Revival in South Georgia
We just returned from a revival in the Shelter Church of God in Ambrose, GA – a new ministry started by pastor Kevin Bounds. The small, but growing congregation, which meets in a store front location in downtown Ambrose, already has a vision for establishing a strong ministry center in the area. We had three days of revival and enjoyed the wonderful fellowship of the pastoral family and the congregation.
But our connection with Pastor Kevin Bounds and the Shelter Church of God began long before Kevin was a pastor and the church ever existed. It began several years ago one cold winter morning in Bulgaria, while we were struggling with the dilemma of how to continue ministering there with a virtually exhausted annual budget.
Just as we prayed in our office in Yambol, Bulgaria asking the Lord for direction, we received an email from Pastor Kevin. We had never met before and there was no way he knew of our situation. But led by the Spirit after reading about us on the internet, he delivered a prophetic message over our ministry, which brought about a miracle which empowered us to continue to minister in Bulgaria in the years to come.
So needless to say, although we were meeting for the first time in this revival, we had been partners in the ministry for a very long time. In times of crises like the ones we live in, it is this prophetic move of the Spirit that the Church must follow. And it is this unity created by the leadership of the Spirit that empowers us all to continue in the ministry even when times are tough and keep building for the Kingdom.
Prophetic Presence: The Sign of the Seers
For many years now, as a student of both Pentecostal theology and history, I have always wondered of the ever-present desire for Pentecostals to associate themselves with physical addresses. It is indeed strange, for as a movement of the Spirit we have always strived to remain on the go, being always persecuted or ever-changing as people of God. So I am astounded every time I come across a historic attempt to redefine our identity with a place or a location.
The examples are many. From the very inception of the term “spirit-filled” people on the day of Pentecost, we have always associated our experience with an attempting to restore the identity of and struggled to return to the spiritual context in the experience of the Upper Room – a definite location in the city of Jerusalem. Then Paul, before ever answering his apostolic call and entering what would turn to a global ministry, was instructed to go the street called “Straight” – and this was not just a personal experience of Paul, but a corporate calling that includes the prophetic gift of another man and affected the future of the Early Church as we know it.
The early Pentecostal revivalists are best known with the name of Azusa Street, but not before establishing various locations across the country setting a spiritual rout, a geographic walkabout from the Bethel Bible College to the Santa Fe Mission, reaching the small house at 214 North Bonnie Brae Street and the Azusa Street Methodist Mission by 1906.
Synan records that there: “They shouted three days and three nights. It was Easter season. The people came from everywhere. By the next morning there was no way of getting near the house. As people came in they would fall under God’s power; and the whole city was stirred. They shouted until the foundation of the house gave way, but no one was hurt.”
But it was not until the morning of April 18, 1906 that the prophetic presence of the Azusa Street Pentecostal revival received its full recognition. Once the Great San Francisco earthquake hit California, just as early Pentecostals had prophesied, there was no need for preaching or witnessing any longer. Their prophetic presence was evidence in full. For the assigned geographical location for our vision contributes little to our identity in the ministry. It is a prophetic sign for the people we witness to. And this is a Biblical principle.
John the Baptist associated his ministry with the desert. John the Apostle, with the island called Patmos. The Old Testament prophet laid on his side for 390 long days being seen by all. That is one long year and one whole month according to the Jewish calendar. Then 40 days more on his other side, just like the bodies of the two prophets will lay dead for the three days of Revelation. The Seers were there, seeing the future and proclaiming it to the present through nothing less than a prophetic presence. For the Seers must be seen in order to reveal the vision they have seen in the Spirit, in order that both the world and church blinded by sin, can see the vision of the unseen and invisible God.
Three New Bulgarian Churches
In the last year, among other Bulgarian churches we have worked with, we have focused our attention to three newly started Bulgarian congregations located in London, Cypress and Las Vegas. They all have unique stories. The London church emerged from several home groups, which met regularly for years in various suburbs of the vat metropolis. The Vegas church was started not without the prayer and support of the Bulgarian church in Los Angeles. And the Cypress Church of God is a conglomerate of four congregations located on the Greek part of the island, which meets regularly in four of Cypress’ major cities each Sunday.
