BibleTech 2009 Reflections
Okay. Here it is in a nutshell or Twitter style … what we recommend from BibleTech 2009, and of course this is just our impression:
1. The Dramatizer – developed to separate the Bible text in drama scripts.
2. Mobile Ministry Magazine. What really needs to be said is this whole website is run from a Nokia cell phone.
3. Geeks&God: Using Drupal and much more to educate churches how to do ministry on the internet Web 2.0 style a.k.a Drupal Church Recipes.
These guys are something else. Hats off to Logos Bible Software for organizing this great conference. It inspired us to rethink our WebMinistry 2.0 philosophy and its consecutive presentations at the Leadership Development Institute of the Church of God of Prophecy and the Bulgarian Evangelical Church of God in Chicago.
A bit of disappointment was the lack of any presence by last year’s presenter James Tauber, especially since we have had a few questions for him about the MorphGNT. Now it seems that both the man and the morph have fallen off the edge of the world. Well, may be another time, James …
And finally, here are the Top 10 BibleTech 2009 Reflections according to Google:
http://openscriptures.org/blog/2009/04/synopsis-of-open-scriptures-at-bibletech2009/
http://www.ministrylive.org/index.php/2009/01/26/bible-tech-conference-2009/
http://www.supakoo.com/rick/ricoblog/CategoryView,category,bibletech.aspx/
http://evepheso.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/reflections-on-bibletech2009/
http://www.olivetreeblog.com/2008/01/16/olive-tree-at-bible-tech-2008/
http://wezlo.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/bibletech09-day-1-reflections/
http://weston.ruter.net/2009/01/14/open-scriptures-at-bibletech/
http://www.gabetaviano.com/speaking/back-from-bibletech/
http://jpsinteractive.org/blog/jt/bibletech-report/
http://blog.laridian.com/?p=134/
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20 Signs of the Last Days
1. The Spirit poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28)
2. Israel restored as a political state (Deuteronomy 28:64, 30:3 Jeremiah 29:14, 30:3 Isaiah)
3. Universal apostasy (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4)
4. The watering down of the gospel (2 Tim 3:5, Matthew 15:9)
5. False prophets and false Christs (Matthew 24:24)
6. Good will be called evil and evil good (Isaiah 5:20)
7. Worldly knowledge will increase (Daniel 12:4)
8. Earthquakes, floods, famines, plagues and diseases such as the world has never seen (Matthew 24 and Luke 21)
9. Peace will be taken from the earth and wars will increase throughout the world (Matthew 24 and Luke 21)
10. Wickedness, murder and crime among men, while the belief in the occult will increase (Matthew 24, Luke 21, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, 4:3-4)
11. People will not believe the signs of the Last Days (2 Peter 3:3-4; Matthew 16:1-4)
12. Increase in persecution of the Christians (Matthew 24:9; Mark 13:9)
13. Spread of Nuclear Weapons as predicted by the Bible (Isaiah 24:1; Zechariah 14:12; Matthew 24:21,22)
14. Middle East Tensions and an unified Arab league (Genesis 16:12; Psalm 83; Isaiah 2:3-4)
15. The new tower of Babel (Genesis 10; Isaiah 13:1-11; Jeremiah 50-51 Revelation 18)
16. Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38:1-4; Revelation 20:8)
17. The Revived Roman Empire (Daniel 2:34-45; 7:7-24; Revelation 13:1-2; 17:3-16 )
18. The Anti-Christ (1 John 2:18-19; 4:3; 2 John 7)
19. The Mark of the Beast (Revelation 13:18)
20. The FINAL SIGN: The Gospel will be preached to end of the world (Matthew 24:14, Revelations 14:6-7)
Church Leadership Seminar for the Bulgarian Evangelical Church of God in Chicago
Back in 1994-95, we helped start the Bulgarian Evangelical Church of God in Chicago. The church has now grown to be a multifaceted ministry hub serving some 100,000 Bulgarian immigrants in the Great Lakes Region. We presented a three-day Church Leadership Seminar, which we have designed specifically for the Bulgarian Church of God with a special focus on the problem in ministry of the Bulgarian Evangelical churches in North America. Pastors, team leaders and lay ministers attended the seminar on Saturday afternoon for seven-hours of non-stop teaching and training. The module on Stress Management and Internal Motivation was most favored by those in attendance, as the discussion after the session continued for close to an hour. Overall, seven of the twelve modules of the seminar were presented including the following topics:
1. Problem Solving, Delegation and Conflict Resolution
2. Bulgarian Churches in North America: Analyses and Perspectives
3. Structuring the Church for Growth: Breaking the 200 Member Barrier
4. Stress Management and Internal Motivation
5. 21 Laws of Leadership
6. 17 Laws of Team Work
7. 52 Leadership Principles of Jesus
WebMinistry 2.0 in Chicago
Our three day seminar with the Bulgarian Evangelical Church of God in Chicago started with WebMinistry 2.0. This is a series of lectures dedicated to ministry and inspired by the BibleTech 2009 Conference, which our team designed and presented at the Church of God of Prophecy annual Leadership Development Seminar in April. The presentations are combined with in-depth workshops which gives us the opportunity to share experience of over a decade of ministry on the internet and to empower local churches to take their rightful place in the web-sphere. The WebMinsitry 2.0 seminar in Chicago allowed us to launch the new website for the Bulgarian Evangelical Church of God there at: BgNewLife.org in parallel with the website of the Bulgarian Evangelical Church of Houston at: TwitterChurch.US.
