It was the last night of the trip. Shabbat was ending in Efrat, the Jewish community a few minutes from Bethlehem, and we were sitting around the table, twenty young Christian leaders from across America and a room full of their Jewish hosts. The Christian participants, all of them in their 20s, were taking turns sharing their thoughts on the trip and how it had changed their lives.
These final hours are always powerful. By the time Shabbat ends, something has shifted in these young Christians. Most of them come to Israel as supporters of Israel. But they leave as something more. They have sat in Jewish homes and danced arm in arm with Jews in a synagogue. They have spent late nights talking with young Israelis who are giving years of their lives to the army, to defending the people of Israel, to something bigger than themselves. Meeting young people their own age living with that kind of idealism and commitment shakes something loose in them. The conversation at that final meal is never shallow.
But on our last trip, something happened that I wasn’t expecting.
We finished the meal. We moved into the Havdalah ceremony, the Jewish ritual that closes Shabbat, with wine and spices and the braided candle. And then, as Havdalah ended, without any signal or prompting, the Christians in the room began to sing.
They began singing “The Blessing” — the song that swept through Christian worship spaces after October 7, built on the ancient words God gave to Aaron and his sons to bless the people of Israel. “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.” As the song built, they sang of God’s favor extending across a thousand generations, His presence going before and behind and beside — and every Jew in that room went still.
My wife was there that night. She is a psychologist and a busy mom who supports the work we do but rarely has time to be involved. But she was with me for Shabbat, and was sitting next to me as these young Christians sang the blessing over us. She leaned over and said quietly: “Now I get it.”
Rise Up and Fight — donate to the Rise Up with Israel campaign
I have led these Young Christian Leader trips since November 2023, just weeks after October 7, when the first group came to Israel to stand with the Jewish people at one of the darkest moments in Israeli history. What began as an act of solidarity has become, trip after trip, what I believe is the most effective training ground for young Christian Zionist leaders anywhere in the world today.
These are not tours. The participants are graduate students, young political activists, organizational leaders, people already building careers in advocacy and public life. They go through a rigorous application process. Once they arrive, they spend a week learning to fight for Israel: advocacy training, security briefings from IDF commanders, meetings with Knesset members, time with bereaved families who lost loved ones on October 7. They volunteer in fields and army hospitals. They stand at the places where the Bible happened and hear what those places mean today.
And then they come to Efrat for Shabbat.
When these young Christians walk into a synagogue in Judea on Friday night, they are stepping into something most of them have never imagined. They sit at Jewish tables for lunch. They spend long evenings with young Israelis, talking late into the night. They meet American Jewish families who chose to move to Israel and build their lives in the biblical heartland and have no intention of leaving. They make real friends. And they understand, for the first time, what it means to fight for this land — not as a political position but as something rooted in the people who live here.
We are in a war for the hearts and minds of young Christians in America. Our enemies know this and they are not passive. Every day, on university campuses, on social media, in institutions that have turned Israel into the greatest villain of our time, they are working on the same generation we are trying to reach. We cannot assume the next generation of Christians will find their way to the truth on their own.
We have to fight for them.
Every seat on every trip is heavily subsidized. Israel365 raises the funds that make it possible for a young leader from Ohio or Texas to spend a week in Israel that changes the direction of their life. Your donation to the Rise Up with Israel campaign goes directly toward that.
“I have set guardians upon the walls of Jerusalem, all day and all night. They shall not remain silent.” (Isaiah 62:6)
That is who these young Christians become. Your donation sends the next one.