In attempt to improve their ministry and create a context of availability to the people in need, among several other ministerial endeavors, we have helped these churches with their websites. They are now launched and active, easy to be found on the internet in support of their ministry in these three significant global locations. They can be found at:
Cypress Bulgarian Church: http://vitezda.com/
Las Vegas Bulgarian Church: http://lasvegaschurch.tv/
London Bulgarian Church: http://bgchurchlondon.com/
Churches Worked With in Bulgaria
Chaplaincy Conference and Master’s of Chaplaincy for Bulgaria
The International Association of Evangelical Chaplains just held its first global conference in Eastern Europe. The chosen location was the country of Romania, where the army now has one full-time paid evangelical chaplain. This is the first conference of such caliber held on the Balkan Peninsula and it was natural that representatives from most neighboring countries attended. With this conference the issues of chaplaincy within the Bulgarian and Romanian armies, now members of NATO, is adequately finalized.
Bulgaria was represented by the president of the Bulgarian Chaplaincy Association as the conference marked an important point in the resent development of Bulgarian Chaplaincy. As a result, chaplain col. Rich Young of the IAEC, who last year taught an Introduction to Chaplaincy course in Yambol, Bulgaria, will present a lecture on chaplaincy in the capital Sofia on May 31, 2010. The lecture is brought with the help of the Bulgarian Evangelical Theological Institute in effort to promote the Masters’ of Chaplaincy Program which will begin in Sofia this fall. With it, the Bulgarian Chaplaincy Association has reached an important stage of its long-term educational strategy which purposes the proper and adequate presentation of the chaplaincy ministry to local church, educational institution and government agencies. The Masters’ of Chaplaincy program is one of few taught around the globe on a graduate level and the first one ever to be presented in Eastern Europe.
Bulgarian Postcommunist Context of Ministry
Almost a decade ago, we presented a theological proposal for ministry in postcommunist countries, which has gained by far a prophetic value in our context of ministry. A strong point in the exposition was a response to the narrative, relational, spiritual paradigm often discussed in Pentecostal theology, to which our research proposed a more Eastern and more experiential model which includes prayer, persecution and power.
The thesis used this triangular formula to show that the Wesleyan quadrilateral is too logical to apply to the Pentecostal mindset and especially the Eastern Pentecostal one. Thus, it is more enforced on than emerging from the Pentecostal theology and is but a step toward understanding the Pentecostal experience.
At the same time, postmoderns relate to the spiritual mystical experiential nature of early (the research called it “primitive”) Pentecostalism, but are indifferent to a more denominational structure that marginalize the spontaneity and almost irrational unexpectancy of the Pentecostal ordus liturgia.
Applying each of the above models creates a number of dilemmas in the Bulgarian context of ministry. One of the main problems is that the Bulgarian church needs much growth before even recognizing some of the above trends. Additionally, Bulgarian clergymen have little training in distinguishing current social changes, which affect their congregations daily. Actually, in most cases there is strong negation against the relevancy of social reality on church life; almost like during the time of the Regime, when congregations were practically closed, underground communities, defined not only by the persecution against them, but by their own identity as well.
At the same time, the respective western partners of the Bulgarian evangelicals fail to properly apply their knowledge on the subject in the Bulgarian context of ministry. This inability closes like a magic circle the relationships between the said social agents and creates church crises of unprecedented magnitude, which often result in a death spiral within the community of believers. Thus, the Bulgarian church, ministering in a post communist context, continuously struggles to find its identity through which it can minister effectively in and to a postmodern world.
In the struggle where postcommunism meets postmodernity in a battle for survival and even world dominion in which, Eastern European churches become unfortunate victims on an altar where the secular antitheism and the nominal orthodoxy cross their sacrificial axes. And this cycle can be broken only when Eastern European evangelicals refuse the identities forced on them by postmodern and postcommunist (both postChristian at best) social structures, and discover their own roots in the Pentecostal identity of the Bible, the spirituality of which alone has the power to transform both postmodernity and postcommunism. And there lays the key for effective ministry among Eastern European in the 21stcentury.
