9.7.2013 JEWS FOR JESUS by Moishe Rosen

moishe rosen was working as an executive for a jewish christian evangelistic organization in nyc when God began to speak to him about how he was subtly becoming a different person...in a bad sense. after being challenged by a brother in the Lord he began to see this and decided to check out the hippie scene on the west coast.

65 while i was getting initiated into the hippie scene in san francisco,
some unusual things were happening in the backwoods of oregon
that would have a tremendous impact on my ministry.
a middle aged christian, jack dunn, and his wife, liz,
felt called by God to prepare their house.
jack said God told him that he was going to send some people to them
and that the couple should feed and love these visitors.

although jack explained that god spoke to him directly through a voice and a vision,
the exact purpose of his task was not revealed.
but he and liz obeyed by immediately furnishing and repairing their extra rooms.
one of the first groups to arrive after the preparations were completed
were some motorcycle roughnecks.
one of the dunns'
later guests, mark winter, called these people
'bikers, heavy duty greasers'.
they put jack and liz through  lot of grief.
they ruined part of a field jack had planted and they got stoned on pills and dope.
jack finally put his foot down.
he said that nobody who stayed there could possess or use any drugs.

needless to say, the christian couple seemed baffled as to why god wanted them
to take care of these hell's angels types,
especially since the bikers didn't seem particularly interested in the gospel.
but soon, this bunch moved on, and a different breed of guest started wandering in.
these were all hippies, and most of them were jewish.
jack's house, which has become known affectionately as 'the ranch',
a retreat with an atmosphere that encouraged serious consideration of the claims of Jesus Christ.

one of the early jewish visitors up there was baruch goldstein,
a stocky, bearded young man from the bronx who eventually joined me in san francisco.
baruch, who laughs and jokes as much as anyone i know,
had led a wild, adventurous life before wandering into the oregon haven.
he was a typical hippie with the 'turn on, tune in, drop out' philosophy.
knowing he would confront the inevitable draft, he joined the army.
he served as a combat soldier in vietnam,
was wounded and began receiving a disability pension on his discharge.
just before he was released from the service, he got involved in drugs in a naval hospital in new york.
that experience encouraged him to by a small bus with his steady veteran's pension
and head toward a life of drugs and sew in the counterculture.

i tried heroin, a lot of grass, and i'd sell anything, he explained.
'i moved out to california and lived in a couple of communes,
traveled around, did anything i wanted.
girls, dope, i enjoyed it all.
but then i heard that my brother, fred, had become a christian
and that he was staying in oregon at a place called 'the ranch'.
i really couldn't believe it.
i always thought people who believed in Jesus were weak,
so i decided i had to talk to him about it.

'i  stopped off in a forest on the way up to the ranch to have some lunch and smoke some dope.
but all of a sudden this car came up and a guy jumped out.
he handed me a piece of paper and drove off without a word.
i glanced at the paper and saw that his testimony was written on it:
'i used to be a dope smoking, pill popping hippie until Jesus came into my life and set me free.

i though 'wow! i must be getting into Jesus country.

'when i arrived in the town that was closest to the ranch, i knew i was in trouble.
for all practical purposes, the ranch was inaccessible.
there were only two ways to get out there:
you either hiked about forty miles through the woods and came in from behind,
or you had to find a boat that was hidden in some bushes outside the town
and then row across this huge river.
daniel boone couldn't have located the place even if he had radar.
i had been told to call jack at the ranch
and then either get him or someone else to come over and meet me.
i didn't have his phone number, so i decided to turn left and call the town operator from a small drugstore.
but i couldn't turn left because of a couple of cars coming from the opposite direction,
so i turned right into a gas station.
the operator told me jack had an unlisted number,
and none of the old new york tricks i had up my sleeve would work it out of her.
i said it was an emergency, i had to speak to my brother, but nothing moved her.

baruch was thoroughly frustrated at this point.
'i was tired, hungry and cold, but then i came up with an idea.
it was a small town, only a few thousand people.
i decided if i started asking enough people, somebody was bound to know jack.
so i walked up to this man, a weird looking guy with a gray beard,
who was getting gasoline for his buss.
i said, excuse me, do you know a jack dunn?

'what do you want to find that kook for? he dais.

