Pentecostal Praxis

My first personal experience of the Pentecostal praxis was through the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. It took place the day after I was saved, and ever since has taken a central place in my personal life, spiritual life and ministry. The liturgy I am about to describe is a typical Communion Service in the Bulgarian Church of God.  It dates back to the early 1920s when Russian immigrants to the United States were traveling back from the Azusa Street revival to Russia to preach the Good News to their people. On the way back, their ship stops for a night at the Bulgarian port of Bourgas on the Black Sea. They attended the service at the Congregational church in town, and a great number of the believers received the Spirit through their ministry. This event is considered the initiation of the Pentecostal movement in Bulgaria.

The Church of God in Bulgaria was established in the 1928 with an identical name, but independently from the Church of God (Cleveland, TN). The first link between the two churches was established in 1985. During this 65-year period, the Church of God in Bulgaria was persecuted by Orthodox and nationalistic organizations before and during the Communism Regime, and was looked upon as an extreme cult organization. Yet, during these years of underground worship, the Church of God has preserved the liturgy of the Eucharist in the grade of authenticity in which it was received.

An essential part the service is the preparation. The believers depend on the leadership of the Holy Spirit for the exact date and time of the Communion Service.  Due to the lack of scheduled services in the underground church, the believers trusted in the protection of the Holy Spirit in arranging the service.  Fasting is also a requirement on the day of the service.

The actual service usually takes place in the nighttime when everyone is free from work.  It takes place in a believer’s home.  Sometimes these services have up to fifty people in a small apartment.  Worship is quiet, because any loud noise may lead to the appearance of the police.

The physical silence, however, does not limit the presence of the Holy Spirit, and even helps the believers to be more sensitive to God’s voice, which is indescribable when taking place as a group experience. The service starts with prayer, which lasts till God reveals who among the ladies is to beak the unleavened bread for the communion.  After the chosen ladies leave to bake the bread, the minister delivers his communion message.

The altar call, given after the preaching, purposes to prepare the believers for Communion. Communion is not given to a person who is not saved, baptized in water and in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, after the sermon, a prayer is offered for the sick and the needy, a special prayer is prayed for repentance and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I have personally witnessed up to thirty people saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit in a matter of minutes.

The converts are led to the river and baptized in water. This is often done in the middle of the night, when sometimes the temperature is so low that the minister and his assistants break the ice in order to baptize the convert.

The converts are welcomed back with a special song sung by the congregation. After an extended time of self-examination and the request of each believer to be forgiven by the present members of the congregation, the pastor presents the Communion to the congregation. One unleavened cake is used as a symbol of the oneness of Christ’s body. The cup of the Communion is filled with wine. The roots of this tradition can be traced back to the teachings of the first western missionaries to Bulgaria at the end of the nineteenth century, as well as the influence of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. After communion, men and women are separated for a foot washing service. At the end of the service, all are gathered for an Agape feast, which serves as a conclusion of the Communion Service.

This communion liturgy has been strictly preserved for the past hundred years by believers who have been challenged to keep their faith even with the cost of their lives through the persecution of Communism. Apart from the official doctrinal teachings of the denomination, the experience of the sacrament has been its only protector.

It would have been easier to define and reconstruct the basic list of church practices if at least a minimal structural system, formal government or doctrinal statements existed. Both the Primitive Church and Early Pentecostalism substantively lacks all of this. It was this deficit that creatively shaped the identity of the Church and presupposed its further search for primitivism.

Although the primitive communities were not the same everywhere, three practices were common for all: sharing of possessions, baptism, and communion. They were accompanied by the early liturgical formulas such as amen, hallelujah, maranatha, etc.

The message of the Primitive Church was delivered mainly through speeches (Acts 2, 7, 17, 20, etc.) and communal discussions of examples of the Bible (Acts 7; Heb. 11). It contrasted the present experience with the former lost conditions in a before-after contextual method (Rom. 7-8) and served as a practical instruction of the Christian walk (Col. 3:5ff.).

Pentecostal Power

I have heard the stories of the older Bulgarian Christians about the Communist persecution; stories of pain and suffering, horrifying the psyche and the physics of the listeners. They speak of a persecuted church whose only defender has been God.  I have heard the stories of the saints of old, but I have also seen these stories turning into powerful testimonies of the powerless, who become powerful in a realm which human understanding cannot comprehend or explain. I have seen the stories of pain then become an arena for the power of God, and the saints of old holding their hands lifted up, with eyes filled with fire from above, voices that firmly declare, “Thus sayeth the Lord.” And their testimonies have become confirmation of my faith and convictions as well as the faith of many others. Their faith, rather primitive and naïve, but firmly based in God, naturally powerless but divinely powerful, has preserved their experience for us.

