The Everlasting Gospel: The Significance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal Thought
The Everlasting Gospel: The Significance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal Thought by D.W. Faupel follows the following outline:
- The Pentecostal Message: In this chapter Faupel explores the pre-formation of the Pentecostal message. He relates its content to the Full Gospel, which includes: salvation, sanctification, baptism with the Holy Spirit, healing and second coming.
- Context of Pentecostal Thought: In this chapter Faupel gives a brief sketch of the American context at the end of the 19th century. His focus on the American culture as ground for Pentecostalism, however, seemed quite narrow especially in retrospect to the original glassolalia experience by the disciples on the Day of Pentecost.
- The Pentecostal Message: Faupel offers an interesting observation on the lives, messages, ministries and outcomes of three major pre-Pentecostal American figures. He writes of J.A. Dowie. Frank W. Sandford and Charles Parham.
- The Coming of the Latter Rain: Faupel begins the story of Seymuor as a continuation of the historical formation of the Pentecostal Movement linking it back to the ministry of Parham. He explores the beginning of the Azusa Street revival and its affect on Los Angeles, the United States and worldwide.
- Defining the Parameters of Pentecostal Though: The end of Faupel’s story focuses on the outcomes of the Latter Rain phenomenon. Main concern of the plot is the ministry of Durham in Chicago, who proposes the idea of Finished Work. Durham claims that thought Calvary there are only two works of grace, the salvation experience and the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The sanctification, he proposes, comes in the life of the believer through the salvation experience.
Bulgarian Churches in America: Personal Xlibris
Excerpt from the chapter “How to Start a Bulgarian Church in America from A-to-Z”
X. Xlibris
Every community leaves a lasting xlibris on its accomplishments, victories and success through a time of celebration. After each major accomplishment, plan deliberately and allow time for celebration. Celebration will renew the motivation of your congregation. Thank God for what He has done, what He is doing and even for the future expectation of what He is about to do. Leave your signature, your identity, and your xlibris where God has placed you to exist. You can even chose a day in which you can celebrate the birth of the new church.
Y. Yielding
As the time of accomplishment and conclusion draws near, prepare yourself for yielding. Yield to God’s leadership for the future, to the needs of the congregation, to new ministers which the congregation has set forth, and to the needs of your family and yourself. This process will provide you with your next step.
Z. Zooming-out
If you have reached the final step in this program you have proven to others and yourself that you are a great leader and church planner. However, if you are a good church planner, you are probably not a good maintainer. It is too hard for an initiator to stop making things happen. It takes a different person to plan, water and grow. This is indeed a Biblical principle and it alludes to the law of the big picture.
If you are not ready to change significantly from planter to a maintainer, you will only hurt what you have planted. Therefore, prepare for change. You will either adapt to being a maintainer or you will have to leave. It is time to zoom-out and see the big picture. When it is the leader’s time to walk away, he/she has to be willing to leave. If this is the case, go back to point A. A new project from God is waiting for you.
2004 Prognoses about Bulgarian Churches in North America 10 Years Later
With the present rates and dynamics of immigration, the growth of Bulgarian immigrant communities across North America is inevitable. As it has experiences a great increase in the past fifteen years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Bulgaria immigrant community is has not only first-generation, Bulgarian-born members, but second-generation of Bulgarian Americans born in North America.
As the community and the churches within it continues to deal with the cultural dilemma, they will discover that that a new generation of immigrants will be eventually assimilated within the American culture. As North American cross-cultural dynamics in the beginning of the 21st century tend to preserve ethnic belongingness rather then assimilate it, they will perhaps present the Bulgarian American churches with an intergenerational opportunity for ministry.
Such change is a historical precedent, which demands preparation from both Bulgarian and American sides. In the past, the children of the immigrants have usually changed the ways their parents lived their lives. However, this dynamics have been reversed to a lifestyle that contains the old immigrant identity. The effect of such metamorphoses is overwhelming, since second generation immigrant must balance between the heritage of their parents and the reality of the new world in which they live.
In a religious context, the new generation is retaining or rather reinventing the old ways of worship inherited from their parents. Thus, while the secular world offers a context for assimilation, the religious community provides an atmosphere for preservation of culture. At the same time, second generation immigrants may switch to a congregation with that promotes a more American style of worship, role of women and social services. Such dynamics provide the context and reasons for church splits.
In their short modern history of the 1990s, the American Bulgarian churches have already experienced a number church splits. Some of the congregations have experienced even more than one split. Such experiences have been painful, but at the same time have brought sense to the reality of church dynamics and have sources of learning for both pastors of congregations. As the Bulgarian American churches grow in number and influence, the second generation immigrants take a more significant role in the church’s life and dynamics. In such context, programs for identity formation and church split prevention must become the focus of the church’s discipleship process.
