The Unrealized Spiritual Harvest of Bulgarian Churches in North America

….A closer examination of the ministry and structure of the network of Bulgarian churches in North America will give answers to essential issues of cross-cultural evangelism and ministry for the Church of God. Unfortunately, until now very little has proven effective in exploring, pursuing and implementing cross-cultural paradigms within the ministry opportunities in communities formed by immigrants from post-Communist countries. As a result, these communities have remained untouched by the eldership and resources available within the Church of God denomination. There are presently no leaders trained by the Church of God for the needs of these migrant communities. Thus, a great urban harvest in large metropolises, where the Church of God has not been historically present in a strong way, remains ungathered. Although, through these communities, the Church of God has the unique opportunity to experience the post-Communist revival from Eastern Europe in a local Western setting… (p.84, Chapter III: Contextual Assessment, Historical Background, Structural Analyses and Demographics of Immigration in a Paradigm for Cross-Cultural Ministries among Migrant and Disfranchised Ethnic Groups in America Today) Read complete paper (PDF)

How to Start a Bulgarian Church in America from A-to-Z

A Call to Stand Against Demonic Works

 

Read more here:  A CALL

A Call to Righteousness over Bulgaria

 

A Call to Righteousness over the Danube

 

In 1994, as a prophetic warning to the nation some seven years before the 9/11 attacks, Dr. David Franklin wrote “A Call to Righteousness: Impending Judgment.” Drawing conclusions from Ezekiel’s chapter 12 desolation, destruction, dispersion, despair and prophetic hope in chapter 14, he warns that:

(1)   When a nation persists in violence, the Sovereign Lord confronts and holds responsible
(2)   When a nation forgets God, He allows for times of repentance
(3)   If repentance is ignored, God will expose and execute judgment on an unfaithful nation.

The book continues with a call for international righteousness (p. 10) and a critique of the debt-free myth proclaiming a time of economic shift (p. 11-12). Remember, this warning was written two decades before anyone in America had mentioned foreclosure, crises or global economic crises. But my favorite chapter still is the interpretation of Ezekiel’s vision of the departure of the Glory of God (p. 20-21).

I read this book back in 1999 and frankly had forgotten about it until 2011 when, at a young ministers training camp in the mountains of Bulgaria, we experienced what we consider the most genuine appearance of the Glory of God in our whole ministry. We wrote about it then and presented our observation at the 2012 Missions Conference at the Good Shepherd Church of God inPahokee,FL. The four points of our observation carry a tremendous prophetic resemblance to what Dr. David Franklin had proclaimed in his book 18 years ago:

(1) Every time God renews His covenant with His people, He shows His presence.

(2) We know that God is present in the covenant, because He shows His glory. It happened to Moses and his generation. And it also happened to Solomon several hundred years later.

(3) When a generation looses the vision of the Glory of God, God begins renewing His covenant again with a new generation.

(4) God is not satisfied with a people who know the signs and the blessings of the covenant. He rests not until He is revealed as the God of the covenant.

 

EPTA 2024

90 Years Ago, Narraganset Church of God Led in Benevolence

Narraganset Church of God was started by a women-preacher with only 10 members. Rev. Amelia Shumaker started the church only 15 days before the Great Depression began in 1929. She became a widow five years prior to moving to Chicago. Passing through the Great Depression by 1934, only five years after its establishment, the Narraganset Church of God was already a leader among the state benevolence ministries.

Located at 2254 N. Narraganset Avenue, the church officially took the name of its location in 1955. Early issues of the Church of God Evangel describe it as a South Side church, later corrected to the only Chicago Church of God. By 1994, the congregation has become one of only three Church of God locations in Chicago Metro. It was also where the first and only Bulgarian Church of God congregation in North America was founded also with only 10 members. (More from this timely research soon…)

25 Years of Revivals in America

Thankful for 25 Years of Revivals in America

After 33 years of ministry, more than half of it on this side of the globe, we have now preached revivals in America for over quarter of a century. I have lost count how many times we’ve crossed from the Dakotas to Texas, and from the Carolinas to California to preach the Gospel to all willing to hear. I do remember one time when we drove 18 hours straight to Minneapolis, preached a single sermon, turned around and drove back the same distance due for another appointment. I’ve recorded every place, time and sermon. If needed, I can calculate the distance of getting there and back in total millage too. I’ve long lost the count of sets of brakes and tires worn-out during travel. Maybe, the next 25 years I’ll just fly! But through all this, I’ve often stood at a church parking lot, spent out from preaching, looking at the blue sky above and realizing: I am living my dream. Preaching is all I’ve always wanted to do!

