Theological Frameworks and Terms by Dony K. Donev, D.Min.

Theological Frameworks and Terms Coined by Dony K. Donev, D.Min.

1. The U.S.H.E.R. Model of Communion

Definition: The U.S.H.E.R. Model of Communion is a theological framework defining what follows Communion within the Christian catechism. It was formulated by Dony K. Donev, D.Min., during the Covid-19 Pandemic as part of his Intro to Digital Discipleship course at Lee University.

Etymology and Structure: “U.S.H.E.R.” functions as an acronym representing five theological dynamics foundational to post-Communion discipleship:

1. Unity – Communion establishes and sustains the unity of believers within the Body of Christ.

2. Sanctification – The sacred act reaffirms the believer’s ongoing transformation and holiness.

3. Hope – The eschatological anticipation of Christ’s return is renewed through participation.

4. Ecclesial Communion – The act strengthens the Church’s shared identity as one community of faith.

5. Redemptive Mission – The table leads outward into the missional call of proclaiming redemption to the world.

Theological Contribution: Donev’s model reframes the Eucharist not as a terminal ritual but as a launching point for continued Christian formation and mission. It synthesizes sacramental theology with discipleship praxis, emphasizing that the mystery of Communion initiates lived transformation beyond the table.

2. The 15/50 Window

Definition: Coined by Dony K. Donev, D.Min., the 15/50 Window identifies the demographic segment of individuals aged 15 to 50, who collectively represent over 50% of global internet users.

Context and Purpose: In parallel to the 10/40 Window—the geographical missions concept popularized in late 20th-century missiology—Donev’s 15/50 Window transitions the focus from spatial geography to digital demography.

Key Thesis: Digital evangelism and discipleship must prioritize the 15–50 age group as the core audience of online communication and cultural formation, representing the “digital mission field” of the 21st century.

Missiological Contribution: The 15/50 Window serves as a paradigm shift for global missions strategy, urging the Church to reframe outreach through technological literacy, digital ethics, and generational engagement. It integrates sociological data with practical theology, redefining the boundaries of mission fields in a connected world.

3. Digital Discipleship Framework

Definition: Developed by Donev within his academic teaching and research, the Digital Discipleship Framework proposes a theological and methodological structure for faith formation through digital platforms.

Core Components:

• Digital Catechism: Translating traditional doctrinal instruction into digital environments.

• Measurable Growth: Employing data-informed tools to track discipleship outcomes online.

• Local and Global Integration: Linking local church identity with global digital engagement.

• AI and Theological Ethics: Evaluating the theological implications of artificial intelligence in spiritual education.

Theological Contribution: Donev’s work bridges the gap between ecclesiology and technology by grounding digital ministry within classical discipleship principles. It argues that digital formation is not a substitute for embodied community but an extension of the Church’s incarnational mission into virtual contexts.

Educational Context: Initially articulated in Intro to Digital Discipleship (Lee University), this framework has influenced contemporary pedagogical approaches to online ministry training and has served as a foundation for AI-integrated theological education.

4. Pentecostal Primitivism Framework

Definition: The Pentecostal Primitivism Framework is a theological model developed by Dony K. Donev, D.Min., describing the historical and doctrinal identity of Pentecostalism as a restorationist return to the spiritual and communal life of the early (primitive) Church.

Historical Basis: Donev situates the origins of global Pentecostalism within the early 20th-century movements that sought to recover the supernatural vitality, holiness, and communal simplicity of Acts 2 Christianity.

Key Features:

1. Restoration of Apostolic Practice: Reclaiming New Testament models of ministry, healing, and charismatic gifts.

2. Eschatological Urgency: Interpreting Pentecostal mission through the lens of imminent eschatology.

3. Communal Purity: Emphasis on holiness, shared life, and ethical distinctiveness.

4. Missionary Zeal: Evangelistic energy rooted in a return to primitive apostolic mandate.

Theological Contribution: The framework provides a systematic lens for analyzing Pentecostal identity as both renewal and return—a dynamic that transcends denominational boundaries. Donev’s articulation of Pentecostal Primitivism contributes to Pentecostal studies by clarifying the movement’s theological self-understanding and its missiological implications in global Christianity.

Synthesis and Theological Significance

Across these four frameworks, Donev’s contribution to contemporary theology centers on the continuity between early Christian identity and digital-age ecclesiology.
His work consistently integrates:

• Historical Pentecostal roots (Pentecostal Primitivism),

• Missiological expansion (15/50 Window),

• Digital ecclesial formation (Digital Discipleship), and

• Sacramental praxis leading to mission (U.S.H.E.R. Model).

