Mike & Sue

Mike Dowgiewicz, president of Restoration Ministries International, and his wife, Sue, administrated a church retreat center where for ten years they taught over 5,000 people from a variety of churches and denominations. While at the center, Mike was a counselor to church leaders throughout southern New England. Their ministry was recognized by the Associated Press in an article that was published nationally. Mike also was featured in an article in New England Church Life, "Who Pastors the Pastor?"

Before his retreat center ministry, Mike was a career officer in the Navy, having served on three shipboard deployments to Vietnam as a helicopter pilot. While he was in the Navy he gave his life to Jesus. Sue made that same commitment a few months later. Mike and Sue reside in Colorado Springs, CO. They have a married son, Sean Michael, and a granddaughter. Restoration Ministries has its basis in research they did while living in Israel. Through Restoration Ministries International Mike and Sue are sharing God's re-establishment of the priorities that strengthened the early Christians.

Mike holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Connecticut, an MBA from California Lutheran College, and a Master of Religious Education from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Sue holds a B.S. in Education from the University of Connecticut.

The Purpose of Restoration Ministries

1. Awareness
Proclaiming through written word and media presentation the Hebraic foundations of understanding and practice upon which the early Church was founded.

2. Equipping
Providing practical resources—books, DVD's, CD's, Hebraic articles and other training materials—for God’s people to live out His restorative truths and fulfill His purposes.

Each of the materials produced by Restoration Ministries International is interconnected with a family of information related to what our Father told us to call "The Hebraic Restoration". Each item is designed to stand alone to equip you to apply these foundational truths and principles to your life. Yet, the real strength of each is found in its interrelationship to the other facets of the Hebraic Restoration.

Through these truths our Father is revealing the trust-based, obedient lifestyle of our father Abraham:

“The promise comes by trust, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: ‘I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were’” (Romans 4:16,17).

Followers of our Lord Jesus are children of Abraham, the first Hebrew. Abraham trusted God in love-grounded obedience, willing even to sacrifice his son at God’s command. Therefore, God called him into covenant union with Himself, and through him poured out precious promises for all his children to come.

When most people hear the world “church”, they think of a building. Yet, our Lord sees His Church, the ekklesia or “called-out ones”, as the sons and daughters He has called out of the world system. Like Abraham, whose life pattern of love-grounded obedient trust is “Hebraic”, followers of Jesus are called out of the world to live in Covenant union with our Father through His Spirit.

The Restoration Diagram
Relational Priorities of the Earliest Church

PRIORITY #1 — OUR FATHER AND JESUS
A biblically Hebraic understanding of your relationship with our Father and His Son, Jesus, is a pilgrimage to salvation. Your pilgrimage begins when you accept the stipulations that our Father offers in the New Covenant. This covenant relationship is made possible through the shed blood of Jesus, our atoning sacrifice, and is sealed by His Spirit. Your spiritual journey culminates when you stand before our Lord Jesus and your name is proclaimed to the hosts of heaven.

Jesus makes clear how you can enter into this Covenant: “‘Whoever trusts in me as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who trusted in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified” (John 7:38,39). The only Scripture in existence when Jesus revealed this truth was the Older Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures.

The foundation for our salvation is found in the Older Testament, and made clear in the Newer Testament as a continuum. [We discuss this fully in our Hebraic Article, <The Gospel of the Covenant is the Pilgrimage to Salvation>, as well as in our video training series, <Jesus In Your Home>. These are a free download.] Our training materials are worthless to you if you haven't embraced the prophesied and fulfilled Covenant our Father offers you in His Word. It's only through this New Covenant that you receive the Holy Spirit. HE enables you to live as a stream of living water—a life that’s fruitful and pleasing to our Father.

We strongly encourage you to thoughtfully read this Hebraic Article or watch the video. Embrace the Covenant relationship which Jesus has made possible! There are so many false, man-centered gospels being peddled today that lead to eternal destruction. The counterfeits omit the covenant stipulations Jesus speaks of in John 7:38,39 — God’s requirements for your salvation that are found in the Older Testament and carried to completion in Jesus.

PRIORITY #2 — YOUR HOME
The earliest Hebraic followers of Jesus understood clearly that God ordained your home to be the basic building block for spiritual development. So many today “outsource” their wives and children for others to teach. But in the earliest Church the husband/father was the primary influence in the spiritual training of his family. All other relationships supported him in this role. Nothing competed with his responsibility nor compensated for his irresponsibility.

A. Marriage — Our Father designed the marriage covenant to be the physical representation of our spiritual covenant with Him. In this light, marriage is the second most important covenant God established—it mirrors the intimacy and union He wants with His beloved through His Spirit. A Hebraic-Christian marriage of the early Church reflected a couple’s relationship with God: “If you want to know the extent of my relationship with Jesus the Messiah, see it in the love He has given me for my spouse.” A man is to love his wife just as Jesus would love her. No less is demanded of him in union with Jesus: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). And a woman is to lovingly respect her husband as she would her Lord (Ephesians 5:22-24). No less is demanded of her in union with Jesus.

The relational intimacy a married couple shares represents both their individual and collective relationship with their Lord. So vital an illustration of intimacy is marriage that God refers to Himself as the husband of His wife Israel. And Jesus is called the Bridegroom of His Bride, the Church. Marital love is an enduring commitment that is meant to deepen and grow throughout the years of marriage. Similarly, your union with the Holy Spirit draws you (whether single or married) into deeper loving trust in your Lord.