Two times, apart from the 1990 post-Communist revival in Bulgaria, we have experienced continuing Holy Ghost revival in America. The first time was in the summer of 1999 in South Carolina, where one revival night multitudes were called to the ministry and on other nights, we just could not close the services with the power of God so powerfully evident. If you were a pastor back then, we most probably preached in your church one of these revivals, which are now marked by our 25-year anniversary.

In 1999, our revivals were weeks before the Y2K. Perhaps naively, I contributed the unusual move of the Spirit and extraordinary attendance to the turn of the 21^st century.  We were forced to see things a bit more prophetically, when we were hit by a fresh wave of revival pre-pandemic in the Spring and Summer 2019. Along with preaching virtually daily during the revival season, we were able to publish our New Testament Interlinear in Bulgaria and distribute it to our churches just before the shutdown.

This time, the revival in 2023 came a bit sooner than the usual decade-long cycle we had experienced with the past two. As we are getting ready to continue our 2023 Revival Harvest Campaign with a Community Communion service just in time for Thanksgiving this week, we have completed two full months of revivals in Polk County. Some 50 back-to-back services can truly change one’s perspective on our days! That God is at work is not even in question here, but what about the Church?

Exactly 20 years ago in his book “A Call to Righteousness: Impending Judgment,” Dr. David Franklin outlined the cycle of repentance for a nation’s revival as following:

• When a nation persists in violence, the Sovereign Lord confronts and holds responsible,
• When a nation forgets God, He allows for times of repentance,
• If repentance is ignored, God will expose and execute judgment on an unfaithful nation.

Every time God renews His covenant with His people, He shows His presence! (a) We know that God is present in the covenant, because He shows His glory. It happened to Moses and his generation. And it also happened to Solomon several hundred years later. (b) When a generation loses the vision of the Glory of God, God begins renewing His covenant again with a new generation. (c) God is not satisfied with a people who know the signs and the blessings of the covenant. He rests not until He is revealed as the God of the Covenant!

This Biblical truth is valid for any nation in the world, and I often draw a painful parallel of similarities with my home country of Bulgaria; where in October the 7^th government elections since the start of the 2020 pandemic did not produce the desired change. Though the voting machines imported from Venezuela were pulled out a day before the election for obvious reasons, the vote went in history as the lowest ever with only 33% participating. This halted the acting government, setting the country for another parliamentarian election in 2024. With two regional wars now (Ukraine and Israel) and record high inflation, Bulgaria is walking a close line to another national crisis as we experienced back in 1997. In the midst of this, the Church of God Balkan Ministry Center in Sofia, which was initially sold in 2021, is back on the market with first installment toward its purchase made on November 16, 2023.

Meanwhile, on the national Day of National Awakening (celebrated after All Saints Day on November 1^st), we were able to release and present the first Greek-Bulgarian Interlinear of the New Testament online. Its name, Evangelieto.com, means The Gospel in Bulgarian. This new website is a natural continuation of Bibliata.com – the first Bulgarian Bible online, we released back in the fall of 1996. This new online edition, which has been in the works since 2016, is dedicated to those students of the Bible, who prefer working with the original texts, rather than using the multitude of new Bible revisions often with religious and ideological orientation. The Greek-Bulgarian Interlinear of the New Testament online proposed the following solutions to the Bulgarian Bible translation:

1. A non-received text – Textus Haud Receptus
2. Critical Edition of the Greek New Testament (Tischendorf, Westcott&Hort, Nestle-Aland, UBS and SBL)
3. Literal translation from Greek, made word for word without dynamic equivalents
4. Linguistic paradigm for repetitive parallel permutation structures in the Greek-Bulgarian translation
5. Analytical Greek New Testament with complete morphology of the words
6. Complete textual commentary of the New Testament with thousands of references
7. Audio/video reading of the verse with its original and consequent variations
8. Discussion board under each verse for pastors and ministers to offer their thoughts on the text.

Thankful for 25 Years of Revivals in America: Revival Must Go On!

BLACK FRIDAY BOOK SALE

All books by Cup&Cross on SALE

Final clearance sale for the year with new titles coming up in early 2021

CLICK the picture below to view all titles on Amazon.com

BULGARIA in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Global Pentecostalism

Brill’s Encyclopedia of Global Pentecostalism (BEGP) provides a comprehensive overview of worldwide Pentecostalism from a range of disciplinary perspectives. It offers analysis at the level of specific countries and regions, historical figures, movements and organizations, and particular topics and themes. The online version of the Encyclopedia is already available

For some of you it has been a long time ago that you submitted your article(s) for BEGP, for others it was a bit more recent, but I am very happy to announce that this Summer the print edition of Brill’s Encyclopedia of Global Pentecostalism will finally see the light. With this we can proudly close this chapter and proceed to see what the reception of the volume will bring! Thank you for being part of this great project!