'i was happy and upset at the same time- upset that this guy seemed so uptight,
but happy that the first person i met knew jack.
the guy said, 'wait right here, and he went to the gas station phone.
a few minutes later, he motioned me over and handed me the receiver.
my brother freddy was on the other end of the line!
but that was only half the surprise.
the guy i'd been talking to, the first person i walked up to in the town-
and at a gas station i hadn't even wanted to turn into- was jack dunn himself!
'wow, what a coincidence! i said.
'coincidence, ha!' jack knowingly replied.

baruch recalled that after he'd been at the ranch for a few days,
he felt there was something different about the place.
'i really sensed a different kind of love there, and that made me question a lot of things.
one of the other hippies suggested that i start reading the new testament to find the answers
to what i was looking for.
i got zapped out by the Holy Spirit somewhere between matthew and revelation.
the sermon on the mount really made an impression.
i could see the adulterous, sinful, lustful life i had been living.

in an effort to find and answer, baruch said,
'i began to pray, at first like the scribes and pharisees.
i asked for a sign or a miracle because i decided i wasn't a fool,
i wasn't going to believe in nothing.
'dear God, i said,, please split a river for me or send down a thunderbolt.
well god showed the miraculous to me, but it wasn't what i thought it would be.
it was a very simple, subtle thing.
i saw the miracle one morning when i awoke and watched the others getting together for breakfast and praying.
it was us, you and me, His creation.
i knew inside of me that there was a god, but i still didn't understand Jesus.
then i continued to read the new testament, and
god showed me Jesus was the Promised One,
the Messiah of the Old Testament.
i fell for it hook, line and sinker.
god went fishing and i got caught.

baruch's life underwent an immediate, radical change.
'i completely gave up drugs.
before i became a christian, i sold anything anybody would buy.
i used to fly from california to new york with a cargo of grass.
in new york, i'd pick up some heroin and bring it back to california.
but after i discovered Jesus, my cargo changed.
now, when i fly, i take thousands of gospel tracts east, distribute them
and return with a tremendous sense of accomplishment and satisfaction
that drugs could never give me.

his faith in Christ also encouraged him to rediscover his identity as a jew.
'when i was into the hippie scene,
i remember writing a letter home saying, dear brother and sister instead of dear mom and dad.
i wanted to tear down all ethnic and social walls and traditions.
i considered myself to be Baruch from the universe, rather than baruch the jew.
but i started seeing the significance of my jewish heritage at the ranch.
we conducted a sabbath service wile i stayed there, and since then
i've started going to synagogue fairly regularly.
i believe God created the situation at the ranch so that young jews could find Christ.
the large majority of hippies who visited there were jewish,
and many of them have contributed to the work of the jews for Jesus.
the ranch doesn't exist anymore-it was flooded after about a year-
and jack and liz have moved on to another town.
but as short lived as their ranch experience was, they were there when God needed them.
their work at the ranch occurred almost simultaneously with the beginning of moishe's san francisco ministry.
some might say the timing was just a coincidence,
but i've seen too many such 'coincidences' to believe god didn't have a hand in it.

another one of the ranch crowd and a close friend of baruch's from new york, jh'an moskowitz,
had an even more startling encounter with god.

'i come from a conservative jewish family, explained jh'an,
a lanky, bearded fellow who would rather argue a philosophical issue than eat.
'my father and mother were  in a nazi concentration camp,
and my dad still has the number stamped on his arm.
my people had suffered because of their jewishness,
and i knew from an early age just how serious a thing it was to be a jew.
it was always them and us. them included the nazis and christians.


jh'an's early commitment to his people culminated when he joined a zionist group
and volunteered at the age of seventeen for  the israeli army during the 1967 war against egypt.
'i decided i'd rather die in Israel than in vietnam,
but i never was officially admitted into a combat unit.
i stayed in the reserves and lived on a kibbutz,
but then i began to realize that war wasn't where it was at for me.
although i still supported israel, i saw a subtle racism over there.
the arab refugees were treated pretty poorly
and i didn't like that.
so, disillusioned, i started looking for personal truth in the youth subculture.

he graduated from long island university, but the though of an ordinary, middle class career
repulsed him.
so he retreated into drugs and sex and finally decided to head out west.
'baruch and i got together out here in california, and we planned to become psychedelic pirates..
'we met some old friends in the bay area and got into dealing and suing all kinds of dope.
i was really crass toward girls because i only wanted them as sex objects.

we were living in san francisco in a commune called the Freaky Dude Ranch
when a couple of our close friends became christians.
i had read some of the bible, but Jesus didn't seem real to me.
things began to get a little boring and repetitious around the commune-
the same sex, the same drugs, over and over-
so i decided to take a vacation in the caribbean.

