Pastor from Israel shares message with Kilgore congregation (2024)

The pastor of a Christian church in Israel visited the congregation of All Tribes Worship Center in Kilgore recently to explain his experiences in the country, which has been locked in an ongoing war with Palestinian militant group Hamas since an Oct. 7 terrorist attack was launched against Israel by the group.

Chad Holland, pastor of King of Kings Church in Israel, spoke on a wide range of topics at All Tribes, from serving as pastor of a Christian church in a predominantly Jewish country to the ways to support the church’s mission as the war rages on.

Holland, who was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and grew up in Houston, attended an Assembly of God church in his early life. When his parents divorced, his mother married a Jewish man who eventually came to profess faith in Christ.

“I get that most of us in the room tonight probably are not Jewish,” Holland told the All Tribes congregation.

“That includes me. I was not born Jewish. I was adopted by my Jewish father, but I grew up in a messianic Jewish synagogue. I pastored in a messianic Jewish congregation. I married into a Jewish family. I have four beautiful Jewish children now and I am a citizen of Israel. We are not missionaries, we are citizens of Israel. I’m not over there visiting, I’m not over there temporarily. We live there and that’s our home. “

Holland was a pastor in the United States and planned to move to Israel when the founder and original pastor of King of Kings, who was planning to retire, asked him to become the new pastor of the church’s Jerusalem campus. Holland accepted the offer and has been a citizen of Israel since 2011.

In 2015, Holland and other church members opened the King of Kings network in Israel, allowing them to find and train new members to open additional campuses. The network now includes prayer centers, counseling centers, aid distribution and feeding centers among more than 50 campuses and 25 full-time congregations.

“I have two main jobs. My biggest job is to be the overseer of all of the King of Kings network and train all the other pastors. I also pastor the Jerusalem campus. God set something up miraculously that I wasn’t smart enough to figure out at the time. A long time ago, when nobody would allow us to open up a campus in Jerusalem, because we would be persecuted, there was nowhere for us to meet. We needed a place to rent and the only place that would let us rent a building back in those days was the local YMCA. The only time we were able to use the building was on Sunday nights, and Sunday is a workday in Israel. God, in his wisdom, planted us in that. Every other congregation that we have in Israel meets on Friday night or Saturday, which allows me to go preach at all of them on rotation and never miss a Sunday back at my home congregation.”

Holland added King of Kings added four new congregations in 2023 and, so far in 2024, they have already added one new congregation with three more on the way.

The pastor explained that many Christians in the United States may wonder why they should support Israel.

“What does Israel have to do with you today? First of all, according to this passage (in Genesis 12), it wasn’t only that God said ‘I will bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you’, but the third verse was interesting because it said ‘All the nations of the earth will be blessed through you.’ The Jewish people were called for a purpose. The Jewish people are sometimes called ‘the chosen.’ They were chosen for a job, it’s a job description. However God treats Israel is how he treats you. If you want God to be merciful in your life, you need to learn how he was merciful to Israel. If you want patience with what you’re going through, then offer patience for what Israel is going through. If you want God to keep promises to you, then He needs to keep His promises to Israel first.”

Holland added Christians should also take an interest in Israel because, throughout the Bible, revelations from God came first to Israel and then spread to other places. This pattern, he said, would continue as “the last great revival of this age” comes first to Israel.

After delivering his message, Holland then answered questions from the congregation.

When asked how Christians should pray for Israel, Holland said “We should pray for the safety of our soldiers, the release of our hostages and a quick end to the war.”

When asked how people could support the King of Kings ministry in Israel, Holland said those interested in offering support can visit the King of Kings website at https://kkcj.org/ where they can donate directly to King of Kings and also donate to the Israel War Relief Fund.

“We do several things,” Holland said. “We help people get out of harm’s way when their cities are being bombed. We send food boxes and clothes to families that have been displaced. That’s over 300,000 families now that have been displaced in Israel. We send food and military equipment like helmets, bulletproof vests and boots to the soldiers directly. We also help through counseling. We have three counseling centers. We also help people move back home once they can return.”

— Lucas Strough can be reached at lstrough@kilgorenewsherald.com.