To celebrate, we will organize an online symposium on September 16^th, with presentations from the editors as well as 3 experts who will comment on BEGP: Amos Yong, Birgit Meyer and Néstor Medina. You can find more detailed information in the attached flyer. Please be welcome.

Registration is free (but necessary to receive a link); we will raffle one free copy of the print edition among the registered participants. For registration and questions, please send your message to begp@brill.com, mentioning Symposium in the subject line.

We hope to see you then!

Releasing Greek-Bulgarian Interlinear of the New Testament ONLINE

The day after All Saints Day in Bulgarian is celebrated as the Day of National Awakening. In honor and contribution to the National Awakening, we are proud to release the first Greek-Bulgarian Interlinear of the New Testament ONLINE @ https://evangelieto.com/

Evangelieto.com means The Gospel in Bulgarian and is also a common reference the New Testament texts. This new website is a natural continuation of Bibliata.com – the first Bulgarian Bible online, we released back in the cold winter of 1996.

For Easter 2015, after over eight years of hard work and much difficulties, Cup & Cross Ministries was able to complete and publish the first ever Greek-Bulgarian interlinear based on the Nestle-Aland 28/ UBS-4 texts. This first edition is dedicated to those students of the Bible, who prefer working with the original texts, rather than using the multitude of new Bible revisions often with religious and ideological orientation.

For the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, our Greek-Bulgarian Interlinear of the New Testament was presented in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia on All Saints Day 2017. The Greek Bulgarian Interlinear of the New Testament proposed the following solutions to the translation of the Bible in Bulgarian:
1. A non-received text – Textus Haud Receptus
2. Critical Edition of the Greek New Testament alike Revised Textus Receptus, Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, von Soden, Nestle-Aland, UBS and SBL GNTs
3. Literal translation from Greek made word for word without dynamic equivalents
4. Linguistic paradigm for repetitive parallel permutation structures in the Greek-Bulgarian translation alike form criticism of the Bible
5. Analytical Greek New Testament with complete morphology of the words

This new translation took several years to refine through multiple revisions, re-readings, and new re-translate where needed in order to produce an interlinear with priority advantages and distinctive features as follows:
1. The text is arranged in three lines – Greek original, literal translation and for the first time in a Bulgarian publication, an analytical apparatus with detailed morphology of the words.
2. A brand-new word for word translation, not phrase for phrase or simple imposed text on an already existing translation, challenges the reader into a deeper understanding of the Word.
3. Unnecessary text markers and explanations have been avoided because the parallel stylistics between Greek and Bulgarian are much more similar than other languages even when accompanied with Strong’s numbering.
4. The literal meaning of the text is shown without the dynamic equivalent characteristic of other interlinear editions.
5. All participles/predicates are literally translated avoiding the superimposition of like, as, which, etc., when they are not in the original text.
6. All definite articles are given as in the Greek before the word (not at the end part of the word as it is done in Bulgarian) even in the tradition of Nomina Sacra.
7. Enforced literalism on understandable New Testament terminology such as Lord/Master, church/ecclesia/congregation/gathering/assembly, baptism, etc. is avoided.
8. The literal word for word translation preserves case and gender as possible in over 90% of the New Testament text.
9. The applied critical apparatus in addition to the analytical morphology, includes designation of all verses and passages of critical difference with the Nestle-Aland GNT.
10. Hitherto missing morphology now provided, not only shows why a given word is translated in the chosen way, but enables the reader to navigate through more complex grammatical structures of the Greek language and understand them.

To translate the Bible is like to climb upon top of Mount Everest. You put everything at stake. You spend yourself to the last. You forget the pain and fatigue. You leave behind the unimportant things. You carry only the most important ones. Every breath is for eternity. Every step is last. And so, all the way to the top! The price is unbearable, but the reward is extraordinary. Because there, from the top, you finally see things differently. And it is almost impossible to go back down. Even if you can, down now feels different. And one can only hope others too will climb this peak, to perceive and translate for the next. So, that they too can see. For this reason, our interlinear is by no means the last. It is only a seed, which will bear long lasting fruit. For the generations…

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