jh'an hitchhiked to florida and worked in a warehouse for a couple of weeks to earn enough money for the plane fare to jamaica.
'i was still looking for truth, so i headed for the jamaican hills
and sought out some tribesmen i'd heard about
who were supposed to worship the ethiopian emperor, haile selassie.
l lived in a hut with a guy named joshua
and tried to learn the spiritual truths i thought these people had to offer.
one old wise man used to say to me in a deep voice with a rolling jamaican accent
'king of kings and lord of lords, Conquering Lion from the tribe of judah.
though your skin may be white, if you smoke the herb, the blood of your heart will be black.
so i puffed on his grass and really grooved on everything he said.
many things seem especially profound when you're stoned.

'but i had overstayed my visa, and the authorities came looking for me.
i had overstayed my visa, and the authorities came looking for me.
i had to hightail it out of there and head back to the states.
still, i was no wiser than i had been a month or a year before.
and i got a shock when i received a letter from the commune:
baruch had become a christian.
i really felt bad, like i'd lost a friend.
i could see the others getting on the Jesus kick, but not baruch.
he was a stone cold heathen, a jolly, fun loving guy who hadn't even been looking for anything.
i, at least, had been on a spiritual quest.
i thought, that's really heavy, man.

jh'an returned to san francisco in april, 1971,
and at the request of one of his old hippie buddies, mitch glaser,
who had recently become a christian,
he attended a bible study i was teaching in san francisco.
jh'an's concept of a christian was simply a person who loved other people.
by that definition, he thought he might be a christian himself.
mitch introduced me to jh'an and asked me to rap with him about Jesus.
'do you believed Jesus Christ died for you, jh'an? i asked.
'yeahm man, i go for that, jh'an replied.
'and do you believe he was resurrected from the dead?
sure.

after a few more such questions, i decided that what jh'an said he believed was similar to
what any christian would believe.
but i didn't
t know him too well at that time,
and he told me later that in retrospect he's convinced he wasn't a christian at that point.

'no change had come about in my life when i first talked to moishe,..
'i didn't see why a faith in Christ should affect the way  i lived.
if someone offered me dope, i took it without really thinking about it.
in other words, i hadn't really committed myself.
because i was still looking for spiritual knowledge,
i hitch hiked up to the ranch to see what baruch was doing.
it was a heavy experience for me.
after staying there three days, i decided i had to get out.
everybody was talking about God this and God that.
i tried to inject my own ideas i had just dreamed up about Jesus
-the cosmic Jesus.
but my intellectualized Christ had no impact on my daily life,
no relationship to the personal God these people seemed to know.
i wanted to believe, but i couldn't force myself.
i asked God to give me a real experience.
i had to know that He was really, really who the bible said He was.
i couldn't do it on blind faith.
i had to know it was more than a psychological high.

the night before he left the ranch, jh'an said he had a dream:
'some dark haired young lady came up behind me
and put her arms around my shoulders and began to seduce me.
when i woke up, her face was vague in my memory, but i did recall a distinctive was her arms crept around me,
and a peculiar kind of dress she was wearing.
i thought, 'tsk, tsk, God, what a horrible dream.
i had some idea it was from God,
but i also suspected it might have resulted from some kind of psychological suggestion
from the Jesus freaks who were all around me at the ranch. 
at any rate, i ignored any special religious significance.

'baruch told me the next morning that he was ready to return to san francisco
and he asked me if i wanted a lift.
i accepted, and on the way down i mentioned my dream in passing
and said that it was really far out because i though God had seduced me.
he thought i was goofing on God, that i'd really never had the dream.
he accused me of being really gross and didn't talk much more to me during the trip.

'baruch dropped me off at about midnight at my commune
and then drove down the street to see mitch glaser at another apartment.
when i walked through my front door, i realized all of a sudden what a dark scene i was into.
the place looked like sodom and gomorrah.
all the speed freaks were there and everyone was stoned, tripped out.
people had painted their faces and were dancing around like maniacs.
remembering the beautiful, peaceful scene in oregon,
i didn't feel like getting involved with them just then.
i decoded this wasn't where things were at.
these people were really blowing themselves out.
i went back to the kitchen and tried to get my head together.
but while i was standing with my hands resting on the sink,
i felt these arms start to slide over my shoulders.
i looked around out of the corner of my eye, and this chill went up my spine.
the girl behind me had the same dress pattern,
the same general physical features of the chick in my dream at the ranch.
i flipped out!
the dream was actually coming true.
i didn't move. it was really heavy.