Theologically, preservation is an agency through which God maintains not only the existing creation, but also the properties and powers with which He has endowed them. Much had been said and written about spiritual power in the second half of the nineteenth century. The theme of “power” was clearly present in the Wesleyan tradition along with the motifs of “cleansing” and “perfection.” The effects of the spiritual baptism were seen as “power to endure, and power to accomplish.” It was also suggested that “holiness is power,” and that indeed purity and power are identical.

Nevertheless, it was recorded that in the midst of this quest for the supernatural power of the Primitive Church, the believers in Topeka, Kansas searched “through the country everywhere, …. unable to find any Christians that had the true Pentecostal power.”  The Apostolic Faith began its broadcast of Pentecost with the words “Pentecost has surely come …” It further explained that the cause for this miraculous occurrence was that “many churches have been praying for Pentecost, and Pentecost has come.”

The central understanding of the spiritual power was as enduement for ministry. According to this interpretation, Christ’s promise in Acts 1:8 was seen fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost. It was intergenerational power to experience God’s grace for the moment, but also to preserve it for the generations to come, as Peter stated, “For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” (Acts 2:39). Furthermore, this power was interpreted as an integral part of the ministry of the Primitive Church. Since it had been lost in history, it was needed again and an immediate reclaiming was necessary. It was both an individually and corporately experienced power as it focused on both personal holy living and witnessing to the community.

The Church of God accepted both the sanctification and baptism characteristics of the power, but it interpreted the sanctification separate from the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Sanctification was divinely initiated and perfected. It was not through the believer’s self-discipline, as Wesley taught, but through the power of God alone, that the believer could be sanctified and continue to live a sanctified life free from sin. What was experienced in 1896 was definitely Pentecost, and not just any Pentecost, but was the Pentecost of the Primitive Church from Acts chapter two.

Further, interpreting the account of Acts, this power found expression in glossolalia, spiritual gifts, miracles and healings. Since, it was physically manifested in the midst of the congregation it was holistically experienced by the Christian community, and that was enough proof for its authenticity. The interpretation included expressions like dynamite, oxidite, lyidite and selenite.  But the power had more than just physical manifestations. It was their only explanation of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It was their proof that He indeed was the Messiah. Therefore, it produced results in real-life conversions, affecting the growth of the small church in the mountain community. It was a power for witness. It was also the power that gave them strength during the numerous persecutions. Even when the church building was burned to the ground and the members were shot at and mocked, the reality of the living Church, as the Body of Christ, remained unscathed. The promised power brought meaning into the life of the Church of God.

Pentecostal Prayer

My personal experience of prayer comes from an hour between three and four o’clock in the afternoon spent every day sitting in the presence of God on an old chair in Coffee Room #3 on the fourth floor of the Men’s dorm in the Computer Technical School of Pravetz, Bulgaria. It is accompanied with the memories of leaving the dormitory through a first-floor window along with 15-20 other boys and running in the early morning snow to the small mountain Church of God through the doors of which so many have entered the glory of Heaven. And it always brings to my mind the image of my praying grandmother who forgetting the need of sleep and rest spent countless nights of prayer in the presence of the Almighty God.

If Pentecostalism has indeed discovered and acquired any of the characteristics of the Primitive Church this would be the prayer of the early saints. Prayer is also the means for universal identification with the Pentecostal movement. The Bible School of Charles Fox Parham in Topeka, Kansas had a prayer tower where prayers were ascending nightly and daily to God. It was through prayer and laying on of hands when around 11 p.m. on December 31, 1900, Agnes Ozman was baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. Six years later the Apostolic Faith stated that the beginning of Pentecost started with prayer in a cottage meeting at 214 Bonnie Brae.

It was a timeless prayer as they wept all day and night. It was prayer for reclaiming the power from the past; prayer for the present needs, and prayer for the future return of Christ. Prayer was not only the source of divine power, but also the means for preservation of the power and the identity of the Primitive Church. Prayer was not only the request for power, but also for the personal change and preparation of the believer who was going to receive the power. The connection between power and prayer was in the spirit of the ongoing Azusa Street Revival, whose members were earnestly urged to, “Pray for the power of the Holy Ghost.”