Conference of Bulgarian Churches in America
The Annual Conference of Bulgarian Churches in North America will be held May 28, 2010 in Huston, TX. More information is available via the website of the Bulgarian Church in Houston at: http://twitterchurch.us/
Download the brochure as PDF
Global Day of Prayer 2010
Cup & Cross Ministries International in association with Bibliata.com, Studio 865 and Mission Restoration – Bulgaria will be broadcasting the Global Day of Prayer from the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, Bulgaria beginning 10 AM ET on Sunday, May 23, 2010 .
Watch the event LIVE via http://bibliata.com
150,000 Evangelicals in Bulgaria
BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND LABOR International Religious Freedom Report 2009
Section I. Religious Demography
The country has an area of 42,855 square miles and a population of 7.6 million. The majority of the population, estimated at 85 percent, identifies itself as Orthodox Christian. Muslims comprise the largest minority, estimated at 13 percent. According to the Council of Ministers Religious Confessions Directorate, there are approximately 150,000 evangelical Protestants [in Bulgaria] ….
Source: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2009/127303.htm
M3: Mobile Power for the Ministry
After traveling almost 4,000 miles, I am finally at the 2010 BibleTech listening to Antoine’s talk on mobile technology in the ministry. Antoine is the main guy behind the Mobile Ministry Magazine and a great friend, but I am sitting in his lecture for more than just the code and the algorithm. I am a practitioner in the ministry.
Thousands of Bulgarian speaking people across the globe rely on our team every day to receive a verse from the Bible via SMS. Our Bibliata.TV website has become the Bulgarian GodTube with over 10,000 daily visitors, 1,500 active uploaders and hitting a half petabite monthly traffic in video exchange. So, I am more than just a listener – I am here for the power of the experience.
I met Antoine last year at BibleTech in Seattle. I shared with him our ministry in Bulgaria and abroad, and he offered to help us. Not long after the conference, I received in my office a Nokia 5800, which according to Antoine had more than one advantage over the iPhone, but the one that concerned me the most was the uStream app.
Speaking at the Leadership Development Institute earlier that year, I mentioned uStream but being busy with other projects never paid too much attention to it. Now, I had a reason to try it. No more than five minutes after opening the FedEx package I was broadcasting LIVE on a dozen of our ministry’s websites. Five more minutes and people were actually watching. Hundreds of them.
WOW! I stopped for a pause, because my heart was racing. The potential of one small mobile device applied to the ministry of the church was overwhelming and I needed to pray.
A week later I had convinced two Bulgarian churches to broadcast their services via uStream. Two more joined on the following Sunday, one of them being a Bulgarian speaking congregation in Chicago. A Bulgarian minister from Spain began broadcasting on Thursday nights as over 50 people were logged in and ready to watch 30 minutes before his broadcast. We then put LIVE online the annual conference of Bulgarian churches in North America. Then the Global Day of Prayer from downtown Sofia was watched by 35,000 people LIVE on our Bibliata.com website.
Before we ever returned for our ministry term in Bulgaria, we had over a dozen churches broadcasting LIVE services on Sunday alone plus additional LIVE services on every night of the week except Monday. We received hundreds of emails with testimonies of dramatic healings and life transformations. And this has been going on for over one year now. All because of a small portable telephone that can fit on the palm of my hand and travel with me oversees in the pocket of my blue jeans. I guess I can say it like this: this phone was made for preaching!
John Maxwell says that while training followers adds to your church, training leaders multiplies it. I call this the G2 effect – the growth of the church in a geometrical progression. Like the story of chess boards (2, 4, 16, 256, etc). But the use of mobile technology in the ministry multiplies its effectiveness tridimensionally, adding to it a mobile dimension as a Rubik Cube. I call it M3 – a mobile motivational ministry factor that is unprecedented. And this is something the church cannot afford to miss if it wishes to remain relevant in postmodernity.