'i though, is this really happening, man?
maybe God's really real.
maybe He's trying to tell me something.
meanwhile, this chick was really coming on strong.
she said, 'what's going on? let's get it on.
i shrugged and said to myself,
'look jh'an, don't freak her out.
she started running her hands up and down my body, and i got excited and decided God would forgive me this time.
so i turned around and put my arms around her and looked over her shoulder.
suddenly, everything went BOING!
on the window in front of me, the sign of the cross had been traced clearly on the glass.
as it happened, baruch and mitch had been walking outside just at that moment.
mitch, as was his custom, drew that cross on the window,
but neither of them could see me through the glass.
coincidences were one thing, but this was too much.
there was a pattern now that i couldn't deny,
and i knew i wasn't hallucinating on drugs.
i hadn't had any dope for several days
because it was prohibited at the ranch.
i said to myself, 'hey jh'an, enough coincidences!
let's get it together and find out what you've got to do'.
i met mitch and baruch just after they came through the door and said,
'look, fellows, i think God is real.
maybe i'd better get together with Him, maybe He's really there.
let's go have a talk'.

as they walked toward a nearby park, jh'an told baruch,
'hey, man, the dream really came true. what should i do?

maybe you should ask God to come into your life,
give yourself over to Him,' baruch suggested.

'well, if the Guy's real, why should i run away from Him?'

when they reached the park, jh'an got down on his knees
and baruch and mitch laid their hands on his head.
jh'an prayed, 'Father, forgive me for pretending i knew You,
for being the imperfect person i am.
come into my life, take it over, i'm Yours'.

in explaining his commitment, jh'an said,
'coincidences that lead to a spiritual commitment can't happen in an isolated way.
there may be a couple of minor external events that don't seem to remarkable
to an objective observer.
but in my case-and i know for other christians as well-
there's a corresponding internal event,
an insight God provides that ties the coincidences together and produces a divine revelation.
that's what happened to me with that dream incident'.

these fellows gravitated in my direction initially because of a strange experience
that mitch glaser had in sausalito.
he had spent some time at the ranch but was still into the hip scene,
unsure of what direction his life should take.
while sitting near the shore in sausalito, he prayed that God would show him what to do
and almost immediately one of my broadsides,
bearing my name and address, came floating up in the tide.
he hitched over to our house, knocked on the door,
and declared, 'the Lord sent me to you. what should i do?'

'i don't know, i said, somewhat taken aback.
don't ask me, ask Him'.

'i did and He sent me here, mitch replied. what should i do?'

'i don't know, i answered again.
we were at something of an impasse,
but i wouldn't attempt to tell him something i didn't know myself. 
that's one thing i won't budge on:
i know an individual should accept Jesus as Lord,
love God, read the bible, lead a christian life and pray.
but as for the specific direction of life's affairs,
he'll have to go to God himself to find the answer.
we talked for a while longer and he rode with me to a nearby shop
to get some bagels and then headed back toward the ranch.
while he was up there, mitch asked jack dunn if he knew me.
jack replied that he didn't, but that God had told him i was okay.
the next time i got together with mitch, he had baruch and jh'an in tow,
and they were all christians.

'i'm hungry, i said when i joined them on that occasion.
'why don't we go have some chinese food?'

they accepted my invitation and we headed toward an inexpensive chinatown restaurant.
we each ordered huge amounts of food,
but when the check came, i found i had left my wallet at home.
baruch had to dig into his pockets and pay with some of his army disability money.
i learned later that baruch was a little disconcerted with me at that point:
'i wondered what kind of guy this was..
he asks you out to eat and then you have to pay for it.'

but he soon forgot about the meal after we walked outside the restaurant.
i began to show them how i conducted my street ministry
by pulling out 500 or so broadsides and handing them out to pedestrians.
baruch was so fascinated that he grabbed them away from me
and started distributing them himself.
he was like a child and kept saying,
'look, people really take them!
look at that guy-he's walking down the street reading it!
hey man, this is really terrific!'

