Shalom and Welcome to Beit B’rachot
Beit B’rachot means House of Blessings. Beit B’rachot is one house, one family of families, which together blesses our Creator, each other, our neighbors, and The World.
At Beit B’rachot we recognize that God’s people were created to live in a Garden of rest and delight (Gen. 2:8, 15), in perfect fellowship with each other and our Creator without any forms of separation. Though the Fall resulted in sin and separation (Is. 59:2; Rom. 3:23), the finished work of Messiah Yeshua has fully restored God’s people by cleansing His people of all unrighteousness (1 Jn. 1:9), making us a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), and seating us once again with Him in a place of no separation (Eph. 2:6). Because we know ourselves to be forgiven and renewed, we are free to walk in no condemnation (Rom. 8:38-39) with our Creator, Father, Savior and King, and with each other in unity and the shalom of wholeness.
Time and tender care are required for a garden to become a flourishing place of delight, rest, and nourishment. First, the ground must be cultivated – the hard and rocky soil must be tilled or ploughed. Then, seeds must be sown. Next comes the growing stage where the seeds become plants which ripen to maturity with care and nurturing. Finally, there is a bountiful harvest that blesses everyone!
Beit B’rachot is growing a garden! We are now at the first stage. We’re cultivating the ground to prepare it for the sowing of seeds. In time, we will sow the seed, nurture and grow the seeds into mature plants, and finally reap the harvest! Click on the links below to learn more about our growth strategy.
When you visit a congregation for the first time, you will likely receive a welcome packet that informs you about the various beliefs and ministries of that congregation. Most congregations will engage those who express interest in regular attendance and participation in new member or discipleship classes. These classes are designed to teach the core doctrines of the congregation and to encourage involvement in one or more of the congregation’s ministries.
At Beit B’rachot, our first priority is that you fully know yourself in the finished work of Messiah Yeshua. The resources that we provide to anyone who desires to become part of our community are designed to ensure that you know who you are as New Creation! As we go throughout life, we often become weighed down with doubts, feelings of condemnation, fear and anxiety. In reality, God’s Word says that you are forgiven, no longer under condemnation, having a new mind, whole, good, seated with Messiah in the heavenlies, and able to be in complete, perfect fellowship with Him! Once you fully understand what you have been restored to, what it means to be a new creation, you can experience freedom and shalom in your own mind and life, and you are able to extend that freedom and shalom to others.
When Yeshua created Adam and Chavah (Eve), He created them to be echad. Echad is a Hebrew word that means “one,” but often refers to a compound unity – something that is more than one but truly one. One cluster of grapes is an example of echad. Adam and Chavah were two individuals who together were truly echad. They were each unique and perfect as they were created, and together they were what our Creator called echad. Before the fall, they enjoyed a true no separation in their relationship. They saw each other the way they were created to see one another. They knew themselves together to be tov. Tov is a Hebrew word that is often translated “good.” But tov in the biblical sense means “as it was created to be.” When the creation is what it is created to be and is living as it was created to live, it is tov. A cow swimming in the ocean is not tov! Knowing one another as the creation we were created to be opens the door for amazing relationships! Practicing this as a life style together as couples and in community results in so much less separation in our relationships.
At Beit B’rachot, our second cultivating priority is to help married couples foster echad unity and delight in marriage. This is important because only when parents are experiencing the echad that they are created to know and to experience, and the delight we are created to live, can they raise children in an environment of echad and delight. We begin by teaching couples who man and woman, ish v’isha, were created to be – what tov looks like! Please contact Beit B’rachot to learn more about how we are helping married couples experience echad delight in marriage, and how we counsel pre-married couples to prepare for marriage that exemplifies echad delight.
Guarding God’s Protective Guards: Genesis 26:5 translated literally says “Avraham heard in My Voice and he guarded my protective guards – My Mitzvot (Commandments), My Chukkim (Decrees), and My Torot (Instructions).” Notice that Abba testified this about Avraham, long before Moshe! Avraham knew God’s Commands, Decrees, and Instructions – and he guarded them because he knew that they guarded the family of families. He knew the danger of even one breach. He remembered Noach! Inside of God’s Protective Guards is a safe place where there is life, freedom, blessing, and inheritance. Outside of God’s Protective Guards there is Death with all of its legal rights.