Ministering in Mississippi Again
Having served as youth pastors at the Church of God at Southaven, it is always a great pleasure to return to the Grace Land area on the border of Tennessee and Mississippi to visit with old friends.
This time our visit was even more gratifying, as we were invited to speak about our work in Bulgaria at the Baptist Church in Nesbit, MS.
We had a wonderful day at the church and we were happy to bring to the congregation the word that God had laid on our hearts.
Easter Services in Houston
“Jesus has risen. He has risen indeed”, was the greeting on the morning of celebrating Easter with the Bulgarian Evangelical Church in Houston. We gathered in the building of the Second Baptist Church of Houston and had service and fellowship there for the next five hours. The message we preached focused on the Resurrection of Christ and we could barely hold our tears during the services, as the Holy Spirit visited the congregation encouraging everyone in His presence. The anointing was so strong that people began sharing about the blessings of the Lord in their lives and we concluded the service by praying for and anointing all present including the children.
The Bulgarian Evangelical Church in Houston is close to our hearts not only because it is the newest Bulgarian church in the United States, but because it incorporates a wide range of opportunities for the development of church leadership, congregation growth and ministry effectiveness. Therefore, we continued teaching the next day on the 20 Signs of the Last Days presenting the church with the urgency of the times that we live in. We prayed for the people of the church with the same prayer we blessed every church throughout our journey, as we pronounced a three-fold blessing over each family: (1) that they would receive a Boaz Blessing (3) that they would have a debt free home and (3) that God would give them an encounter with a person that could bless them in such a away, that they could become a blessing to others.
WebMinistry 2.0
Cup & Cross Ministries will be doing a presentation on the subject of WebMinistry 2.0 at the International Leadership Development Institute organized by the Church of God of Prophecy. Our team will be teaching a workshop on Tuesday April 21, 2009 at 3:45 PM.
Schedule of the event is available at: http://cogop.org/362679.ihtml
The location of the events is:
Peerless Road Church of God of Prophecy
3301 Peerless Rd NW, Cleveland, TN 37312
http://www.peerlessroadchurch.com/
We hope to see you there.
Finding Friends in Phoenix or the Story of an Arizona State Quarter
We used the time in the San Francisco Bay Area to meet up with old friends from our youth group in Bulgaria. While having coffee at the El Cerrito Starbuck’s early Sunday morning, we reminisced quite a bit remembering friends and stories from the past. Leaving the coffee shop, we came across an Arizona state quarter lying on the pavement. After picking it up, my friend shared how his brother just recently moved to Phoenix with his family.
What Happens in Vegas is Written in Heaven
We spent Palm Sunday together with the Bulgarian evangelical community of Las Vegas. The Bulgarian Diaspora in the most famous Nevada city has grown rapidly in the past few years now reaching several thousand immigrants who have established a prominent presence in the local community. The latest additions to the area are a Bulgarian store, a Bulgarian restaurant and of course a newspaper for the Bulgarians in Vegas.
Naturally, an evangelical church is being formed in the existing Bulgarian community. These are not only people who have ties with the evangelical churches in Bulgaria, but their families and representatives of second generation immigrants as well.
We were blessed to receive a cordial invitation to minister to them on our way back from the West Coast. Arriving in town, we held a Bible study on Friday and then preached at the beautiful Palm Sunday service organized by the Bulgarian evangelical believers of Las Vegas. As we prayed with the people for the remaining of the warm Sunday evening, preaching Salvation in Sin City became more than a slogan. This world claims that “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”, but what happened in the Bulgarian evangelical church in Vegas on Palm Sunday is written in Heaven.
Finding Ivan Voronaev (a.k.a. John Voronaeff) at the Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley, California
Our research on the life and ministry of Ivan Voronaev (a.k.a. John Voronaeff), one of the first Pentecostal missionaries to Bulgaria is about to be published after discovering the final group of evidences in the Bay Area of California. These documents are part of some Baptist periodicals which cover the time when Voronaev and his family completed their journey from Russia, through Manchuria and Japan, and reached San Francisco. The year is 1912.
Voronaev quickly becomes accounted to the Russian Baptist churches in the Bay Area and soon becomes a leading figure in the Russian Baptist Church of San Francisco. This relationship is quickly erupted when Voronaev receives the Baptism of Pentecost and moves north toward Seattle, Washington. All this and much more we were able to discover at the library of the Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley, CA directed by David Stiver and upon the recommendation of our friend and colleague Dr. Albert Wardin of the Southern Baptist Historical Library & Archives in Nashville.