'i really liked handing out those tracts, baruch recalled.
'it was flipping me out that i was standing there on a street corner in downtown san francisco
dealing out gospel literature.
i always had this stereotype of Jesus freaks walking around with their placards warning,
'repent! the wold is doomed!
and there i was doing essentially the same thing myself-and enjoying it.

while baruch was getting high handing out the pamphlets,
mitch was just staring at him in utter fascination.
and jh'an, who will argue about any subject under the sun,
whether he knows anything about it or not,
was interrogating me on some esoteric theological point.
it was almost surrealistic.
but as weird as that tableau must have seemed to any onlookers,
i realize now it marked the beginning of some friendships
that were to be significant for evangelism among the jews in the bay areal.
the Jews for Jesus were gradually drifting together,
feeling their way into a working relationship.

but before i leave the ranch episode, i want to mention something about mark winter,
another graduate of jack dunn's oregon hideaway.
he's an aggressive tract passer and is becoming involved in helping us
in film work and photography, his specialty during graduate school.
but the mark winter of today and the mark of the ranch are two different people,
for he suffered from a severe case of 'ranchitis'.

ranchitis was a spiritual malady characterized by enjoying Jesus
into a state o almost total inactivity.
some would describe it as an immersion in mysticism,
and others would call it grooving on Jesus.

mark explained his condition like this:
'at the ranch i didn't do anything unless i felt the Lord told me to.
jack didn't encourage us to work, only to read the bible
and after i accepted the Lord that's all i felt like doing.
jack would say, 'this is a place to grow tall,
the city is a place to put on the muscle.'
there was nothing to distract me there.
it was just me and God.
there was nobody laying any trips on me,
nobody saying, 'Jesus loves you.'
the only time they'd answer me about God was if i asked them a question.
we could do some work in the fields, but jack didn't push it
all the work he wanted us to do was turn the pages of the bible.
we didn't even have to do that if we didn't want to.
i couldn't have come to God anywhere else because i had a hand up about authority,
as did a lot of people i knew in the counterculture.
i didn't have to worry about any authority up there but God.

'the problem was that i remained in an inactive condition
when i came back to the city.
i lived with n aunt but i wasn't really functioning.
i couldn't see that God wanted me to do any work, so i didn't do any.
some of the guys with moishe would ask,
'do you want to hand out some tracts with us?
i'd just reply, 'if Father wants me to'.
it was really a bad place to be,
not junctioning at all for a couple of months.
then i started slipping out of it,
getting involved in activities with the other Jews for Jesus.
now, my life is almost all action-action for God.

as baruch mentioned, the ranch doesn't exist anymore.
after a flood washed them out, jack and liz dunn began traveling around the country,
doing other work to which God called them.
but despite the short existence of their oregon retreat,
their efforts had and  immeasurable impact on our
urban, action oriented ministry in san francisco.
the jews for Jesus, with their demonstrations, confrontations, and exuberant creative expressions,
are in a sense the direct spiritual descendants of the detached, contemplative life of jack dunn's ranch.

75 the tribe

in our society anyone whose religion matters is considered to be too religious.
for most people, a religious faith is like a blood type.
it's just something you put on an identification card,
but it doesn't affect your life very much, except in emergencies.

this observation by stuart dauermann reflects a basic complaint of the group which,
in the fall of 1970, came to be known as the jews for Jesus.
these young people, ranging in age from the late teens to the middle twenties,
were attracted to Jesus not by contemporary, watered down versions of christianity,
but by His call for a total commitment.
they joined a movement, not an organization.
their operational structure, which has many lessons to offer the church as a whole,
can best be described as tribal.

the innate impulse to gather into tribal groups is deeply embedded
in the human personality.
the popular anthropologist, robert ardrey,
has pointed out in his book, the social contract,
that for thousands of years men spent most of their waking hours in
roving, hunting bands of about 11 individuals each.
in those early days, when agriculture and even the bow and arrow were unknown,
humans had to learn to work together to kill game, or they perished.

the jews for Jesus movement represents a return to the tribal relationship within the church.
the sources of our tribal tendencies are twofold.
in the first place, many of our young people came from the hippie subculture,
where  communal living and extended family units were a way of life.
in most of the urban communal pads i've visited,
each person has an informal, natural function that satisfies a peculiar need of the group.
some me of the hippies are dealers.
they bring in money for food and other necessities by selling drugs.
others are poets or artists.
they enhance the cultural life of their tribe.
if cleanliness occupies a high priority for another communal hippie,
he might be the first to help with the domestic cleaning chores.
the best cooks will also contribute their skills to the welfare of the whole social organism.
no matter what an individual's particular 'thing' may be,
he contributes to the overall raison d'etre of the group,
which is usually just to 'be beautiful'.

