Home of Jesus the King Church
Our history
Home of Jesus the King Church was established on September 20th, 2009, out of a prayer group started by Pastor Saleem Shalash, his wife Nisreen, and other lovely brothers. The goal of the prayer meeting was to be a gospel center for our neighbourhood.
However, since God’s plan is different from our plan and His ways are different from our ways, God blessed the meetings, and the number of people who came to the meeting increased to 20 people, so the house became too small.
That’s when God gave us the vision to rent a house, next to our house, for it to be a place for prayer! In the beginning, we did not know if and how we could pay the rent, but the lord is trustworthy; He met the need and blessed the number of people. We prayed in that house for 2 years, and in that time we increased to 50-70 people. Again, our place of gathering became cramped, so we needed a bigger place.
The Lord gave a vision about a new place through Nisreen, pastor Saleem’s wife. He showed us a carpentry workshop, and a carpenter was working in it. The place wasn’t suitable at all to become a church as it was missing a lot of things. For 2 months, we worked together as a family, and we fixed all the problems with the building, like adding toilets and slabbing, stairs to the Sunday school, painting the place, and adding a new door. It was a huge challenge for all of us, but God blessed the work, the Lord gave us a new place to worship Him, this is the current church building where we are holding our meetings.
Though we are incredibly grateful to God that He gave us this place, now that we have grown to over 100 members, we have started praying about where to go next, and we’re praying that it will be a place that we could own. For our current building, we pay 1200 USD rent per month, which is a big expense for the church. We have the vision to purchase our own building; with what we currently pay in rent, we could get a mortgage that we could pay off in 10 – 15 years.
Our vision
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the Captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed and to proclaim the favorable Year of the Lord.”
Luke 4:18-19
We are based in Nazareth, the city where Jesus grew up. There are a lot of places that remind us of Him, like the house He lived in and the synagogue He prayed at.
The vision of Home of Jesus the King Church is to do what satisfies God and do his will. We are in Nazareth (look at the article about Nazareth), the city where Jesus lived and grew up. There are a lot of places that remind us of Jesus the lord, like the house where he lived, and the synagogue where he prayed.
In the city of Nazareth, there are a lot of challenges. The number of Christians is decreasing every year for various reasons, but we are there to announce the Lord Jesus Christ, and to show that he had His home in Nazareth and that He will come back. This is why we called our church “Home of Jesus the King Church”. Despite all the challenges, we will stay and announce that Nazareth belongs to Jesus, that He was called the “Nazarene”.
Also, to fulfill God’s plan, which he mentioned in Romans 11.
The Gentiles will be light for the Jews, and we want to be part of his plan and to share the gospel with the Jews through our projects, showing the love of our lord Jesus Christ, not just for the Jewish people but also to all the people that live in Israel.
Goal of the church:
The church is not only a place for praying and worshipping. It’s also a school that graduates servants and sends them to share the message of salvation to the world. We are ready to help anyone who comes to the church to discover the talent that god gave them so that they can use it for His glory.
In the church, we teach, train, establish, encourage, and build people up for the service, to reach the world with the message of salvation, and to serve the community, help the poor and needy, and pray for them. We believe that the church is to share the gospel, become holy and do the purpose of God.
We want to go out to the world and search for all those lost to come back to Christ and share the gospel, not only with the Arab people but also with the Jews, because being here in Israel gives us a chance to share the gospel with everyone who lives in the country, whether Arab or Jewish.
And this is what Romans 11 asks us to do: that the Jews are a light to the nations, and today the nations are a light to the Jews. So let us do God’s plan by following the Bible.
Dates of the church meetings:
The main meeting is every Saturday from 6:30 PM until 8:00 PM, a meeting of worship and the word of God.
The Bible study or prayer & worship meeting is every Wednesday from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM. One week we do Bible study, the other we pray and worship.
The women meet on the first Thursday of every month at 10:30 AM.
Theology study is on Friday from 5:00 PM until 7:00 PM (BA).
Visiting families:
Pastor Saleem visits the families of the church daily, usually two or three families per day. The visits are called “the church that is in your house”; the church bears much fruit through this daily ministering to the people.
Conference of the church:
The church holds a conference outside the church for 3 days each year. The church gathers in a hotel, where members study the word of God, worship, and develop spiritual relationships as one family in Jesus Christ. And the church helps families by paying half of the cost, so they can attend the conference. Every year, around 100 people come to this conference, and everyone is blessed by Jesus.