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Radio Hayah speaks to Steven Khoury
I’m with Steven Khoury the Pastor of Calvary church in Jerusalem, Now Steven what is it like for you being the Pastor of a church in the city where Jesus ministered?
It is exiting, humbling, it is a wakeup call, it is also a sobering reminder, there was trouble in Jesus days there is trouble today, so I was born in Jerusalem and grew up in the city of Bethlehem it is a reminder more than ever that Jesus is real, he walked 2000 years ago on earth, he is walking in our hearts and our spirits today.
And you are ministering in some of the same places that Jesus ministered.
We are we are ministering in the Galilee, in Jericho, in Jerusalem, in Bethlehem. The southern parts, even in Gaza, sharing the message of Good news of Jesus to Arab Muslims, Christians, Jewish people from the perspective of Jesus Christ came with a message and that message is a salvation for mankind, regardless of who they are, their race, their creed, their nationality their skin colour, Jesus Christ Transends all racial division and that is the message that we represent and we love doing it in the same place where Christ started it all.
Is being a Pastor something that you have inherited, It’s in your DNA?
It is a good question because growing up as a young boy I grew up in the shadows of a great man of God, they call him the gatekeeper of Bethlehem, he was the first independent bible evangelist Arab Believer who is also A covenant theology which he also believes, that the God of the old testament is the same God in the New Testament, so I grew up learning, watching him, growing up under that and I can’t see or imagine myself doing anything else Paul, besides sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, whether it be Pastoring or teaching or whether it be evangelizing, I am an evangelist at heart, I love to share Jesus, I love to see people just tear down the walls in their lives whether it be spiritual or emotional, physical and to show
them the hope, the victory they have in Jesus, So I have always seen myself being used as a tool in the hands of God, I always see myself as a spiritual ambulance for God.
When was Calvary church started in Jerusalem?
Its an interesting question because I restarted Calvary , It was started in the early 90’s where my father and Uncle George who where as many know was beaten up, he was martyred on the Mount of Olives many years ago, but they started Calvary in the early 90’s, In July 6th 2004 I came back and I restarted calvary church with that same vision of being a beacon, being a lighthouse, being a light unto the dark world and that is the message that I came in with.
How easy is it being a Pastor to a church in East Jerusalem?
It is never easy anywhere in the world to be a minister, especially when you are in a country which has so much racial, religious, divisions, religious history, religious connection not only to buildings but to dirt of the ground, dirt we walk on, Historical significances, historical emblems, signs and walls and so and so, all this it adds more to the conundrum of who are you? What is your identity? What are you called to do? And as a Pastor I go through that question every single day, who am I? what am I here to do? What am I placed on earth to do? And I get up and say “Lord, here I am use me”.
Because of religion and because of Tradition is it easy to see a church grow here?
It is 100 times harder to see a church grow because our community is so attached to tradition, they are so attached to religious ties with their priests, it’s an identity more than a personal relationship whether it be Moslems, Jews or Christians, You could have a Jew that is the most extreme atheist but yet still wear a Kippah or
could still be somewhat Jewish observant, it doesn’t make sense because down deep they are atheistic or there are agnostic or they are secular yet you still see they still have a tie to this land through their Torah which shows me that it is not necessarily a religious conviction, in many cases it is more of an identity struggle, Muslims the same way, many muslins, most Muslims beyond the 5 pillars of Islam they don’t know any depth to what they believe or to the depth of their relationship with God other than he is up there and we are down here and when you start to dig deeper you start to realize it is an identity, it is an honor to their father, their lineage it’s a culture for family and shame culture and so forth, many Christians the same way Paul, many of them their faith is more of a traditional faith, it is a religious identity rather than a religious belief system.
Now you are the President of Holy Land missions tell us a little bit about that?
So Holy Land missions, it is an umbrella for over 12 or 13 ministries that God has entrusted us with, ministries that we have started, established or ministries that we partner with locally on the ground it is a 5013C in America, it is a tax deductible, tax exempt organization in America but 90% of what we do here we do in Israel and the middle east in making disciples, Church planting and evangelism, all done through humanitarian aid through education, through training, through going out on the streets building kingdom relationships and we call it compassion evangelism which is we share Jesus through showing help with practical needs like this whole Corona thing, we go out we go to homes we drop food off, we drop off a bible we pray over them from far away whether they be Muslim or Christian and all of them they open their hands and say “God we want mercy regardless of who is praying in front of them.
What sort of projects do you run with the organization?
We do food distribution, we sometimes help with medical bills, those that can’t afford it, there is a system process, we help some of the families that have been
committed to our programs, that we know them, we know their infrastructure, we help with their schooling programs, we have a clothing distribution program we have also done construction projects where volunteers come from America, we do mission trips we call them, where they come, we take them into people’s homes, we help them paint homes, fix leaking roofs, usually elderly people, widows widowers and we remind them that there are people who are a remnant, who love , who forgive, who support, who help and it is shocking when westerners come, to many of these Arab Christian or Muslim homes when they see these foreigners and paint their living room, they don’t even know them and that opens up the door for us to share the gospel, so everything we do at the end has to be a gospel driven approach and gospel driven message.
