David and Julia Sedaca

Missionary and Vice President at Large
serving in Virginia Beach

David Sedaca is a Jewish believer in Jesus and serves as Vice President of Chosen People Ministries. David was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, where his parents were missionaries. He grew up in a Messianic Jewish home, where his father, the late Victor Sedaca, was one of the pioneers of the Messianic Jewish movement and served for many years as a missionary with Chosen People Ministries (then called the American Board of Missions to the Jews). Because of his parents’ ministry, especially in the relocation of Holocaust survivors, he grew up in different countries in Europe, South and North America.

He received his BA “Cum Laude” in Psychology from Harvard University. After a successful career in the secular world, he received a call to full-time ministry. He attended Biola University and continued at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Buenos Aires. David Sedaca studied Judaism in New York and continued Jewish studies at the School of Middle East Studies of the University of Belgrano. Having served as pastor in four different evangelical churches, David became fully involved in Jewish ministries, although he continued serving as pastor. Until the year 2000, he was the Senior Pastor of Central Baptist Church in Norfolk, Virginia. He served as Director and Homiletics professor of the Graduate School of the Bible Training Center for Pastors in Virginia. He has also been the messianic rabbi of three congregations. He served as Canadian and Latin American Director for Chosen People Ministries. He is a member of the Board of Directors of several missionary organizations, Bible Institutes, seminaries, and Christian organizations in the US, Canada, England, Latin America and Israel. David Sedaca has been a lecturer of Homiletics, Judaism and Jewish evangelism in several seminaries in United States, Canada, South America, Israel and Europe, and his writings and articles are published regularly in different theological journals and Christian magazines around the world. He has preached to over 15,000 people in sports stadiums in Latin America, and also to small groups of two or three in Africa and the Middle East. His dynamic preaching and profound knowledge of the Bible from a Jewish perspective has made him a much sought-after speaker around the world.

He is currently professor of Biblical Archaeology and Biblical Studies at Hebrew University’s Rothberg Institute of International Studies in Jerusalem where he is presently “Permanent Visiting Scholar.” He teaches at Israel’s most prestigious university “Introduction to Biblical Archaeology, ” “The Jewishness of the Gospel,” “The Jewish Background of the New Testament” and “Introduction to Rabbinic Literature.” He is also a professor at Haifa Theological Institute in Israel, where his live lectures are turned into DVDs and translated into Russian and Hebrew; thus, his teachings are now reaching hundreds of people throughout Israel and Russian-speaking countries.

David served for 25 years as Executive Secretary and CEO of the International Messianic Jewish Alliance, which is the worldwide fellowship of Jewish believers in Jesus. He was also the president of the Union of American Messianic Jewish Believers, a fellowship of Jewish believers from different churches and messianic Jewish congregations. After 25 years as the Executive Director and CEO of the International Messianic Jewish Alliance, David rejoined Chosen People Ministries in 2004, along with his wife Julia. David serves as Vice President and works in the overall development of our ministry, both in the US and in many other countries around the world. Julia Sedaca works as the Coordinator of Chosen People Ministries’ Headquarters and Assistant to the President. They presently live in Virginia Beach, Virginia. David and Julia have four married children and nine grandchildren.