Together, they represent a coherent theological corpus that bridges primitive Christian spirituality with postmodern digital theology, providing a constructive path for future ecclesial engagement and academic inquiry.

First Day of School in Bulgaria

Never Forget

Celebrating 35 Years in Global Ministry

Russia’s imperial dream for access to Israel/Mediterranean

While doing research couple of years ago for an article on Ezek. 37-38 and Russia’s imperial dream to gain access to Israel and the Mediterranean, AI informed me that there is absolutely no official political news or analytics source that confirms such hypotheses.

Back then, I insisted on proceeding with the article regardless of this informed artificial and intelligent opinion and proceeded with completing the article called: Using Crimea and Splitting Turkey in Russia’s Strategy Against Israel.

PROPHETIC INSIGHT: The first picture with Putin is Ezekiel’s prophecy projecting Gog and Magog crossing into Israel. The other one is from Trump/Zelenskyy’s meeting last week, after no deal was reached with Putin in Alaska.

READ ALSO:

• Russia’s Prophetic Imperial Road to Israel
• Using Crimea and Splitting Turkey in Russia’s Strategy Against Israel
• RUSSIA/UKRAINE WAR: ENTER the BIRTH PANGS
• Bulgaria in the Tension between NATO, Ukraine and Russia

 

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Bulgaria becomes 21st member to adopt euro

BRUSSELS (AFP) — EU ministers gave the final green light on Tuesday for Bulgaria to adopt the euro on Jan. 1, 2026, making it the single currency area’s 21st member.

Bulgaria’s switch from the lev to the euro comes nearly 19 years after the country of 6.4 million people joined the European Union.

“We did it!” Bulgarian Prime Minister Rossen Jeliazkov said.

“We thank all institutions, partners and everyone whose efforts made this landmark moment possible. The government remains committed to a smooth and effective transition to the euro in the interest of all citizens,” Jeliazkov said on X.

In adopting the legal texts necessary for the move, EU finance ministers officially set the euro at 1.95583 Bulgarian lev.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde congratulated Bulgaria after the ministers’ approval.

“We are delighted to welcome you,” Lagarde said.

“The euro will strengthen Bulgaria’s economy and bring big benefits for Bulgarian people and businesses,” von der Leyen said on X.

“Joining the euro area is much more than just about replacing lev with euro. It is about building a brighter and more prosperous future for Bulgaria and its citizens at the heart of Europe,” EU economy chief Valdis Dombrovskis said.

The European Commission last month said the EU’s poorest country had fulfilled the strict conditions to adopt the euro, while the ECB also gave a positive opinion.

Mixed feelings

Bulgaria’s journey to joining the eurozone has had a stormy political backdrop with seven elections in three years — the last in October 2024.

But recent polls show Bulgarian society remains divided on the euro, with experts attributing the skepticism largely to fears of rising prices and declining purchasing power.

President Rumen Radev shocked many when he proposed holding a referendum on the matter but that was given short shrift by the Bulgarian Parliament.

Since June, protesters have gathered in Sofia to call for “keeping the Bulgarian lev.” A symbolic protest camp with several tents has been set up near the presidency and the Bulgarian National Bank in the capital.

Proponents in Bulgaria, however, insist the move will help improve the country’s economy, and reinforce its ties to the West and protect against Russia’s influence.

“The political benefits are becoming increasingly significant, as the protests against the euro seem to bear the mark of the Kremlin,” 43-year-old musician Veselin Dimitrov told AFP in Sofia.

Euro club gets bigger

The green light comes as the euro has been gaining in value against the U.S. dollar as President Donald Trump’s protectionist trade policies shake trust in the U.S. currency.

Only 12 countries were part of the single currency area — including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Greece — when the first euro bills and coins were rolled out on Jan. 1, 2002.

It gradually widened with Slovenia joining in 2007, Cyprus and Malta in 2008, Slovakia in 2009, Estonia in 2011, Latvia in 2014 then Lithuania in 2015.

Croatia was the last country to join in 2023, bringing the total to 20.

Bulgaria wanted to adopt the euro sooner but Brussels judged its inflation was too high to meet the necessary criteria.

EU states that want to join the single currency area must demonstrate that their economy has converged with other eurozone countries and that they are focused on sound public spending.

The conditions include holding inflation to no more than 1.5 percentage points higher than the rate of the three best-performing EU countries.