Similarly, the Church of God based its quest for the Primitive Church in prayer. Moreover, prayer was the only way these poor, uneducated and persecuted people could find comfort for their needs and answers for their lives. Prayer was their communication with God, their worship and their only way of experiencing the divine and acquiring the supernatural. It was not a sophisticated constructive liturgy, but rather a simple deconstructive experience, where the believer was divinely liberated from the past, present and future doctrinal dogmas and human limitations.

Only then was the believer able to experience the presence of God freely. The past pain was gone, the present need was trivial and the future was in the hands of the Almighty God. Hope, faith, crying, tears and joy were all ecstatically present in the reality of prayer, because God could hear and see all. And somehow, in a ways, which remains unexplainable, mystic and supernatural, their cry to God was heard and they were indeed empowered.

It was through a fervent prayer that in the summer of 1896 in the Shearer Schoolhouse in Cherokee County, NC about 130 people received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. It was through the prayer that took place in a cottage house, after the model of the Primitive Methodists. It was through the prayer in the house of W.F. Bryant and the prayers of the men on the “Prayer Mountain.” It was like the prayer in the Upper Room in Jerusalem (Acts 2). It was through the prayer which all seekers of God prayed in their search for His presence, in their need and in their longing for life. It was through the prayer, which reclaims, experiences and preserves the true Christian identity.

Twenty years later, The First Assembly of the Church of God recommended that prayer meetings would be held weekly in the local churches. It also urged for every family to gather together in family worship and seek God, instructing their children to kneel in the presence of the Almighty. In the 1907 Consecration Service both A.J. Tomlinson and M.S. Lemons expressed their desire and willingness to pray as they worked in the ministry.  To seek the power for ministry through prayer was completely in the spirit Azusa Street Revival, through which Pentecostalism addressed the world with the words, “The power of God now… “

Pentecostal Triangle of Primitive Faith

The modern call for Primitivism derives from the idea of personal experience with God. There is yet no truth for and about Pentecostalism that does not emerge from experience. Irrational in thinking and in an intimate parallel to the story of the Primitive Church, Pentecostalism combines the discomfort and weakness of the oppressed and persecuted. It is the story of one and yet many that excels through the piety of the search for holiness and the power of the supernatural experience of Pentecost. It is the call for the reclaiming and restoration of “the faith once delivered to the saints.”

Such an idea of “looking back to the church of antiquity” derives from a Puritan background and is indisputably Wesleyan. In a letter to the Vicar of Shoreham in Kent, Wesley writes that the parallel between the present reality and the past tradition must remain close. For Wesley, the primitive church was the church of the first three centuries. Equality in the community as in the primitive church was the context in which Wesley ministered. Everyone was allowed to preach, both deacons and evangelists, and even women “when under extraordinary inspiration”

Of course, for Wesley, the Primitive Church was restored with the Church of England. The Pentecostal response was quite different, “The Methodists say that John Wesley set the standard. We go beyond Wesley; we go back to Christ and the apostles, to the days of pure primitive Christianity, to the inspired Word of truth.” The main characteristic of restoration was the personal experience of God. This experience was vividly presented by the Wesleyan interpreters in the quadrilateral along with reason, tradition and scripture. Such a scheme, however, may not be fully sufficient to describe the Pentecostal identity, as well as the paradigm of the Primitive Church.

The experience of God in a Pentecostal context carries a more holistic role, which is connected with the expression of the individual’s story and identity in both personal and corporate ecclesial settings. Through the experience then, they become a collaboration of the story of the many, and at the same time remain in the boundaries of their personal identity. The experience of both the individual and the community that holistically and circularly surrounds Pentecostalism is expressed in prayer, power and praxis.

Since Pentecostalism is based on the personal experience of God, prayer as the means of spiritual communication is its beginning. Being the source of spiritual power in the individual’s life it becomes the means of existence within the community of believers. Power derives only from God through a spiritual relationship which expressed through prayer, develops as a factor of constant change. The product is a unique praxis, which in the quest for church holiness and personal morality appeals for redefinition of the original ecclesial purpose and identification with the lives of the first Christians. The triangular formula of prayer, power and praxis is then the basis for Pentecostal theology.

