lankan Christian leaders took place near Colombo. Both Tamil and Singhalese peoples were represented and significant repentance and reconciliation took place. Pray for the Christian peace makers laboring in this war torn land. Believers make up nearly 8% of the population.

Indonesia

The collapse of the Indonesian economy has triggered rioting in the streets. Businesses owned by ethnic Chinese merchants have been targeted as well as churches. (Many Christians are Chinese) In May George Otis Jr. and John Dawson will travel to Indonesia in order to strengthen the Indonesian prayer movements. Pray for the suffering believers of this huge largely Muslim land.

IRC HQ MOVES

The International Reconciliation Coalition is consolidating its international offices in Ventura County, California. John Dawson is moving to Oxnard and seeking to purchase a property which will house the staff serving the reconciliation initiatives of the United Prayer Track and the World Christian Movement. There are now over sixty major reconciliation initiatives underway within the world prayer movement. Information about catalyst events, bridge building efforts, prayer journeys and training materials can be obtained by contacting the IRC at:
International Operations Office
P.O. Box 3278 Ventura, CA 93006-3278

Phone: (805) 642-5327 Fax: (805) 642-2588

E-mail address: ircio@pacbell.net

Web Page: www.reconcile.org


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