National Leadership Seminar for the Bulgarian Church of God of Prophesy in Rousse
November 9th through the 11th our team held the Bible Leadership Seminar for the National Assembly of the Church of God of Prophecy in Rousse. Monday afternoon we gathered in the upper room of the church where there were some 50 leaders from the country were present. The pastor opened the seminar with prayer and song and we followed with the introduction of the course and then taught on the 21 Laws of Leadership from a Biblical Perspective. After a small break we introduced the module on Problem Solving, which was received very well by the audience and continued with a brief discussion.
Ministering at the Rousse Church of God of Prophecy
This past Sunday we were privileged with the opportunity, for the first time, to minister in the Rousse Church of God of Prophecy. Rousse is in the northeastern part of Bulgaria on the right bank of the Danube river just minutes away from Romania. It is a very unique town with a rich history of more than 5000 years and vast ancient architecture. Many buildings still remain as they were hundreds of years ago. The church building itself is actually one of those buildings. Yet, the church is even more unique due to it being a former synagogue. The pastor told us the story of how, after many obstacles, the church family witness the miracle of being able to purchase the building and how they invested their various talents to restore the building.
During the Sunday morning service we shared on the signs of the last days for it is our belief that we are not just living in the last days, but in the last minutes. An alter call followed the message in which the entire church came to the front where we, along with the pastor and his wife, were able to pray for the people and their various needs.
In the afternoon we were asked to speak to the 30 some youth of the church who had gathered for a time of fellowship. They came with open minds and questions concerning the Bible. We were also able to share with them of the variety of Biblical resources which can be found on our website consortium, Bibliata.com. It was however much to our surprise that many of them already knew of such and had been adamantly using the site. It is always encouraging to learn that the time invested by our team to make Bibliata.com a reality has been appreciated and in this case it was by ones that we had never even met. We are thankful for this and for the very warm and inviting spirit of the church family in Rousse, Bulgaria.
80 Years Bulgarian Pentecostal Union
The Bulgarian Pentecostal Union is celebrating 80 years from its conception in 1928 when Bulgarian born missionary Dr. Nickolas Nikoloff, trained and ordained by the Assemblies of God denomination, arrived in Bourgas with a mission to organize the Pentecostal communities across the country into one denomination. The Bulgarian Pentecostal movement had begun almost a decade earlier, when Ukrainian immigrants to the United States, Voronaeff, Zaplishny and Koltovitch returning as missionaries to their motherland, preached the new message of Pentecost in Bulgaria. At the same time, a more conservative group split from the newly founded Union establishing an underground network of Spirit-baptized holiness churches, which were able to survive the persecutions of the Communist Regime (1944-1989) and is today commonly known as the Church of God in Bulgaria.
Members from the whole country were present for the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Bulgarian Pentecostal Union which took place in the capital Sofia. Our team was able to represent the Bulgarian Church of God at the meeting. We were also given the opportunity to speak at the New Wave Youth Rally which took place that same afternoon and were able to present to the some one thousand young people who filled the whole auditorium, our new project Bibliata.TV. In addition on Sunday, we ministered at the Fire Church of God in Sofia lead by the Church of God Regional Overseer for the Sofia region, Pastor Daniel Kirov and at the Salvation Church of God, where we finished two of the modules of the National Leadership Seminar for the Church of God.
National Leadership Seminar for the Church of God Continues in Sofia
We were again privileged to teach the next two levels of the National Leadership Seminar for the Church of God in Sofia. This is the of tenth leadership event we have held for the Church of God in Bulgaria since August, 2008. The two levels presented were the “21 Laws of Leadership” and “52 Leadership Principles of Jesus.” As we taught the topics in the Salvation Church of God in Sofia, we were all amazed by the fact how relevant and applicable Biblical leadership is in the Bulgarian context. The particular team we were working with that night, is a multicultural group of people that ministers both in Bulgaria and to Bulgarian immigrants in Europe. They have an extensive ongoing work with Bulgarian communities in Spain and Portugal. Just recently, they returned from a missions trip to Greece which we were also invited to join, but were unable to do so due to our full preaching schedule in Bulgaria. The night of the leadership course, the team was leaving on a ministry trip to England and Germany that same night. Yet, they were eager to sit around the drawing board with us, learn new leadership principles and draft new strategies for ministry to implement in their trip. While many claim that the times of revival in Bulgaria re long gone, we were again amazed by the enthusiasm and motivation of the ministry teams in Sofia. And it seemed clear that true revival comes not from the crowds that it draws, but from the internal God-given motivation of people that are willing to dedicate their whole lives for bringing true spiritual revival to the land. For revival must go on …
Days of Open Doors Press Conference in Varna
When the year 2008 was announced as the Year of the Bible in Bulgaria, it drew many churches and organizations in a common attempt to present a unified evangelical strategy. Accordingly, many of the opponents of the evangelical movement in Bulgaria used this as an opportunity to attack the evangelical churches calling them “sectarians” and “heretics.” The attention which the general media gave to this anti-evangelical wave in the media reminded of a similar wave which took place in the early 1990s in Bulgaria. This time, however, the evangelical churches were prepared and ready to resist these unacceptable media attacks which restrict religious freedom and oppose the pluralistic values of the democratic society. In a typical puritan matter, a number of evangelical churches have organized acts of peaceful protest and media events to counteract the false accusations and establish anew the truth about Bulgarian evangelism.