At Beit B’rachot, we seek to guard God’s Protective Guards. We do this by continuously reviewing all of His Torah– the Tanakh and the Apostolic Writings. We regularly examine and discuss how these Instructions apply in our lives and community today. We instruct individuals, couples, and families to live according to God’s Torah. We are preparing to train up elders who are knowledgeable of God’s Torah, and who have shown discernment and diligence in guarding their own families by teaching their children to respect and love God’s Protective Guards in their own lives. As children grow, we will invite them to come alongside our elders to learn how to become guardians themselves.
When sin within the community is discovered, it is addressed in accordance with Yeshua’s Instruction in Matthew 18:15-20.
Creating a Safe Place: Learning to see each other as new creation, and treating each other accordingly, takes time and the renewing of our minds. This is an important first step, however, when we see each other this way we experience relationships that are safe and healthy. God originally created human beings tov, and to experience their wholeness in a place of delight and rest without any forms of separation. The word shalom is often translated “peace,” though it more fully means wholeness – whole as Yeshua created us. As New Creation, we have been restored. The old man is gone (2 Cor. 5:17)! In the finished work of Messiah we are once again whole as we were designed to be (Jn. 19:30, Heb. 10:10)!
When we see each other in the wholeness that we were created, we can treat each other in the tov that we are. Even when someone does something that is not in accordance with who he or she is as a new creation, we do not speak to each other with condemning language, we do not judge each other to be less than the new creation tov that we are, and we allow ourselves to be transparent rather than self-protecting. In this environment, each member of the family of families is in a safe place to learn to walk in the renewing of their mind. In an environment of grace and love, we can encourage each other to quickly run to Yeshua to see as He sees, to confess sin, and to leave it there without any condemnation. This does not mean that we overlook or excuse sin. Sin is a serious cancer that can destroy a community. Even a little leaven can leaven the whole loaf. For more information about how Beit B’rachot addresses sin, see Guarding the Protective Guards above. And please feel free to meet with us to answer any questions you may have about how we seek to function one with another.
Having One Mind and Purpose: Throughout the Apostolic Writings we are constantly urged to be of “one mind” (1 Cor 1:10; 1 Peter 3:8; 2 Cor 13:11; Phil 1:27, 2:2; Rom 15:6). This does not mean that we always agree with each other 100% about everything. It does mean that we agree to strive as much as possible to come to an agreement in our understanding of Scriptures through patient and persistent dialog and study, that sometimes we will agree to disagree, and that we will agree in purpose.
At Beit B’rachot, our purpose is to be ever growing as a family of families displaying what God created a New Creation community to be for one another. We like to think of this as The Future of Possible. It is our prayer to be a blessing to Yeshua, to each person and family in the community, to our neighbors, and to the world. We think and pray together in unity about how we can best honor Yeshua, our Creator in becoming the people, families, and community that He created and equipped us to be. To that end, we teach and practice treating each other according to the “One Anothers” in Scripture, we continually remind one another about our purpose as God’s community, and we strive to be carefully attentive in our love and care for each other, learning to treat each other as Messiah would treat us if He were walking among us today.
We will also begin to sow seeds in our surrounding neighborhood. In order for our family of families to be a blessing and an oasis to our neighbors, we need to be seen by our neighbors! We will invite the families in our community to volunteer to serve in our neighborhood and to build relationships with people who are leading and working in organizations that are meeting the needs in our community. As we initiate and begin to build these relationships, our neighbors will have an opportunity to share the Good News with them and to represent a community living as New Creation.
The New Creation community has become a mature garden that is a place of rest, refreshment, and nourishment. It is a blessing to those living inside the garden, and an oasis beckoning those on the outside who are hungry and thirsty for the blessings that come from living as our Creator designed and has made possible by The Finished Work of Messiah Yeshua. At this stage, we continue to sow and grow each new generation – and we become an increasingly attractive place to those who see The Garden – the New Creation Community thriving as it was designed to be. We continue to reap a harvest of each generation and of those coming in from the dry and parched lands outside.