Who We Are: Bill and Diana
As Bible-believing Christians, we owe a profound debt to the Jewish people. The Bible is a Jewish book, our Savior is the Jewish Messiah (Yeshua of Nazareth), and our spiritual roots run deep in Hebrew soil. Though not Jewish, my wife Diana and I have devoted over forty years to a life-calling to the Jewish people. We lived and served in Israel for eight years, immersing ourselves in Israeli & Jewish culture, the Hebrew language, and ministry of pastoring and teaching.
In the 1990s, we founded our nonprofit, Operation Ezekiel, as a means to fulfill our calling. The prophet Ezekiel’s message of restoration to the Jewish people shapes our vision, which we see unfolding in two dimensions, through two movements:
Restoration to the land of their fathers—fulfilled in the Zionist movement and the rebirth of the State of Israel—and the ongoing Jewish return to the land. “But you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to my people Israel, foe they ” (Ezek. 36:8; and ch.37: the vision of the Valley of Dry Bones). We stand with Israel and the Jewish people in the face of the global resurgent of antisemitism today.
Restoration to the God of their fathers—fulfilled through faith in their Messiah Yeshua (Jesus). “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you… I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes” (Ezek. 36:26–27). We are committed to sharing the Good News of salvation in the Messiah with the Jewish people, in keeping with “to the Jew first and also to the Gentile” (Rom. 1:16). We support and participate in the growing Messianic Jewish movement.
Our primary calling is teaching. The name Ezekiel (Yechezkel in Hebrew) means “God will strengthen.” Through study, training, and decades of experience, we seek to strengthen God’s people by helping the church rediscover the richness of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Jewish roots of the Christian faith, while honoring the Jewish people who preserved them often at great cost in blood, sweat and tears. In a time of cultural and spiritual decline, Western civilization must recover it’s Jewish and Christian roots or it will perish as we know it. We carry a deep burden to see the church renewed—reconnected to its Hebraic roots and awakened by the Holy Spirit toward revival, reformation, and renewal.
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Direct relational ministry involvement with individuals or groups. Ministry to people is the highest value and ultimate purpose of all the activities in EAST acronym. Engaging with people via evangelism, teaching, counseling and mentoring; engaging as “salt” and “light” influencers into the cultural issues of our day, by teaching, debating, activism and intercessory prayer for people, nations and issues; engaging the enemy in spiritual warfare on the battlefronts of our time in history.
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Employing the medium of writing and print to communicate truth. Writing and the orality media (storytelling, visual and dramatic arts) are both indispensable mediums for effective communication. Writing offers crucial virtues— First, clarity; An old professor of mine once said, “Thoughts disentangle themselves, passing through the lips and the pencil tips.” Writing provides permanence. Spoken words vanish; writing endures. It can be read years—or centuries—later, unchanged, like the Scriptures and the great classic books. There’s also a unique precision in writing. You can revise, refine, and choose exactly the right words, shaping meaning with a level of control that speech rarely allows. An experienced writer one said, “There is no such thing as writing, only re-writing.” After Israel’s first battle after their exodus from Egypt, God commanded Moses to both “Write this as a memorial in the book and recount it in the hearing (orally) of Joshua….” (Exo 17:14). God considered both mediums important… which leads us to storying.
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All the is involved in the preparation and presentation of Biblical stories for ministry. The best way to get people into the Bible and the Bible into people, is storytelling. The Bible is the Master Story (metanarrative) of the universe, made up of many shorter stories. About 65 % of the Bible is in story form. All humans are hardwired for stories. Jesus knew this, so his teaching method of choice was storytelling. “Jesus was a metaphorical theologian. That is, his primary method of creating meaning was through metaphor, simile, parable, and dramatic action rather than through logic and reasoning. He created meaning like a dramatist and a poet rather than like philosopher” (Kenneth Bailey). He used stories with the common folk of the land, as well as with the highly educated scholars (Pharisees). Theology often speaks to the head only; stories speak to the heart. Orality (storytelling with visuals, drama and music as appropriate) is the best way to bring Scripture to life.
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The overall task central to the Lord Jesus the Messiah’s Great Commission — “…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Math 28:20). To teach well is to touch and change lives. As some unknown sage wisely observed, “Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions.” Authoring and storying are means to the broader end of true teaching. Teaching is not merely talking; if learning has not occurred, teaching did not happen. Jesus was the Master Teacher. He taught (mentored) twelve men for three years through deep relational, spiritually formative engagement (apprenticeship), utilizing all the learning domains (cognitive, affective, volitional and experiential).. He taught them well enough to begin a worldwide, world-changing movement. The apostle Paul, a gifted, strategic teacher, was concerned about reproducing excellent teachers. He told Timothy to—"teach faithful men [and women] who will be able to teach others also” (II Tim 2:2). We have tried and aim to do the same.