One of these acts was the Days of Open Doors organized by the evangelical churches in the Black Sea port city of Varna on the Day of Reformation. Our team was also invited to participate as cofounder of the Institute for Bulgarian Protestant History. One of the many events which took place during the Days of Open Doors was a press conference which was given in the Varna Press Center. Side by side with the Assemblies of God and the Methodist churches, we were able to represent our Church of God denomination in partnership with the Institute for Bulgarian Protestant History in a powerful media event, which put a start to a national PR campaign on behalf of the evangelical churches in Bulgaria. Similar campaigns took place in Sofia, Bourgas, Lovetch and just recently in Silistra on the Danube river. We were also able to publish a commemorative brochure dedicated to the important role of Protestants in the Bulgarian national history.
Revision of the 1940 Bulgarian Bible Published
Twelve full years have now passed from the day we published the first Bulgarian online Bible in the fall of 1996. The text which we then used for the task was a computerized version of the 1940 revision of the Bulgarian Bible. Since that time, this text has become a classic Bible study tool for everyone who uses a computer to study the Bulgarian Bible. Many websites, including our own Bibliata.com, have included the text as a Bulgarian standard reference and the Bible Works software has published it in its last several versions. Many of the Bulgarian Bible publishers have used it as a base for their new revision and the Gideon’s have helped distribute it to every corner of the country.
This year our team was able to publish, on paper, the 1940 Revision of the Bulgarian Bible with the help from our colleagues from Bibles.org.uk. This new edition contains 800 pages in a beautiful hard cover and can be purchased directly from the publisher at Lulu.com. It has become one of our projects in the Year of the Bible in Bulgaria and we are hoping to be able to put this version in a set with the 1871 Constantinople Bible by the end of the year.
National Leadership Seminar for the Bulgarian Church of God Continues
Levels 3-5 of the Leadership Seminar were presented on Saturday afternoon in the Gabrovo Church of God. The following topics were covered: 21 Laws of Leadership from a Biblical Perspective, 52 Leadership Principles of Jesus and 17 Laws of Teamwork for Churches. Plans have been made for the seminar to be held in Bourgas, Sofia, Samokov and Russe.
On Sunday we delivered a message entitled 10 Signs of the Last Days. This is a sermon accompanied by a powerful media presentation that informs of recent developments in Bible Prophecy and urges believers to prepare and stay ready for the final hour of Biblical eschatology.
After the morning service, we traveled south to meet with pastors in Kazanlak and Stara Zagora and reached the city of Dimitrovgrad located South of the Balkan Range. We were invited to speak to the hundreds of young people from Bulgaria, Ukrain, Russia and Molodva who had gathered there for a youth rally. As planned and expected we announced the release of the newest of our ministry websites – a GodTube like web community called Bibliata.TV.
Family Seminar for Military Men and Women
We held three important events in the Stara Zagora region of the Bulgarian Church of God this week. Our chaplaincy organization, the Bulgarian Chaplaincy Association partnered with the Military Ministry in a family seminar for military men and women in Sliven. Special guest speakers from the United States, Yambol pastor Tzonko and Valya Atanasov and others joined our training team for a weekend of learning and fellowship.
We were also able to minister in the Pentecostal church of Yambol on Wednesday continuing our series on the Gospel of Mark and on Sunday morning, delivering a message on 20 Signs of the Last Days. A group from the local Home for Children was special guest to the service and celebrated with us in the presence of the Lord.
We then returned to Sliven along with some 20 youth from the Yambol youth group to support the new Pentecostal church that had just opened there. Over a hundred were present and we were able to minister to them through the service.
This new congregation is a special one, as many of its members study or work abroad, which gives an unique opportunity to train ministry teams who can work in their respective locations. This training opening is becoming more prominent as many Bulgarian immigrants begin looking for better work opportunities in Western European countries and it allows us to fulfill our long-term plan for Bulgarian congregations in Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Great Britain.
National Leadership Seminar for the Bulgarian Church of God
While ministering in Bulgaria, we are continuing to offer our leadership seminar to churches and communities nationwide. Our team has worked on developing this Leadership Seminar over the course of the past three years to equip church leaders and their ministry teams, serve as joining clay for pastors and churches within the structure of the denomination and to provide the vision for the next level of ministry for the Church of God denomination in Bulgaria.
This year we have presented the introductory level of the seminar and its first module in various locations across the country including the capital Sofia and Sliven. This past weekend we were able to teach the seminar for the Bulgarian Church of God regions of Gabrovo and Samokov. We have plans to present the first two levels of the seminar at the churches in Yambol and Bourgas, and then to teach the next three modules in Gabrovo and Sofia. All five levels of the seminar will be presented at the national ministerial meeting in Rouse which will take place during the month of November.
Meeting with the Pastoral Fellowship in Gabrovo
We are continuing our ministry in Bulgaria focusing on events with a countrywide impact. We met with the National Pastoral Fellowship in the town of Gabrovo recently to discuss the opportunity for a national media campaign focusing on the role of evangelical churches in the Bulgarian community. Pastors of the leading churches in the country were present and along with other colleagues we were able to discuss key factors in promoting the ministry of the local church in the community. A special celebration was planned for the Day of Reformation on October 31st which is to be called, “A Day of Open Doors”. On this day, many churches will be open for unchurched people from the community whom will be given a tour of the church to be introduced to all ministries available to them and their families. Along with this, several large Bulgarian towns will hold a series of press conferences dealing with the role of Protestantism in Bulgarian history. We are planning to participate in this events through creating a fairly large volume of printed and online publications addressing the above issues and helping the local church congregations to learn and remember their historical heritage. We are also planning on releasing the final edition of another long-term project of ours, namely the printed edition of the 1871 Constantinople Bible – the first complete publication of the Bible in spoken Bulgarian.