Husband, God has designed you to draw strength from your wife! She's your nurturing companion and life partner suited specifically for you. Wife, God has given you this husband as provider, protector and life companion. Together you are to fulfill His plans and purposes as His Spirit guides and empowers you.

B. Family — Your home is the primary building block for Christian growth. All your other relationships should supplement your home in this purpose, not displace it or compensate for your shortcomings. The Hebraic followers of the earliest Church recognized that their relationship with their Lord and the relationships in their homes were inseparably linked: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:5-7).
Your children are a heritage and reward from our Lord. Fathers are commanded to “bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Father, you're the key influence in the sex-role identification of your children. You are God’s primary influence in whether your children enjoy healthy marriages that glorify our Father, or end up promiscuous in heterosexual or homosexual relationships. And mother, no one has the motivational influence on a child that you have. You impart nurture and motivation to your children in a way that no outside caregiver can (Proverbs 1:8, 31:26).

God’s life purpose for a child is best guided by parents who intimately know their children’s unique personalities and inclinations. Those insights sharpen only as purposeful time and loving effort are spent with their children. Then they can shepherd their children into the life decisions and vocation that are best suited for each child.

PRIORITY #3 — YOUR FELLOWSHIP IN HOMES
God is reestablishing a key element of the early Church: fellowship in homes as extended spiritual family. The earliest followers of Jesus met in homes with glad and sincere hearts to break bread and to “spur one another on toward love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24). The home fellowship relationship of the early Church is a seven-day-a-week commitment to one another.

Before the coming of Jesus, the Hebraic followers of Jesus fellowshipped in homes to support and uphold communal righteousness. As spiritual extended family, their physical and spiritual lives were interconnected. They knew from the Older Testament (Psalm 14:5, Psalm 32, Proverbs 15:29, Malachi 3:18), and affirmed again in the Newer Testament, (1 Peter 3:12) that God refuses to hear the prayers of the unrepentant and unrighteous. But those who confess their sins and turn from them are renewed in righteousness through God’s forgiveness (1 John 1:9). Then He readily answers their prayers (James 5:16-18).

Early followers of Jesus also knew from examples like David numbering his troops (1 Chronicles 21), Korah’s rebellion (Numbers 16), and Achan hiding the devoted items (Joshua 7), that God held His people communally responsible for each other. One person’s sin and unrepentance hindered all their prayers from being answered. Unlike the relatively impersonal nature of the Temple, fellowship in homes as extended spiritual family provided relational intimacy and accurate perception of each other. Upholding communal righteousness in home fellowships is the focus of our Lord’s words about His Church in Matthew 18:15-20. It’s not sin per se, but the failure to repent that causes a person to be removed from fellowship. Repentance renews the righteous responsiveness to God that brings about answered prayer. And isn’t answered prayer what got the earliest “called out ones” noticed?

The second purpose for fellowship in homes parallels the purpose of the clan in Hebrew society. An individual belonged to a family, a family to a clan, the clan to a tribe, and the twelve tribes made up the nation of Israel. Following this pattern, the Church is built on the individual, family, home fellowship, congregation, and congregations throughout a city. Home fellowships functioned like clans to provide personal care for the individual and family, and linked them to the larger and less personal relationships. As you can see from the Restoration Diagram , this is what fellowship as extended spiritual family in homes accomplishes.

Fellowship in homes deepens supportive relationships and points each other toward greater dependency on God. And as extended spiritual family you can fulfill the 54 "one-anothering" passages found in the Newer Testament. Marriages and families that have been torn apart by death or divorce can be nurtured in the extended family of the home fellowship. Mentors who have lived a life for Christ can guide those younger in their walk with the Lord. Through the family and through home fellowships, God is restoring sacrificial, load-bearing love.

The ultimate outpouring of this relational model into your city will enable congregations to impact their society, education system, business spheres, government and ultimately, their nation and the world.

The goal of Restoration Ministries International is to equip God’s children to live out the relational intimacy and spiritual power of the inner three rings of the Restoration Diagram. From these three flow the outworking that impacts greater spheres of influence.

“I will bend Judah as I bend my bow and fill it with Ephraim.
I will rouse your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece,
and make you like a warrior’s sword.” (Zechariah 9:13)

The prophetic fulfillment of Zechariah’s words is being carried out in the Hebraic Restoration. Throughout the world our Father is sending forth a Hebraic understanding of the Scriptures to undo the heathen influence of the converted Greek philosophers of the second and third centuries in the Church. Hellenist distortions of God’s Word have held the Church captive for centuries. Through a philosophical approach to truth, these men reconciled Plato and Christianity, introducing a myriad of pagan practices which are now embraced as “Christian.”

Paul had warned the Church against this: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ” (Colossians 2:8). Many of the creeds that now divide God’s children into over 23,000 competing denominations are a result of the infiltration of Greek philosophy. The early Church would have understood “doctrine” to be the message of Scriptural truth for which one would be willing to die. Instead, religious leadership united with the Roman organizational system to persecute and despise others for whom Jesus shed His precious blood.

Our Father is restoring the “sons of Zion” who trust in Him as He has revealed Himself throughout all of Scripture. As Paul rightly admonishes, “All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to [the love we have already attained]” (Philippians 3:15,16)...

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