2011 Historic Pentecostal Revival Tour in Bulgaria Continues

We continued our Historic Pentecostal Revival Tour in celebration of the 90th anniversary of the First Bulgarian Pentecostal Revival with the Church Leadership Summit in Silistra – an event that has been in prayerful planning for almost two years now. It involved a day of leadership training for the pastors and workers of all churches in the Silistra region. Silistra – is a port city of northeastern Bulgaria, lying on the southern bank of the lower Danube at the country’s border with Romania. The town is a major cultural, industrial, transportation and educational center with many historical landmarks including a Roman port, remains of the Medieval fortress and a Turkish Ottoman fort. But our purpose there was not religious tourism, but rather to bring valued principles of church leadership and growth to the heart of this major educational center of north-eastern Bulgaria.

The training took place all day on Saturday with breaks in between for fellowship and discussion. We started the morning sessions with an introduction to the subject of Church Leadership and Team Work, while the afternoon brought in a major way the lecture of Structuring the Church for Growth with a review and consecutive discussion groups. It was well received and time for questions at the end was very inviting. As always, it was encouraging to watch church leaders from various denominational groups and religious backgrounds opening for learning and change, while engaging in a healthy dialogue together. Many inquiries regarded concerns of motivation which lead to an invitation to return and hold another training event specifically on the subject of Internal Motivation within Church Leadership. Then in the Sunday service, we brought a message on the Last Day Prophecies.

The trip was also very important to our ministry, as last time when we were in Silistra six years ago we signed the contract for publishing the New Bulgarian Translation of the Bible beginning with Gospel of John. It was a great joy and even greater blessing to be back and meet with our friends at Eagle Publishers. There, we discussed recent and future projects as well as new ministry opportunities in light of their new technological capabilities. We hope to partner together on several projects including a 140th anniversary of the first Bulgarian Bible of 1871, the new translation of the Gospel of Mark, our research essays on Bulgarian Protestant history and of course the long awaited Sunday School project for the Church of God. We were able to pick up several containers of Christian materials including our new translation of Matthew, which will be given to the participants at our 2011 Ministry Camp in July.

While in Silistra, we also received a special invitation to view the art gallery of one lady from the church. Her husband and she spent over 40 years painting Christian oriented murals, portraits and so forth, which have been preserved over these years and put on display. With every piece came a story and the story will continue to live on for years to come.

After the morning service on Sunday we left immediately and traveled to the old Bulgarian capital city of Veliko Tarnovo where we ministered to the newly formed Bulgarian Church of God congregation there. Although still relatively small in numbers, they have grown in size since our previous fellowship together last year, moving from home group meetings to a rented conference room in the city center. Regional Bishop, Pastor Vassil Petrov, shared with us of their search for a new method of ministry in which we were able to offer some suggestions for such transformation. From there we traveled to Gabrovo where we where able to further fellowship in the regional bishop’s meeting.

Late Monday morning we traveled to Kuzanluk where the first Baptist church in Bulgaria was established in the 19th century and where some of the first baptisms with the Holy Spirit in Bulgaria occurred in the early 1920s. We were able to inspect the ongoing church renovation there while meeting with leaders of various churches.

Please keep us in your prayers as our journey is long and the days are but few here in Bulgaria. Yet the reward of the ministry is great and the satisfaction makes things easier watching this great nation awaking for a revival with God once again. We have noticed great spiritual change since we returned with the effects of the economic crises here. And with over 400 miles driven, 4 days traveled, 5 lectures delivered, 2 sermons preached in this part of our commemorative Pentecostal Tour, you still cannot put a price on the salvation of a human soul. Go to the ends of the world to preach the Gospel is still the command. Whatever the cost.

NEW REVIVAL in BULGARIA

Unprecedented revival is sweeping the country of Bulgaria again and has started among the Pentecostal Church of God. We have spent the last full month in traveling and preaching in key churches crossing the country from the capital Sofia to the Black Sea and from the Danube River through the Balkan Mountains to the Thracian Valley.

While people in general are struggling with the economic and political crises and the church is in continuous leadership dilemmas, God is on the move with a new revival mainly among the new generation of young people. We saw this in recent national youth events like our spring 2011 youth leaders gathering near Yambol and the regional youth revival in Silistra during Easter. Similar meetings were reported in Eastern Bulgaria in May and in the capital Sofia in June with the arrival of praise team from Hillsong, which gathered over 7,000 people in one single event. And last but not least, various meetings of Roma leaders and youth, to which we had the privilege to contribute as well.

We are now looking forward to combining these experiences within our national Bible Camp which we hold for young ministers and youth leaders, followed by the New Wave camp at the Black Sea and the traditional Karandila Youth Camp in the Balkan Mountain. For when one generation looses touch with God, as described in Jeremiah 5:31, God always brings a new generation to serve Him. Today, God is raising a generation of young and faithful people full with the Holy Ghost, and we simply cannot afford to stay out of this great move of God in the last days.

