Church for Messianic Jews rankles Jewish leaders

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa. – A new congregation with a cantor and readings from the Torah opened in this Philadelphia suburb for the High Holy Days – but it was a church for Messianic Jews established by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and it has local Jewish leaders upset.

The congregation is the first of its kind to be set up by the Presbyterians, and experts say it is a highly unusual step these days for a mainline Protestant denomination. Local Jewish groups see the church as an attempt to evangelize them.

Congregation Avodat Yisrael held its first worship service on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, combining Jewish worship and Jewish cultural traditions with faith in Jesus. It drew about 110 worshippers.

“We would hope to recognize the ancient Jewish heritage, going back to Moses and Abraham,” said Andrew Sparks, the congregation’s spiritual leader.

Sparks, 34, an ordained Presbyterian minister who was raised Jewish, said he came to discover Messianic Judaism in his late teens and 20s and wanted to start a congregation in the Philadelphia area, home to one of the nation’s largest Jewish populations.

The Presbytery of Philadelphia has pledged $145,000 to support Congregation Avodat Yisrael for five years, while the Pennsylvania Synod kicked in $75,000 and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) promised $125,000.

The Rev. Joe Smalls, director of the Office of Theology and Worship for the denomination, said it refrains from direct evangelization of Jews but, at the same time, “It’s not unreasonable to say that Jews who come to Christian faith would want to have a congregation in which their Jewishness would continue to be a full part of their Christian life.”

Philadelphia-area Jewish leaders are disgruntled about the congregation and the Presbyterians’ financial support, expressing their concern at a recent meeting with church officials.

“The Jewish community is never happy when there are evangelical efforts that target the Jewish community, but when it is done in such a way that creates the myth that a believer in Jesus Christ can be Jewish, it’s deceptive,” said Burt Siegel, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Philadelphia.

Sparks said the congregation does not intend to evangelize, but to provide a welcoming place for Jews who have already accepted Jesus as their savior and for those who are curious. Also expected, he said, are couples in which one spouse is Jewish and the other Christian.

Congregation Avodat Yisrael shares office and sanctuary space with the Church on the Mall, a Presbyterian church housed inside the Plymouth Meeting Mall.

Services are held on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, and have a distinctly Jewish flavor. But there’s no getting around the fact that the service isn’t Jewish, and its children – at a time of declining Jewish numbers in the United States – won’t be brought up in the faith, Siegel said.