Vision Christian Fellowship comprises both Gentile and Jewish believers in Jesus Christ / Yeshua the Messiah. We believe that God has called us to be an expression of community comprising both, in ways that involves the Jewish basis of the biblical faith, and yet seeks to live this out in a way that is relevant in the 21st century. We include teaching on the Hebraic and Jewish background to the faith, we explore the meaning of the feasts and observances required of Israel, and we seek to understand and pray for Jewish people and the nation of Israel today.

We see this as particularly important as in these end times the New Testament shows us that that there will come a point when the fullness of the Gentiles will have come in and the Lord will have a special time for Israel to be open to its Messiah. (Romans 11). This will of course also be the fulfilment of many scriptures from the Tanach ( the Old Testament).

Gateshead is a special town in this regard. While most of the population is non-Jewish (white British) in origin but there is a significant community of ultra Orthodox Jews mostly associated with the prestigious centres of Talmudical study based in the Town including students from many countries. This is a blessing to the town in ways which are scarcely realised.


The failures (and worse) of the church down the ages in regard to the Jews

Sadly the Church down the centuries has had a generally poor record in its treatment of Jewish people. From soon after NT times the church has:-

• tried to reduce its Hebraic background and taken on ideas that have more to do with pagan Greek philosophy
  
• it has claimed that where God made promises to Israel and the Jews that somehow these do not apply to them any longer but only to the church (replacement theology)
  
• it has forced Jewish believers in the Messiah to reject their heritage and culture in favour of a church culture
  
• with these distortion it have been that much easier for the church to instigate persecution of Jewish people (for example in medieval Spain and in England ) and to be less than concerned - e.g. in pogroms in 19 th century Russia and worst of all in the Holocaust.