Pentecostals claim primitivism aplenty, conformity to the apostolic experience of Pentecost and the Book of Acts. It affirms that modern Christianity can rediscover and re-appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit, described in the New Testament and particularly in Acts of the Apostles. In a social context, it was a call against public injustice. Globally the Pentecostal movement was a powerful revival that appeared almost simultaneously in various parts of the world in the beginning of the twentieth century. In the United States it occurred during the time of spiritual search.

During the first seventy years of national life of the USA barely 1.6 million immigrants arrived. In 1861-1900 fourteen million entered the country, and it was precisely within the recorded decade of 1901-10, with 8.8 million immigrants, that the Pentecostal movement began. The mass migration was in an immediate connection with the rapid urbanization and industrialization occurring in a chronological parallel. Since first generation immigrants are usually rootless, combined with sociological changes, the context created a search for identity and roots. In America, Pentecostalism came as an answer to this search.

In parallel, the beginning of the Church of God was a call for restoration and a literal return to the Primitive Church. It was The Christian Union committed to “restore primitive Christianity.” In its early years the Church of God focused on four main characteristics of the Church from Acts: (1) great outpouring of the Spirit, (2) great “ingathering of souls,” (3) tongues of fire and (4) spread of the Gospel. Similar to the Early Church, it began in the context of persecution, presence and parousia. While heavily persecuted the Church of God constantly remains in the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit in a firm expectancy of the return of Christ. The Genesis of the Church of God was a restoration of the Pentecostal prayer, power and praxis of the Primitive Church.

EU approves Bulgaria’s Euro adoption despite protests

Thousands protest in Bulgaria against the Euro

Pentecostal articles for Pentecost Sunday

Offering a few recent Pentecostal articles in light of the upcoming Pentecost Sunday celebration:

1. The Forgotten Azusa Street Mission: The Place where the First Pentecostals Met
2. Diamonds in the Rough-N-Ready Pentecostal Series (Complete)
3. 95th anniversary of the Pentecostal movement in Bulgaria
4. Toward a Pentecostal Solution to the Refugee Crises in the European Union
5. Historical and Doctrinal Formation of Holiness Teachings and Praxis among Bulgarian Pentecostals
6. Pacifism as a Social Stand for Holiness among Early Bulgarian Pentecostals
7. The Practice of Corporate Holiness within the Communion Service of Bulgarian Pentecostals
8. Sanctification and Personal Holiness among Early Bulgarian Pentecostals
9. First Pentecostal Missionaries to Bulgaria (1920)
10. Historical and Doctrinal Formation of Holiness Teachings and Praxis among Bulgarian Pentecostals
11. The Everlasting Gospel: The Significance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal Thought
12. Online Pentecostal Academic Journals
13. What made us Pentecostal?
14. Pentecostalism and Post-Modern Social Transformation
15. Obama, Marxism and Pentecostal Identity
16. Why I Decided to Publish Pentecostal Primitivism?
17. Historic Pentecostal Revival Tour in Bulgaria Continues
18. The Land of Pentecostals
19. Pentecostal Theological Seminary Address
20. A Truly Pentecostal Water Baptism
    

The Prism of Purity: God’s Unalterable Design

by Kathryn Donev

Aristotle was a towering intellect of his era, a philosopher brimming with ideas and insights—though not all of them aligned with truth. He posited that white was a primary color, emerging from the interplay of light and transparent substances, and that all other colors derived from a blend of white and black. Aristotle taught that light was a static quality inherent to objects, with true white as its essence, and that colors arose as deviations from this original state.

Centuries later, Isaac Newton challenged this notion. After purchasing a prism at the Stourbridge Fair in Cambridge, he observed something remarkable. When light passed through the prism, it didn’t merely adjust, but it fragmented into a spectrum of colors, revealing the rainbow. Newton reasoned that if Aristotle’s theory held, passing this refracted light through a second prism should alter the colors further. Yet, that’s not what happened. Instead, the colors recombined into white light. This demonstrated that light was not a fixed property of objects but a dynamic phenomenon capable of being split and reassembled, traveling as waves or particles. Newton’s experiments revealed that white light contained all colors, directly contradicting Aristotle’s view that light merely exposed an object’s inherent qualities.

