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.
At BibleTech in Seattle
The blizzard caught up with us in South Dakota right after leaving Minneapolis in rout to the BibleTech conference organized by the Logos Bible Software in Seattle. We were stranded for two days in Murdo, SD until the interstate was drivable again and we slowly headed further West as the sun followed melting the icy roads ahead of us. Passing the Wall Drug of Rapid City, Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse memorial, we continued through Wyoming and Montana before reaching our final destination. Our arriving safely to Seattle was a miracle as the conditions were very difficult even compared to Bulgaria.
The following morning we attended the BibleTech conference where we presented the case of our new website Bibliata.TV as an example of Underground Webministry (UW). Our presentation purposed to raise the awareness of the usage of Bible related technologies in a censured Postcommunist context and to inform of the possibilities to do Christian WebMinistry in countries that institute and practice a purposed censuring regime toward Christian websites. For it is our belief that while the time of “smuggling” Bibles may be long gone, the time of “smuggling” Bible websites is at hand.
Our presentation was well attended and accepted as it is obvious from the Twitter follower’s feeds here:
http://twitter.com/Rob_Feature/statuses/1402754202
http://twitter.com/Rob_Feature/statuses/1402736032
We were also able to meet with the developers from the Logos Software, Olive Tree Software, The Sword Project, e-Sword and many others. Of special help to our ministry were the presentations of the Dramatizer software, Mobile Ministry Magazine (MMM) and Geeks&God. The 2009 BibleTech experience was so amazing and enriching, that while still at the conference in Seattle, we began scheduling major WebMinistry 2.0 events for the Leadership Development Institute of the Church of God of Prophecy and the Bulgarian Evangelical Church of God in Chicago.
Ministering in Minneapolis
The next stop on our trip was the Bulgarian church in Minneapolis. Through the years, we have ministered in a number of national conferences organized by this church, but we have never had a chance to minister to the congregation apart from that. Therefore, it was a real treat to visit with them while traveling through Minnesota and minister in their Sunday service.
When arriving in Minneapolis the weather was a bit chilly with light snow. Yet, the welcoming of the Bulgarian Church there was warm. We had service in an overlook lounge of a local complex reserved for the occasion as 21 people were present. We began with praise and worship which followed with testimonials of the blessings of the Lord over the past week. After, we were able to minister with the Word and have a time of prayer following the service in which we together along with the pastor anointed those who came forward for special prayer.
Afterwards, we had a time of fellowship with a meal prepared by the various families of the church. The people were curious to learn about our ministry, especially our time of service in Bulgaria and graciously offered to take turns praying for us during our travels.