What do Muslims think when they see these Christians arriving?
Hhhh they think they are crazy, they are leaving their country, they are leaving their freedom, the comfort of their homes to come in here to help paint, help feed the hungry and we have a very close knit circle of system of how we do it so we don’t just go to anybody, we go to people who we know, people that don’t support terrorism, people that don’t support chaos, people that really down deep all they want to do is get up in the morning and make a living, put bread on the table and be an active part of society, who are open also to the gospel, to the opportunity, the possibility that Jesus Christ could save them, that Jesus Christ could be the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ could be the King of their home.
In pre corona days it turns into a big, hugging, kissing on the cheek festive where they say thank you, sometimes they cry and weep because you bond for 1 -2 – 3 days painting, cleaning the home you bond with these people.
Are you involved at all with Israelis, Israeli Pastors coming together?
We are, Christianity for those who don’t listen might not know this but there is such a movement called the messianic movement, actually it precedes
Christianity which are Jewish people, starting with the 12 disciples of Christ who accepted Jesus Christ as their messiah and that spread to the church of course we know the early church was consisting of mostly foundational messianic believers, I mean Jewish people accepted Jesus as their messiah of course that grew to the gentiles, the Greeks and so forth within Jerusalem and of course throughout Asia Minor and the region, there are Jewish believers that are pastors in Jerusalem, we get together once a month, we pray together, we worship together, we remind each other that even though we have our own different calling, visions even ways we do things, we may not agree on philosophy and ministry but we agree on one thing, Jesus Christ is the messiah, he came, he was the Lamb of God, he gave us an opportunity to have a ticket out of this thing called damnation and an eternity in hell and that way is Jesus Christ we have no excuse to not have hope in life.
Now Palestinian theology can be very political at times, are you just bible based?
We are bible based, we are Biblicists meaning that we base everything on the bible we don’t believe politics has anything to do in the church, we believe Christians should have a voice to vote and have a voice , If we don’t have a voice as Christians in the community then the enemy will and we need to have a voice in the community as individuals, as a church our goal, our focus is 3, church planting, discipleship making and evangelism we help people look at everything into this perspective through the scriptures …. So basically rather than the bible be lead by our emotions, rather than us guiding the bible or leading the bible with our emotions we are to allow the bible to be the one that guides our emotions and by doing so we look at everything in a pragmatic perspective without having any political views or lack of compromising for the scriptures.
Does that make you unique here?
It makes us very unique because we do believe in the old testament, we do believe in the new testament, we do believe that the God of Israel is the God of
Christianity, meaning one God, the Koran teaches that as well, the God of the old testament, the God of the New testament, God speaks in different ways, different means , different shape in the new testament, different in the old testament but the same God speaking, different generation, different manners, different shape, different form, two different mindsets in different eras.
Does that cause trouble?
It does, it causes trouble because the Old Testament does say the word Israel , its not political word it’s the Israelites, it says Israelites hear oh Israel God is one, God is one, even saying the word Israel in the bible the old testament so many Christians omit the word Israel from the bible, we don’t for us we come at it from a Non political perspective, it is simple if it is in the bible I use it .
Now the whole world has been affected by the corona virus, what have you been doing as a church to help?
Bethlehem was the first city in the country that had the case of Corona at least publicly known and if I am not mistaken Bethlehem was the first city to shut down in the whole country of Israel and the Palestinian community, Bethlehem was the first city to shut down.
After two and a half weeks of shutting down we started meeting where we needed to zoom, Facebook, YouTube reaching out by that, the first week of April we started doing food distributions, we upped our food distribution from around 200 families to around 390 families within one month so we almost doubled our outreach program giving food all the way from rice to sugar to 2 ready cooked chickens to families, rice we distributed, meat to some families, we dropped off food for some families, we dropped off fans for some families that are stuck home all day with no air conditioning, so we dropped off fans for people, so the practical things that people need and we saw the Christian world really respond because Christians are suffering and hurting, Muslims are suffering and hurting
there are a lot of organizations in the Palestinian community but most of them fund refugee camp people, most of them fund Muslim institutes so very few are doing things for the Christian community the underline notion here is that Christians take care of Christians and Muslims take care of Muslims, we don’t believe in that, we believe in helping both when we can, we believe in strictly in the context of do good unto all, the bible says especially to those of the household of the same faith , that’s the bible Paul talks about it because he is saying help everybody but especially to the household of the same faith meaning those in your body of Christ you have to especially take care of their needs while at the same time helping others so again we are Biblicists we go back to the literal word meaning Paul says you help others so that’s what we did, food program distribution and we are calling on the Christian world, Corona is coming back again they are shutting down Bethlehem this coming week, it will be probably 2-3-4 -5 days probably going to increase and we need to jump back again to remind Christians not to loose hope.
Are people already in poverty even before Corona and this is just adding to a bigger, bigger burden?
