Eli Birnbaum for Innovation Fund Recipient Video

Speaker: Eli Birnbaum, Israel Director, Jews for Jesus

Eli Birnbaum: It's humbling to be uh an award winner in such a great place like Missio Nexus that are recognizing what God is doing in Israel, but it's also uh such an exciting time to be in ministry in Israel, um, and to be on the cusp of doing something new. So I'm blessed to be honored and be part of the leadership of being awarded as an innovation. A winner, um, I, I, uh, throughout my whole career in ministry, I've tried to push, uh, the limits and do new things and people that are, but. The main goal is that more people would hear about Jesus, and I really believe that that's what we're doing in this and being recognized is such a humbling, uh, exciting moment, uh, in, in, in our ministry, my ministry with Jews for Jesus, um, and in planting churches in Israel, and I just hope that this is just the beginning of seeing what God will do through our ministry uh in Israel.

Eli Birnbaum: The main idea for the project is to combine business business as mission and church planting in a way that not only avoids mission drift on the business side or on the church planning side. Um, but creates sustainability, but also creates a continuing flow of engagement with non-believers and a faithful presence in a physical neighborhood. And by doing that, by planting coffee shops, which we've already have been able to do, but doing more across Israel, we know that in a certain radius, most Jewish people who've never met. Another Jewish follower of Jesus who've never heard that a Jewish person can believe in Jesus will engage on a regular basis with Jewish believers and see how they live at their lives. They also will be able to visit a church that's in that same space, um, and by doing that, they'll also be able to do, um, to get used to, to, to what it is and be engaged. With it. So that's the idea. Um, we've done a few coffee shops already as a, as a prototypes, and we want to continue to do that throughout Israel in the major cities and the major areas, both by planting either a coffee shop or some sort of community-based mission or a third space that would be sustainable but also be the home of a new church.

Eli Birnbaum: What's innovative about our approach. This project um was birthed out of years and years of doing ministry. One hand, we had spaces that we wanted to be filled with non-believers. On the other hand, we wanted to have a sustainable place and there's a limit to how much space you can get, um, um, through, um. Historical fundraising models, but the other part of it is we wanted to make sure that the people that do come into our spaces are are able to join a healthy Christian community. So what's innovative is that we were taking all the different ministries that we've done, whether it's backpack outreaching, uh, doing outreaches with backpackers, holding art galleries, and trying to church plan and combine them into one model which um. The the main vehicle of it is a coffee shop alongside a Michael church. What it does is it gets you the crowd of nonbelievers that you can engage on the regular basis and share the gospel with them. Secondly, it creates a sustainable way to create more spaces, um, for people to be aware of in a, in a physical neighborhood. And the third thing is it create it, it, it creates the space and the ability for a new church to emerge in that space. And so the, the innovative part of it is bringing that all together in a way that will be effective, both as a good business, but also as a good mission. And I believe that that's the innovative part of it, um. And the innovative part of it also comes into uh the soul of the people running the space. They need to love the type of business they want to do. They need to love the people they're reaching out to, um, and doing it all together in excellence I think is innovative for the mission side of things, but also an innovative way to reach communities and to recognize that in this digital information age, not the, the, the, um, just being online, which we want to do, and we need to be innovative in that area. Isn't enough to reach people's hearts. We have to have the continuation of a physical space, um, and especially in urban cities where apartments are smaller and smaller, we need to be able to give people a space that they can feel like that's a home. But if that home is also a home of a church, very, very, as soon as people begin to belong to that space, they will also connect it to a living vibrant community, um, and that's what we want to see, um, innovatively happening throughout Israel. Um, and see a church planning movement happen in Israel.

Eli Birnbaum: I hope this project will be the start of a new wave of churches in Israel. Israel has not seen a church planning movement. We've seen churches that come, came in the late 80s, early 90s, um some in the early 2000s, but we haven't seen a Um, broad cross-denominational church planning effort that's gospel centered, especially in urban cities. Um, most churches are in industrial areas and different places, um, where they're not seen to the public. It's my hope that through this project. Um, churches will become visible in Israel, and we will see, um, more churches planted in Israel, more people coming to know Yeshua, Jesus as their savior, um, and a new generation of young church planners who will change, uh, this country and bring the light of Yeshua in an authentic Israeli way that we have never seen before. That's my hope. Um, I hope that in the next 5 years we To plant around 13 churches, um, and plant another uh 1713 13 coffee shops, third spaces, 17 churches, um, and, and through, um, this reality, we'll see, uh, in 5 years, it will become a normal part of a movement of church planting in Israel. That's my hope, and that's my prayer, and, um, that's why we're doing this.