Climbing into Jewish Ministry

*pseudonym

“I felt like Spiderman.”

That’s the first thought that went through *Joan’s mind when she tried out her first pair of rock-climbing shoes as a sixth-grader. That day of scaling the walls at an adventure camp would eventually grow into an adventure-based ministry she never expected—sharing Jesus with Israeli travelers on the mountains of New Zealand.

Jewish background

Joan was born in Bowie, Maryland to a Christ-following Jewish family that was never involved in a messianic community. She grew up going to church, celebrating Christmas instead of Hanukkah, and only dabbling in a couple of traditional Jewish holidays, Passover and Purim.

In her high school years, Joan sensed the Lord reminding her of that sixth-grade camp and calling her to return to outdoor adventures as a gateway to ministry. When she told her friends about an adventure school she was considering after high school, they thought she was crazy.

“They told me, ‘You don’t do any of those things. What if you hate it?’” Joan recalls. “I said, ‘I don’t know, but the Lord is telling me to go, so I think I’m going to probably like it.’”

Revelations on the climbing wall

Joan went on to complete a two-year degree program at Adventure Sports Institute in the Appalachian Mountains of western Maryland. Outdoor sports became both a passion and a picture for biblical truth.

As one example, Joan shared, “When the devil gets a foothold [in your life], he turns it into a stronghold. And I realized that a foothold in climbing is nothing.” Just as any little crack in the wall can become a foothold for a climber, any small crack in a believer’s shield of faith can be exploited.

“Learning analogies like that, I felt like the Lord was giving me revelation after revelation while on the rock-climbing wall,” she says. “[It] became this huge way to connect with the Lord in my life.”

Because of its nature as a partner sport, Joan explains that the rock-climbing environment also quickly builds trusting relationships and conversations about God. “You’re holding each other’s lives in your hands, literally,” she says. “I think just because it’s a close-knit community, it feels like a family. People are open to asking questions. . . . They’ll say, “Tell me more about your faith.’”

‘No, you’re Jewish’

After teaching snowboarding, guided rock climbing, and backpacking in Colorado, Joan’s next ministry step took her to a six-month discipleship training school in New Zealand operated by Youth With A Mission. YWAM is an interdenominational ministry focused on missionary work and training for Christian missions. At the school, she encountered the first Messianic Jew in her life, Scott Brown, the director of Chosen People Ministries in New Zealand at the time.

“He asked everyone in the room, ‘Is anyone here Jewish?’” Joan recalls. “And I said, ‘My family’s kind of Jewish, but not really.’ And he said, ‘No, you’re Jewish.’”

Scott took on a mentoring role with Joan and taught her the importance of her Jewish identity. “If we hide our Jewishness, or we don’t understand that we’re Jewish,” she says, “then that’s not revealing that promise that God is standing with the Jewish people and still has a remnant that believes in [Jesus].”

Joan’s graduation from YWAM took place at the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall, in the Old City of Jerusalem. She watched as crowds of Israeli women prayed and cried out passionately to the Lord.

“And I’m sitting there thinking, They don’t know. They’re waiting for their Messiah, and they don’t know that He’s already come. I felt in that moment that my heart really broke for them,” she says. “I really also felt like God was telling me, ‘Someone needs to tell them that I’ve come. You need to go tell them.’”

That was the moment Joan knew God was calling her to reach the Jewish people.

A foothold in Chicago

Desiring to work with Chosen People Ministries (CPM) in New Zealand, she was told she needed more Bible education. When one of the staff, a Moody graduate, highly recommended Moody’s four-year Jewish Studies program, Joan applied. She arrived in Chicago in 2020—just before COVID shut down New Zealand for three years.

Joan lived in CPM’s housing and loved her Jewish Studies classes at Moody. She served her Practical Christian Ministry (PCM) weekly ministry training assignment under CPM, hosting a Shabbat dinner at her house every Friday with both believing and non-believing Jews.

“We’d say the Shabbat prayers over the candles and the bread, but we’d say the Messianic version of the prayers,” she says. “At the beginning of each Shabbat meal, I’d explain what I believe and why I was saying these prayers.”

She expected more backlash because non-believing Jews often hold that any Jew who believes in Jesus isn’t genuinely Jewish. Yet the responses she received were generally appreciative and understanding.

‘The Lord just kept sending Jewish people to me’

On top of Shabbat, Joan’s adventure-based ministry continued at a new workplace—a Chicago rock-climbing gym.

“The Lord just kept sending Jewish people to me,” she says. “I don’t even know how it happens. I’ll be friends with people for a while . . . And then all of a sudden, I’ll find out they’re Jewish!”

She invited her new Jewish climbing friends to her Shabbat meals. Their faiths differ, but “because we’re Jewish, it was just this connection point, and they were happy to come,” she says. “It was really fun seeing the Lord just bring Jewish people to me.”

Moody also gave Joan the education she needed to know how to witness to Jewish people. She learned how to prove Jesus as Messiah through traditional Jewish texts like the Old Testament, rabbinic writings, and the Talmud.

The long climb ahead

After graduating from Moody in May, Joan is raising support to return to CPM New Zealand. Just as she did with YWAM, she’ll live out of a van and lead Israeli travelers on rock-climbing excursions.

Israelis have two to three years of required military service after high school, and after serving, they usually travel for a year. New Zealand is a favorite destination for many of them.

Although Joan loves climbing with her groups, her favorite part of ministry is in the evenings when she and the climbers in her group have time to sit around a campfire and chat.

“They just finished their Israeli military service, and now they’re on this trip seeking to find out who they are and what they believe,” she explains. “This is before they go to college and then start the rest of their lives. They’re just in this special place.”

Joan will be in New Zealand for about six months of the year doing backpacking ministry. She’ll spend the other months in Israel following up with the Israelis she meets in New Zealand.

“I hope to connect [the Israelis I know] with other believers in Israel that are around their area,” she says. That way, the seeds she has planted will continue to flourish under the care of other believers who can disciple year-round.

‘That smallest step of faith’

Joan recalls a tip from a previous instructor about what to do when you’re stuck in a climb: “Sometimes, you just have to take the tiniest little step up,” she recalls. “If you can find a foothold that’s even two inches higher and step on that, then you’ll probably find something you can hold onto.

“It just became this big thing in my life. If you’re scared, and you don’t know what’s coming, just take that smallest step of faith, and God’s going to be there. He’s going to provide that next foothold for you to hold onto.”