It is, at one-point Bethlehem was 73% unemployment before corona, I am talking about years ago and then it started going back I think recently Bethlehem was about 32% unemployment, this is pre-Corona and now with Corona I think it is over 70 or over 60 % plus of unemployment statistics right now are … you know numbers always floating around, between 60-70% unemployment, so when you have this situation and our concern always is and this is a talk that I have had with many Palestinian people, even some of them who work with the Palestinian Authority, their concern is that if the world doesn’t help then others who don’t mean well will step in to help the Palestinian people and a lot of times those people who help don’t have the right cause or right, they don’t mean well for the peace of this country, more creating chaos and mayhem and if those step in to help then we have a problem.
Has this been an opportunity for people to ask questions, why is this happening?
This has been a great opening door for people to ask what is happening, why is it happening, so what we are teaching people when they come to ask that question to ask not why is this happening but we are teaching them to ask “What are you trying to tell us? What do you want from me as an individual? what do you want to speak to me?” and that leads me to tell you this very important thing, It’s a message the Lord has given me and it is a 3 step sort of edification, encouragement and a sign, a warning sign to the Christian, this is to Believers around the world and to non-believers they can also head to it as well, I remember this came around at 2.30am in the morning around the time of the Corona, I remember exquisitely, I was sitting on the couch and I closed my eyes and said Lord what are you trying to tell us today? I don’t believe in asking why I said “what are you trying to tell us ” because everything happens for a reason so if we know that God allows things to happen then their has to be a reason, So I ask God “what are you trying to tell us” and exquisitely the Lord said “Stephen tell the believers to Repent, confess your sins and I will answer you”, I remember I said “Lord, what do you mean repent? Is this a collective call to, lets all have a 24 hour, a day repentance on the hills or the stairs of the capital or whatever movement people create and the Lord said “NO, this is us individually going in our own closet going to our own homes and saying Lord we are repenting on our own individual sins and these are personalized sins that we all face on a daily basis and he says I will answer you”
And this is actually to Christians?
This is a message to Christians, not to a secular world this is to Christians and the next thing the Lord told me, exquisitely it was clear he said “Tell my people to thank me”, To thank him for the bread on the table and I will give you your desires and I remember I said “Lord what do you mean bread on the table? Its so simple, what is this simple message, it’s so, so clear, basically the answer was “I want my people to be grateful for the little things and when my people are
grateful for the little things tell them, I will give them the desires of their hearts, So be grateful for the little, Be grateful for steak, Chicken or bread, be grateful for rice, Lettice or even just chick pea on our table just to be grateful for the little and then it says I will give you the desires of the heart, Where the world around us will be falling we will be flourishing and growing, we will be at least stable and steady, our lives will be and others around us will be drawn by what is so different, so unique about us, well we are people who repented, we are people who are grateful for what God gave us, I am talking about people of the church, and the third thing the Lord said this is very unique “tell them to tear down their idols and I will show them the future” and I said “what do you mean tear down their idols”
And Paul this is so unique because he was silent on this one, I did not get an answer on this one and the way I translate it, he didn’t tell me what is this idol and I believe personally it is because every human being has the different shape of an idol in their life whether it be technology, their job maybe their sport, their hobby, It doesn’t mean those things are wrong it just means they become our idols and I think this is so unique to every single individual that is why I believe the Lord didn’t give me a specific… he didn’t identify what Idol it is for people, then he says “ I will show you the future” and those are 3 messages God has given me and I pray and I hope that we take these and implement them in our lives.
Are you seeing God move today?
100% we’ve seen miracles happen, Cancer healing, we are seeing peoples lives change, we have seen marriages who were once broken are now starting to heal again, relationships have come back together. Death, sickness I mean we are dealing with a hidden enemy, unseen enemy, unstudied enemy, unfamiliar enemy and this creates fear and uncertainty, I think the greatest fear of any human being is uncertainty, if you know someone is coming to kill you, you are afraid but you know they are coming to kill you but when you deal with an unfamiliar enemy, you don’t know who they are, what does it look like, could be a ghost , could be an earthquake could be an electrical pole fire, you don’t know that is more fear if you stop to think about it, that is more of a fear factor than actually knowing what is coming even though you are sure death is coming and during this it creates a lot
of people to ask themselves a question, Who is God? What’s the true God? And what should I be doing right now to make this world a better place?
What is your prayer for Israel / Palestine?
My pray for the Israelis the Palestinian people for the communities is that 1. They would see that Jesus Christ is the light of the world and they ask themselves the question, who is Jesus to them? Is Jesus to them just a mire figure, they have seen him on TV or they have read about him from a specific 3rd person on 2nd person book or is Jesus to them seen through the eyes of the scriptures? I encourage people to read the bible, I encourage Jews and Arab Palestinian, Muslims, Christians to ask themselves how are they living their life right now? Are they right with God Are they loving are they forgiving, are they promoting hatred, violence, darkness or are they promoting Love, forgiveness and light?
What is your website for people who would like to know more about your ministry, maybe support the work that you do?
Its holylandmissions.org
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