LONDON 2011: I Shall Never Leave You nor Forsake You

European Conference of Bulgarian Church and Ministries – London, 2011

LONDON 2011

Recently, we were privileged and blessed to take part in the first Conference for Bulgarian Churches and Ministries in Western Europe. This has been a project of ours for over three years now and fits within our ongoing post-doctoral research on the planting and growth of Pentecostal churches for Bulgarian immigrants. As part of this project, we have continuously aided the network of Bulgarian churches in the United States and Canada, explored the ministry and planed events for Bulgarian churches in Ireland, Spain, Germany and France and trained leadership teams for the Bulgarian Church of God in Cyprus. Therefore, the LONDON 2011 conference was a fulfillment of a long-awaited dream and prophetic realization of the global goals of our humble ministry.

The conference took place in the Chelsea area of London over the period of one week. We met with the six Bulgarian congregations throughout the week contributing to various stages of their team building and church growth. Then on Saturday, all gathered in Chelsea, along with representatives of the Bulgarian churches in France and Germany. The introduction of each ministry over the afternoon was followed by a healing miracle service in the evening led by on of our own Bulgarian Church of God regional overseers. We brought the message at the Sunday celebration service from Hebrews 13:5 “I Shall Never Leave You nor Forsake You,” which was received well by the Bulgarian immigrant community. Sunday afternoon was given for testimonies about the start of each of the groups present and personal miracles that had occurred at the services through the week. Then, on Sunday evening we led a church growth training event with key aspects on the foundational and building of Bulgarian ethnic congregations in Western Europe.

Leadership Development Seminar 2011

Broadcast Your Church Services for Free

 Learn how to broadcast your church service or team training event on the internet
 Examine several available options to broadcast with a special accent on the free version of uStream.TV.
 Chose and set up proper camera and audio source for the broadcast
 Broadcast from your computer, notebook or even your cell phone
 Publish your church services as a LIVE stream on the internet and organize them in an internet based video archive
 Embed LIVE broadcast or video recording on your church website or pastor’s blog
 Publicize your streaming event or video recording using the social networks
 Monetize your broadcast and contribute to your church media ministry fund

Religion, State and Society 2011

Religion, State and Society 2011

Editorial

Changing Chaplaincy: a Contribution to Debate over the Roles of US and British Military Chaplains in Afghanistan

Catholic Chaplains to the British Forces in the First World War

Canadian Military Chaplains: Bridging the Gap Between Alienation and Operational Effectiveness in a Pluralistic and Multicultural Context

The Changing Role of Protestant Military Chaplaincy in Germany: from Raising Military Morale to Praying for Peace

Military Chaplains and the Religion of War in Ottonian Germany, 919- 1024

‘Command and Control’ in the Royal Army Chaplains’ Department: how Changes in the Method of Selecting the Chaplain General of the British Army have Altered the Relationship of the Churches and the Army

World Religions and Norms of War

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM in BULGARIA 2011

Bulgarian nationalists attacked Jehovah’s Witness temple in the port city of Burgas on Palm Sunday, after an “organized protest” turned into a mass brawl in which five members of the faith confession were seriously injured. The Bulgarian Evangelical Alliance immediately issued a declaration against violence based on religious differences and the evangelical churches in the city held a press conference condemning the violent attack as an unacceptable form of protest in a democratic society. While the organizers are being investigated, we ask that you continue to pray for the situation, as we regularly minister in the city and the surrounding areas after watching the video recording below.

2011: The Year of the Bamboo

While preparing our annual report of over 50 completed projects in 2010, we shared a few thoughts with a close friend and partner in the ministry. For one or another reason, our impression has been that things appear to be moving slower than expected while working with the Bulgarian Church of God in the context of some 40 various denominations in the period 2005-2010.

Our efforts in the ministry have contributed to several major developments like a ministry center in the capital Sofia, the start of a national Sunday school program and a master’s program in chaplaincy, the international X Youth Event, national youth ministry Bible camp and the Leadership Training Seminar (LTS) to mention a few. But this success in ministry has not been without many painful and exhausting days and nights of praying, planning, organizing, gathering the needed resources and trying to stay away from destructive politics and man-made divisions.

So it was not until the last quarter of 2010 that our efforts began reshaping the reality around us as we quickly realized the long-term projects had finally come to completion. As a result, just during the last three months in Bulgaria, we brought to finishing point major goals of our ministry and completed work which generally would have taken us a year time. And it was awesomely encouraging as we watched goal after goal being completed literally over night.

Our friend listened closely to this great testimony of the ministry and quickly compared it to the story of the bamboo. The strongest and fastest growing wood on the planet does not grow 20 inches over night without several years of long preparation. During this time, the roots spread rapidly in the soil clamping together in a strong underground system that will serve as the foundation to the future plant. They remain unseen under the surface until the day the first spurs shoot out of the ground.

2011 will be the year during which ministries with global vision that have worked hard and long for years, following Spirit led investing of time, efforts in resources in projects and goals that seem unreasonable, unnecessary and foolish to others, will see the spurs of their efforts shooting out of the ground over night. And then, no one will be laughing at the vision any longer.

For others, it will be a wonder, but these ministries will know that many years of hard labor and efforts have finally brought long waited results. For the only way to have a fast growing strong ministry is to take the time for preparation. 2011 calls for an end of preparation and a time of new growth.

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