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…

Back to the Basics of Pentecost: Diamonds in the Rough-N-Ready (2025)

Since the beginning of the 21st century, only 6-10% of new born believers in America receive the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, which by 2018 has resulted in:

• Over 60% within Global Pentecostalism do not speak in tongues
• A major doctrinal shift within Pentecostal Theology today claims speaking in tongues is not the only evidence of Holy Spirit Baptism
• Some theologians even claim there is no initial evidence in the Bible
• Others today go further to believe that no outward sign of the Holy Spirit baptism is necessary.

For this reason, WE are re-committing ourselves and ministry to revival and restoration of the Pentecostal Message through praying, fasting and preaching:

• Salvation of the sinner’s soul and entire sanctification through the Blood of Jesus
• Baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire with initial evidence of speaking in tongues
• Supernatural gifts and ministries of the Holy Spirit
• Healing, deliverance and signs following
• Pre-Millennial return of Christ and pre-Tribulation Rapture of His Church to glory

Please consider the URGENCY of this generation!

Let us reason together what can we do to prevent this rapid decline in Biblical spirituality.

Revival will not come without preaching!

Revival of Pentecost will not come without preaching the Message of Pentecost.

 

Speaking in Tongues in America Prior to the Azusa Street Revival of 1906

April, 1906 – The Azusa street revival swept the globe starting with California

January 1, 1901– The initial phenomenon of speaking in tongues occurred at Parham’s school in Topeka, Kansas

January 6, 1900 – Frank Sanford’s Shiloh school reported that “The gift of tongues has descended”

1896 – Over 100 people baptized in the Shaerer schoolhouse revival conducted by the Christian Union in the North Carolina mountains

1887 – People falling in trances and speaking in tongues were reported at Maria Etter’s revival meetings in Indiana

1874 – Speaking in tongues occurred during healing meetings reported in New York

1873 – William H. Doughty and the Gift People of Rhode Island spoke in tongues

1854 – V. P. Simmons and Robert Boyd reported tongue speaking during Moody’s meetings

FURTHER READING:

Church of God (Cleveland, TN)

• Alive, alive! (A personal testimony)
• Church of God Primitivism
• Bulgarian Church of God
• J.W. Buckalew
• Why revival came? by Dr. Charles Conn

Azusa Street Revival of 1906

• Lucy F. Farrow: The Forgotten Apostle of Azusa
• The FORGOTTEN ROOTS OF THE AZUSA STREET REVIVAL
• Azusa Street’s Apostolic Faith Renewed
• Azusa Street Sermons
• Pentecostal Primitivism Preserved

Prior to Azusa Street Revival of 1906

• First person to speak in tongues in the Assemblies of God was William Jethro Walthall of the Holiness Baptist Churches of Southwestern Arkansas
• The Work of the Spirit in Rhode Island (1874-75)
• Speaking in Tongues in America Prior to the Azusa Street Revival
• WAR ON THE SAINTS: Revival Dawn and the Baptism of the Spirit
• How Jezebel Killed One of the Greatest Revivals Ever

ALIVE 2025

Rev. Dony K. Donev, D. Min.

“When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.”

2 Timothy 1:5

My Grandma, Todorka Mindova, was one of the first Sunday school teachers in the Bulgarian Pentecostal Union. After successfully graduating from a training course in the city of Sliven led by Donka Kinareva and personally organized by Dr. Nicolas Nikolov, she was allowed to minister in the denomination. But for grandma, the faith was more than teaching or a sermon. It was life. Many Bulgarian Pentecostal ministers can testify to the effectiveness of her ministry. And for her constant fasting and thousands of answered prayers I could write a book.

But far more interesting for me as a child was the fact that being a Sunday school teacher, Grandma never tried to preach to me. In the hardest moments of life she would only confess these words, which I have remembered from my childhood: “We serve a living God.” More was not needed. For Grandma preached with her life. Read more

The Cross: A Message of Salvation and Revolution

For every Christian, the crucifixion bears one ultimate meaning: salvation. And not just salvation through the cross, but through the death on the cross with multiple layers of significance. It is the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy, the undeniable proof of a sovereign God acting within the drama of human history, and an unprecedented political manifesto revealing the enduring power of faith.

The practice of crucifixion dates back to the 9th century B.C., introduced by the Assyrian king Shalmaneser as a brutal punishment for criminals. Offenders were bound, crucified alive, and raised high to be seen by the public—a horrifying spectacle designed not merely to punish but to sow fear in all who dared challenge the authority of the empire. The true power of this punishment lays not in the death it brought, but in the prolonged agony and exhaustion preceding it.