but there's a second, peculiarly jewish tradition that reinforced our tribal instincts. 
as i've mentioned, primitive man recognized he
couldn't stand alone against hostile nature.
he needed other people to aid in hunting
and to give him a sense of status and the encouragement to develop his own abilities. 
jews have been involved in tribal relationships for centuries
because of the need to insure their own survival as God's chosen people .
God called abraham out of the urban society of ur of the chaldeans
and commanded him to assume a nomadic life.
jews ever since then have manintained an internal tribal organization,
whether they were moving around as itinerant peddlers
or living in the ghettos of surope and russia.
despite increasing cultural assimilation,
there is still a strong jewish subculture in many parts of the US.
it is from this sort of background that most of our young people have come.

the hippie and jewish tribal traditions have merged in the jews4J movement.
there are usually about 20 of us at any one time
who belong to our san francisco core group.
the number that works on any given project is usually even smaller, say around 8.
a primary goal of the primeval hunting band was to get enough food for the tribe to survive.
we are also mobilized to achieve an overriding goal - encounter evangelism.
we're 'achievement oriented,
as vickie kress, one of the original J4J, put it.
everyone who is an active member of our core group works, and works hard.
to be accepted as a full participant, a person has to contribute at least 24 hours a week to our activities.
the old hunting band had its chieftain, spear makers, spear throwers, scouts and medicine men.
we have our leaders, artists, musicians, tract passers and other specialists. 

there are no formal membership requirements to join the tribe,
because we are not an organization in the conventional sense of the word.
we'll accept any sincere christian, or sincere seeker after the truth,
who shows a willingness to work.
but several attempts by hostile groups to infiltrate the tribe
have forced us to examine more closely the apparent motives
of anyone who expresses an interest in joining us.

with regard to fulfilling tribal functions, i have told each brother and sister
that those who can work should work.
they should not sit around all day to praise Jesus.
this was a radical concept for many of the hippies.
in the past, a person would get saved, throw his savings into the community pot,
and then just sit around and read the bible.
but i told them they could not deal with most landlords that way.
it was necessary, if they wanted a sustained ministry,
to settle down somewhere and demonstrate an ability to pay regular rent.

some of them had unemployment money coming in,
but i pointed out that their inactivity was bad for their development as christians.
although it's good to pray and read the bible, these things tend to deteriorate
when a person is not doing something constructive with his time.
i encouraged them to get jobs or go to school,
and most have bought the advice.
of the core group, two thirds have either graduated or  are attending bible college.
most are church members in addition to attending synagogue regularly.
accepting responsibility is the key to discipleship.
our living arrangements range from ordinary homes and apartments to communes.
at my suggestion, eight young men and women got permission to live in a vacant church parsonage
in return for keeping up the grounds until a new minister arrived.
at least one married couple always lives with the group.
i believe such arrangements are healthy because the guys behave better
when the girls are around and vice versa.
this enhances the social development of the tribe.

it has been said that we are organized generally along revolutionary lines
because we are trying to change people and situations in a radical fashion.
but we are more dynamic in our individual roles than most of the radical paramilitary groups.
any individual J4J may wear several hats, depending on the function he is performing at the moment.

my role is that of the tribal leader.
i preside over our weekly staff meeting and act as primary spokesman for the press
and in major public debates.
i'm usually the primary strategist in demonstrations and other confrontations,
and i handle the overall coordination for our activities.
but i am by no means a dictator who always gets his own way,
a svengali or hypnotist who controls pliable young minds.
on the contrary, i am frequently challenged or overridden on ideas
i may propose to the group.
my role has been described by one of the J4J as that of a spiritual elder brother
because i have more experience in many christian matters than the younger people.

we J4J, then, are a tribe of contrasting individuals
who have been welded together by one primary goal:
we want to let nonbelievers, and especially young jews, know what Jesus has done for us.
we are not, however, a separate, isolated sect.
most of us also belong to nearby churches, where we serve on committees,
teach sunday school classes, and participate in musical programs.
in one church there are representatives from our tribe,
a tribe of gentile hippie christians,
and a third tribe of straight christians whose main contacts
are with the local business community.
the J4J are constantly in touch with these other tribes
and we've learned to help and reinforce one another,
as one in the body of Christ.
each tribe makes a contribution to the worldwide spiritual 'nation' of the church
through the local congregation;
but at the same time each has its own special role
in working outside the congregation to carry the gospel to non christians.

