Teaching Team
The Torah Underground
Shalom! I am writing to you from an undisclosed location in the Torah Underground! I have spent the last week on the road in the Midwestern United States, making contact with clandestine Torah cell groups, infiltrating large evangelical communities and equipping Hebrew Roots operatives. Please understand—I am referring to it as the "Torah Underground" only tongue-in-cheek. In reality, I am speaking of the hundreds of Torah keeping brothers and sisters in Messiah that are making their way and shining the light of Messiah in the midst of mainstream, Christian churches and congregations.
I'd like to share some of our adventures during the last week in the Torah Underground. For years we've been hearing rumors of Torah Club being taught in an extremely large, influential evangelical congregation. When D. Thomas Lancaster and I showed up to teach an FFOZ conference at that congregation, we found 350 people eager to hear the message—the majority of them under the age of thirty, and a third of them Torah Club members.
"How do you do it?" I asked. "How do you manage to have Torah Club cell groups operating right in the church? Most churches are reluctant to allow Torah groups."
The host explained, "We keep a low profile and try to fly under the radar. When we started with one Torah Club group five years ago, we had no idea it would grow into something like this." They currently have multiple groups in all five volumes.
That same night, one of the young church staff members asked if he might join us for morning prayers. We were thrilled to meet this underground operative and pray with him before leaving for our next undercover rendezvous. He is but one of a dozen young radicals we encountered, zealous for the Messiah and keeping the commandments.
At our next location, our "operative" within a large Baptist Church of 2,500 members ushered us into a covert meeting with the pastoral staff. His upstanding character and fervent commitment won his leaders' respect and gave us the opportunity to meet with them. For three hours, we answered questions and addressed concerns while pointing toward the Torah of Messiah. I'm not sure we convinced them of anything, but the meeting was amiable, and those pastors gave us a lot to think about.
At one point, the senior pastor said, "If you [Torah-keeping types] want to change us, don't leave us!" Maybe he's right.
The Underground Torah movement is definitely growing. A few days later we connected with a small church where the local pastor was himself formerly a part of the underground, but had since gone public in the congregation. More than a year ago, he announced to his congregation that they were switching from Sunday to Sabbath. Today his church is Sabbatarian, he teaches two HaYesod classes and is finishing the fifth volume of Torah Club!
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Visitor Feedback:
I firmly believe in maintaining fellowship with the mainstream churches. In my situation, I have no choice! There is no Messianic congregations close enough that I could realistically be a part of. Therefore, I gently annoy the members and the Senior Pastor of my Pentecostal congregation that I grew up in. By G-d's work, I was able to rise up enough interest so that our associate Pastor called up a contact and we had the founders of the Messianic congregation in Toronto come to our church and teach us about the Appointed Times. That rose up enough interest for the Senior Pastor to let me start a Bible Study. We’re planning on starting up within the next couple of weeks. I hope to, first, lay a foundation and answer common objections to keeping the Torah. There is a group of at least 15-20 people (in our congregation of 600) who are very eager to keep the Appointed Times, learn about Sabbath and to know our place within Israel. I pray that G-d will reveal His truth to the people in this area. Thank you Boaz and FFOZ for all your hard work I will be using your materials for the study. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll have you guys come down for a seminar?
Daniel Calcagno | January 1, 2007 3:46 PM