Before the rise of the Roman Empire, crucifixion already bore the weight of terror and shame. Under Rome, it became the empire’s most dreadful symbol—a declaration that its might could crush any man, any nation. In 71 B.C., following the failed rebellion led by Spartacus, 6,000 of his captured followers were crucified along the road from Capua to Rome.

Rome had turned crucifixion into a science of torture! Death so brutal that the victim became little more than a piece of bloody meat in the eyes of the soldiers. Flesh was torn by whips embedded with metal, bone, and glass. Blood drained from the body until the organs could not function any longer. The body suffocated slowly, painfully, as breathing ceased and the blood powered into the dry limestone dust. The torment was total!

The condemned were then nailed to rough-hewn wooden beams—hands and feet pierced—then lifted slowly into the air. Death came not instantly, but after three to four hours… or three to four days. The sight of a naked, disfigured body suspended on a cross, wracked with agony, could not go unnoticed by the watching crowd. The criminal had turned into a victim of cruelty, of imperial might and of public condemnation.

This is the scene that Tertullian, an early Christian apologist, identified as the peculiar cruelty of crucifixion. The Roman historian Cicero deemed it a “most cruel and horrifying” punishment, while Josephus described it as the “most pitiable of deaths.” Yet for imperial Rome, the crucifixion was a public proclamation: a terrifying sentence reserved for those who dared to disrupt the order and peace of the ultimate pagan state. All rebels against the Empire met such an end!

Jesus knew that this would be His fate! It was foretold in the prophecies. This was how the true Messiah was destined to die. The four Evangelists describe in vivid detail the trial and crucifixion: Judas received his silver and his judgment; conflicting witnesses marred the court; Pilate washed his hands before the crowd, claiming to find no fault. The soldiers’ beatings, the casting of lots for His garments, the crown of thorns, and the long, agonizing walk to Calvary under the burden of the rough heavy wooden cross—all marked the path of redemption.

His blood stained the narrow streets of Jerusalem! The crowd followed Him to the hill called Golgotha. Those near enough saw the splinters of the Roman-crafted cross soaked in blood. Those farther away heard the hammer strike iron through flesh, followed by screams that pierced the air. Then the crowd hushed as the Roman soldiers began to pull the ropes. The cross was raised upright, wedged into the rocky ground. And on it, standing tall between heaven and earth, hung the reason for our faith, the very source of our salvation. The forsaken Messiah, the wounded Healer, the King condemned by kings, the Lord slain by lords. His hands and feet were nailed, His brows crowned with thorns, His body swollen, bloody, and bare. His blood streamed down the tree, dripping onto the hardened faces of the guards below. For this is how God chose to die for the salvation of the world. But even from the cross, through parched lips and a final breath, the Eternal One continued to speak.

At that moment, in midday darkness, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. It was not the end, but a beginning. The wounded, the outcast, the poor, and the powerless were now invited into His presence!

Five apostles—Andrew, Bartholomew, Peter, Philip, and Simon the Zealot also died by crucifixion, as Christ did. Thousands of early Christians were crucified along Rome’s stone paths. John Foxe, in his Book of Martyrs, writes that crosses, poison, and every imaginable cruelty were employed to eradicate Christians. Not for crimes committed, but for the singular “offense” of believing differently. For the early Church, the cross transformed from a symbol of terror into a banner of faithfulness, even unto death.

By the end of the first century, apologists like Minucius Felix were already linking the cross with Christian identity. In the early third century, Tertullian himself proclaimed it the sign of the Lord. History knows no greater reversal, no more profound political declaration: the symbol of Roman oppression became the symbol of the Christian faith.

The early Church’s message was clear: the pagan empire held no power over faith that rose above death, hell, every kingdom and every ruler. The cross carried a social message too, judging justly and restoring dignity. At Golgotha, the lame walked, the blind saw, the poor found their Father.

The cross bore an economic truth as well: an empire built on slavery cannot hold those made free in Christ. But above all, the message of the cross is spiritual. Earthly power cannot liberate the soul. Only Christ, crucified, can redeem those who give their lives to God!

It is likely that, in our own century, a global power may again seek to assert its might crushing dissenters, thinkers, believers alike through legislative, executive, and judicial force. And perhaps, for a time, it will succeed. But it will not endure! For the word of the cross is a power greater than any empire, earthly or otherwise. Easter is the triumph of faith—the holiday that transforms the enemy’s weapons into instruments of salvation.

Christ is Risen! May God keep us all!

Dony K. Donev, D.Min.

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