87...in our contemporary society, we have conditioned our young people to think
that they are participating if they sit and listen to what is being said.
from the time a child enters the first grade,
he is encouraged to pay attention to his teachers,
to be an academic sponge that soaks up knowledge.
he sits through college, through church.
he has to use his seat instead of his feet
as a way of showing commitment.
many church members think that they are doing the work of God
by sitting through 4 or 5 prayer meetings, bible studies, sermons and committee meetings each week.
if i could tell the church anything about christian service, it would be,
'G-E-T O-F-F Y-O-U-R S-E-A-T and G-E-T O-N Y-O-U-R F-E-E-T.

or, as the bible says:
'how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him
that bringeth good tidings,
that publisheth peace;
that bringeth good tidings of good,
that publisheth salvation;
that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! isaiah 52.7

our strategy is to have each person MAKE A STATEMENT ABOUT GOD
AND HIS WONDERFUL WORKS OF REDEMPTION.  (ps. 51.15)
our young evangelists tell the wonderful stories of redemption from
dope, the devil, depression and disillusionment.
since the J4J movement has become more prominent,
there have been many who have approached us and volunteered their services.
we can't accept most of these people,
even though they are willing to pay their own way,
but those we do accept are initiated into our tribal life in a very simple way.
either baruch goldstein or i will take them out on the streets,
hand them a stack of broadsides and take a stack for ourselves.
we then begin handing the literature out to the crowds of  pedestrians.
if the new volunteer is the kind of person we want, he'll try passing the tracts as well.
usually he's surprised to see that more people accept the literature than refuse it.
frequently he becomes enthusiastic and excited.
that's the kind of person we want.

...my dictionary defines confrontation as
'to stand or come in front of, stand or meet facing'.
that's what we want-to face people.
we don't want to get in their way or aggravate them into accepting Christ,
but rather to make ourselves available for anyone who may be interested in learning about Jesus.
our demonstrations in front of the topless bottomless clubs are often misunderstood.
we're not there to protest what's going on inside,
but to attest to the fact that
Christ alone can satisfy the longing of the human heart.

...we usually choose the street or campus as our place of confrontation,
not the pulpit or the pew.
and vocal confrontation for us is not merely shouting slogans and chants,
but being able to verbalize our feelings with conviction
and tell them to others.
after each street action we have a period of debriefing which includes
prayer and a discussion of what we've learned.
in addition, each person in the group relates questions that have been asked him,
and we then talk over possible answers.
for example, at one session one of our volunteers said,
'this guy asked me how much i get paid to evangelize.
i told him $1000 a convert,
and if he'd convert, i'd split my prize with him.

'why did you tell him that? asked another.
'why couldn't you give him a straight answer?
'because it wasn't a straight question.
the bible says 'answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit' proverbs 26.5

our confrontations frequently involve direct, unequivocal communication,
but since such an approach can produce conflict and misunderstanding,
we always try to be loving and accepting, as well as honest toward the other person.
down on market street i was handing out broadsides,
and a young...well, i couldn't tell if the person was a boy or girl,
approached me.
the dress was female, but the walk didn't seem quite at home in high heels.
when i heard the voice, i knew that the individual was  a male.
he asked, 'do you believe that homosexuals are going to hell?

'yes, i said, but i believe all those who choose to serve self and not God
are guilty of sin and are going to hell.
only those who have committed themselves to Christ can escape the penalty of sin.
but let me ask you a question.
do you believe in hell?

'we homosexuals are living in hell now and
it's a hell made by people like you, he replied.

'wait a minute, i said.
'you're the one who approached me with a question.
i didn't stop you.
i have nothing against you.
the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not God is satisfied with
the life you've chosen for yourself.

'the problem is you with your literature.
you're promoting a morality that i can't accept
because i have a different physical nature.
it's not natural for me to try to be like you.

i pointed out that as a natural man, a non christian,
he was not able to perceive the things of God.
but i also told him that God could give him a supernatural power
that would enable him to follow a christian morality.

jimmy, who called himself janie, was interested when i mentioned the power to be different.
he had never been satisfied to think of himself as being
a helpless victim of  environmental conditioning.
that afternoon, he mad a decision to bring God into his life.
i haven't seen jimmy again,
but i did get a letter that said that he was straight,
going to church,
and dating a girl that he hoped to marry.

'well, i mused recently with a friend, many psychiatrists give up on homosexuals,
but an encounter with God in a brief few minutes can sure change things.
God used the confrontation on the streets...

effective evangelism often takes place within an arena of confrontation...
many christians hesitate...
confrontation occasionally produces conflict...
unpleasantness ..might occur.
..if we're not willing to endure possible difficulties
and risk possible rejection..
we'll never be able to achieve much for God..