In Genesis 6:11, we read that God looked upon an earth “corrupt in His sight and full of violence.” Humanity had strayed from God’s design, descending into chaos marked by violence, unruliness, and the normalization of homosexuality without remorse. Righteousness collapsed entirely, culminating in the Great Flood. Afterward, God set a sign in the sky.  The rainbow, a phenomenon never before witnessed in history. It was more than a visual marvel; it was a masterfully crafted symbol of humanity’s connection to the Creator and the purity in which we were formed. Beyond that, it carried a profound scientific message to all creation.

When true light passes through the prism of rain, the rainbow emerges. Its source is unwavering and pure. And when that light passes through another prism, it returns to its original state of true white, undistorted and unchangeable. The prism’s ability to split white light into a rainbow reflects God’s divine order—a singular source of light unveiling a spectrum of beauty, just as His singular truth and holiness shine through the diversity of creation. The constancy of light’s nature, refracting into a rainbow yet remaining unaltered in essence, points to the immutable will of the Creator. Human sin, like the corruption described in Genesis 6:11, may cloud perception, but it cannot change the fundamental properties of light that God established.

Thus, the rainbow stands as a dual testament to God’s judgment and mercy. It is a fixed design no human can undo. Though some have co-opted it as a symbol of pride, its true meaning endures as a representation of divine order and perfection that cannot be altered. Great thinking alone, as Aristotle demonstrated, is not enough. True understanding must be anchored in unchanging truth. No matter how far we stray or how desperately we attempt to twist reality, the fundamental truth endures, steadfast and unshakable.

The rainbow, in its essence, can never deviate from its purity. It is bound by the immutable laws of its creation to reflect the full spectrum of true light. It emerges from the Creator’s design as a promise, an eternal testament woven into the fabric of the universe, incapable of being anything less than the radiant, unblemished expression of divine order. No human effort can redefine its nature or dim its brilliance; the rainbow will forever shine as a flawless symbol of its origin, a beacon of truth that cannot be bent or broken.  Just as humanity cannot redefine its nature or dim its brilliance.  Humanity was created in the image of God as a beacon of truth with a flawless design that needs no efforts to mutilate God’s unalterable design.   We are prisms of perfect purity with a purpose.

Created on 4.8.25

 

 

30 Years of the Bulgarian Church of God in Chicago

July 10, 2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the first service of the Bulgarian Church of God in Chicago in 1995.
We have told the Story of the first Bulgarian Church of God in the Untied States (read it here) on numerous occasions and it was a substantial part of our 2005 dissertation (published in 2012, see it here).

From my personal memories, the exact beginning was after Brave Heart opened in the summer of 1995 and the Narragansett Church of God closed the street for a 4th of July block party with BBQ, Chicago PD horsemen, a moonwalk and much more.

The first service in the Bulgarian vernacular was held Sunday afternoon, July 10th 1995 being the true anniversary of the Bulgarian Church in Chicago. Only about a dozen were present and the sermon I preached was from Hebrews 13:5. Unfortunately, to this day 20 years later, we cannot locate the pictures taken that day to identify those present. And some have already passed away.

Using a ministry model that later became a paradigm for starting Bulgarian churches in North America (see it in detail) the church grew to over 65 members in just a few weeks by the end of July. This was around the time the movie Judge Dread had opened and the first edition of Windows 95 was scheduled for release in Chicago. I saw them both at the mall on upper Harlem Boulevard.

The Bulgarian Church of God in Chicago followed a rich century-long tradition, which began with the establishing of Bulgarian churches and missions in 1907. (read the history) Consecutively, our 1995 Church Starting Paradigm was successfully used in various studies and models in 2003. The program was continuously improved in the following decade, proposing an effective model for leading and managing growing Bulgarian churches.

Based on the Gateway cities in North America and their relations to the Bulgarian communities across the continent, it proposed a prognosis toward establishing Bulgarian churches (see it here) and outlined the perimeters of their processes and dynamics in the near future (read in detail).

After a personal xlibris, the said prognosis were revisited in 2009 in relation to preliminary groundbreaking church work on the West Coast and then evaluated against the state of Bulgarian Churches in America at the 2014 Annual Conference in Minneapolis.

We’re yet to observe the factors and dynamics determining if Bulgarian churches across North America will follow their early 20th century predecessors to become absorbed in the local context or alike many other ethnic groups survive to form their own subculture in North America. We will know the answer for sure in another 30 years…

 

 

Bulgarian Pentecostal riddle…

Five kings with five crowns
Four bishops and castle in the middle
Who will blow the whistle
and who will play the fiddle?
A Bulgarian Pentecostal riddle…

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