Annual Conferences of Bulgarian Churches in America
In the summer of 2002 the pastors of the Bulgarian churches in North America came together for their first meeting in Dallas, TX. As a result, an organization called the Alliance of the Bulgarian Evangelical Churches in North America was established as a first step toward networking between the churches. The churches within the Alliance has met over Memorial Day weekend every year since then as follows:
2002 – Dallas
2003 – Chicago
2004 – Minneapolis
2005 – Los Angeles
2006 – Dallas
2007 – Chicago
2008 – Minneapolis
2009 – Los Angeles
2010 – Houston
2011 – Las Vegas
2012 – Chicago
2013 – Dallas
2014 – Minneapolis
2015 – Las Vegas
2016 – Houston
2017 – Chicago
READ ALSO:
- The story of the first Bulgarian Church of God in the Untied States
- San Francisco Springs
- Prognoses about Bulgarian Churches in North America
When you change a GENERATION you change a NATION
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In the CHANGE of one GENERATION is a change for the whole NATION
The success of Israel was in the GLORY of GOD and its power to overturn evil kings and political systems
- In the case of Moses this was the Pharoah
- In the case of David this was Saul
- In the case of Ezekiel this was Babylon
And EVERY TIME the people who followed the glory were blessed and received the covenant promises
See why this is important for US today
We live in a post-Christian America
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1. Less than 20% of Americans regularly ATTEND church
2. Mid-sized churches are SHRINKING amid booming small churches and megachurches
3. Established denominations 40 to 190 years old are DECLINING and disappearing
4. By 2050, the percentage of the U.S. population attending church will be HALF of what it was in 1990
5. At the same times ABORTIONS are on the rise
6. There’s an open GAY reformation within the walls of the church
7. The next WAR is a matter of days
There’s absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that today we live in a post-Christian America!
And while all this is happening:
- PRAYER is not what it used to be in our churches
- People are still playing church POLITICS
- Corporate strategies are replacing the vision of GOD
And we as a church are failing to ENTER the GLORY of GOD
Paul said: “Our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea;
And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud
And did all drink the same spiritual drink of the spiritual Rock that followed them
And that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased…
We claim that we’ve been saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost, but do we please GOD today?
For the change of a generation leads to a change of the whole nation…
Annual Conference of the Bulgarian Churches in North America
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Bulgarian Churches in the United States meet this weekend for their annual conference in Dallas, Texas. They are hosted by the local Assemblies of God as the Bulgarian churches represent Full Gospel, Foursquare, the Church of God and independent works. Currently, there are regular Bulgarian church meetings in Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. Through the years, small groups have sporadically started meetings in Buffalo, St. Louis, Seattle and three places in Florida: Ft. Lauderdale, Tampa and Jacksonville. Through the years, we have assisted with the church projects in Atlanta, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. There have also been attempts to restore the meetings in Washington State, where the difficulty is that most Bulgarians live in the outer suburbs.
See all Bulgarian Churches in the United States, Canada and Europe on our catalog website http://bulgarianchurches.com/
Molokans among the first to speak in tongues in America
Were Molokans the first to Speak in Tongues at Azusa?
By Andrei Conovaloff American Molokan Dukh-i-zhiznik (lit. living in the Spirit) oral history (documented in the Book of the Sun: Spirit and Life, Dukh i zhizn’) reports that Molokani and Pryguny received the “outpouring of the Holy Spirit” in the Milky Waters region (now in Ukraine) in 1833. The diary of Vassili V. Verestchagin documents that Pryguny (lit. leapers) in…
The Forgotten Azusa Street Mission: The Place where the First Pentecostals Met
By Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. For years, the building on Azusa Street has also been an enigma. Most people are familiar with the same three or four photographs that have been published and republished through the years. They show a rectangular, boxy, wood frame structure that was 40 feet by…
First Pentecostal Missionaries to Bulgaria
By Dony K. Donev, D.Min. Historical and Doctrinal Formation of Holiness Teachings and Praxis among Bulgarian Pentecostals (Research presentation prepared for the Society of Pentecostal Studies, Seattle, 2013 – Lakeland, 2015, thesis in partial fulfillment of the degree of D. Phil., Trinity College) Interestingly enough, the arrival of the first Pentecostal missionaries to…
America for Jesus 2012
Bulgarian Churches in North America
Bulgarian Churches in North America results from a comprehensive dissertation work on emerging Bulgarian American congregations. The book incorporates some twenty years of research, which the author began while involved with the establishment of the first Bulgarian Church of God in North America initially located in the city of Chicago. The work presents an overview of the historical presuppositions and immigrant dynamics associated with Bulgarian churches is offered to enlighten the current problem of ministry. Next, a detailed contextual analysis describes the churches participating in the project. The project model design explains the research methodology and the study’s findings, which provide the first ever statistical overview of Bulgarian American congregations. The work concludes with a series of prognoses of the explored movement of evangelical churches, various considerations and an A-to-Z church planting proposal to serve as a paradigm for ministry and church planting among Bulgarian immigrant communities in North America.