..roger kahn has noted in his book 'the passionate people,
'one cannot stop being jewish by choice;
personal choice is irrelevant to jewishness.
the covenant between God and abraham, renewed between God and moses,
is what binds jews, according to the (halakah)...

contrary to what some jews think, our purpose in relating to the jewish community
involves more than just evangelism.
i'm an evangelist both by profession and by interest.
my ministry is similar to that of a guy who loves to play tennis.
if i could, i'd spend all my time doing it.
but my jewishness isn't simply the bait on a christian hook
to catch jewish fish. it's authentic.

unfortunately, some jewish leaders have refused to recognize
the genuineness of our jewishness.
they have chosen instead to yield to an innate, emotional hostility to christians
and have tried to exclude us from their community.
because we won't stand such  unfair and illegal attacks on our rights,
we occasionally find it necessary to
turn our confrontation tactics toward other jews in an effort to point out
the error of their ways.

sometimes, the confrontation may involve a little repartee on the street.
baruch goldstein has come to some definite conclusions
about his own jewishness,
so he was ready to respond when a jewish fellow
accosted him at a north beach demonstration and said gruffly,
'you jewish?
'yeah, bauch replied.
'well, let's hear your rap!
'i don't have any rap. what are you talking about?
'come o, come on, let's hear your rap, the fellow pressed.
'you say your're jewish. you have a jewish mother?
'yeah, and i've been circumcised too, you want to see? baruch retorted.
the young jewish man backed off, shaking his head.
'no, that's okay. i believe you.

baruch was just trying to shock the guy, make him think,
and this sort of approach is usually effective in a none to one confrontation.
but when other jews ORGANIZE to challenge us,
our response becomes more complex...97

...one of the things that has always bothered me about the protestant church
is that aesthetically it is rather sterile.
protestants stress evangelism, social action and individual piety
and that is certainly putting first things first.
but there is also a creative dimension to human existence
-literature, art, music (food).
all of these are ways of communicating,
but protestants have often been content to express their faith
through old, tired artistic forms,
rather than to seek new channels of creative expression.

..112 we have combined our penchant for pity sayings
with a knack for satire and irony in our broadside tracts...

the furor over the book by dr. david reuben,
'everything you always wanted to know about sex and were afraid to ask',
inspired a broadside by steffi geiser that we entitled:
'everything you always wanted to know about Jesus but were afraid to ask your rabbi'.

though the title may seem flippant, the text involves a rather serious series of questions and answers..

one technique we use in writing broadsides is to employ irony
by taking a jewish concept or slogan
and 'reinterpreting' it in a christian context...

the difference between christian artists and those who do not have an abiding religious faith
is that our primary aim is to communicate to others
WHAT GOD HAD DONE IN OUR LIVES.
the worst sin in our creative expressions is to be boring
and the greatest virtue is to MAKE JESUS ATTRACTIVE FOR OTHERS.
my own creative abilities are modest, if not subnormal.
but i know the potential of those around me
and i believe we have rediscovered a distinctively jewish way to present Jesus
which has been lying dormant for centuries.
there was a large and vital jewish christian group in new testament times;
but their rich and distinctive way of expressing their faith
was eventually swallowed by the tidal wave of gentiles that came into the church.
we are now issuing a general invitation to our gentile brethren to return with us
to those lost cultural treasures and enjoy, enjoy.

God has consistently revealed Himself,
from old testament times to the present,
as a God who acts in history,
who intervenes in concrete ways in the lives of men.
to many people, the idea of an
action oriented, personal god may seem a superstitious concept of bygone days,
not at all suitable for the sophisticated space age.
satan falls into the same category: he just doesn't belong...

but we J4J KNOW, beyond any doubt,
that the God of the old and new testaments is still operating today.
we have experienced His power through direct answers to prayer.
we also know that the enemy, satan. IS HAVING A FIELD DAY
because people refuse to believe in him
and therefore fail to prepare for his attacks.

i've found that God requires two things of me before His power becomes available.
first..i have to ask.
He knows what i want and need even before i ask,
but it is up to me to establish a vital spiritual link with concrete requests.
second...i must ask in faith

...when we get together as a group to pray,
i'll often ask the one who feels he has the most faith
to offer our supplications to the Lord,
and it works!

..we've gotten used to praying for SPECIFIC AMOUNTS and SPECIFIC THINGS,
and as long as we're working and doing our share,
we have found God is faithful in providing for us.

..satan...succeeds in subtle ways in diverting us from always following God's directions.