30 Years after Communism…
The Fall of the Berlin Wall was on the evening of November 9, 1989
30 years in 60 seconds at the red-light…
I’m driving slowly in the dark and raining streets of my home town passing through clouds of car smoke. The gypsy ghetto in the outskirts of town is covered with the fog of fires made out of old tires burning in the yards. And the loud music adds that grotesque and gothic nuance to the whole picture with poorly clothed children dancing around the burnings.
The first red light stops me at the entrance to the “more civilized” part of the city. The bright counter right next to it slowly moves through the long 60 seconds while tiredly walking people pass through the intersection to go home and escape the cold rain. The street ahead of me is already covered with dirt and thickening layer of sleet.
This is how I remember Bulgaria of my youth and it seems like nothing has changed in the past 30 years.
The newly elected government just announced its coalition cabinet – next to a dozen like it that had failed in the past two decades. The gas price is holding firmly at $6/gal. and the price of electricity just increased by 10%, while the harsh winter is already knocking at the doors of poor Bulgarian households. A major bank is in collapse threatening to take down the national banking system and create a new crisis much like in Greece. These are the same factors that caused Bulgaria’s major inflation in 1993 and then hyperinflation in 1996-97.
What’s next? Another winter and again a hard one!
Ex-secret police agents are in all three of the coalition parties forming the current government. The ultra nationalistic party called “ATTACK” and the Muslim ethnic minorities party DPS are out for now, but awaiting their move as opposition in the future parliament. At the same time, the new-old prime minister (now in his second term) is already calling for yet another early parliamentarian election in the summer. This is only months after the previous elections in October, 2014 and two years after the ones before them on May 2013.
Every Bulgarian government in the past 30 years has focused on two rather mechanical goals: cardinal socio-economical reforms and battle against communism. The latter is simply unachievable without deep reformative change within the Bulgarian post-communist mentality. The purpose of any reform should be to do exactly that. Instead, what is always changing is the outwardness of the country. The change is only mechanical, but never organic within the country’s heart.
Bulgaria’s mechanical reforms in the past quarter of a century have proven to be only conditional, but never improving the conditions of living. The wellbeing of the individual and the pursuit of happiness, thou much spoken about, are never reached for they never start with the desire to change within the person. For this reason, millions of Bulgarians and their children today work abroad, pursuing another life for another generation.
The stop light in front of me turns green bidding the question where to go next. Every Bulgarian today must make a choice! Or we’ll be still here at the red light in another 30 years from now…
Ministry by Walking Around and the Network of Seven Churches of Revelation
Ministry by Walking Around and the Network of Seven Churches of Revelation
Although the Book of Revelation has been vastly studied and interpreted throughout church history, usually the focus is on one major issue within the text, namely, the role and future of the church. The main reason for this has been the in-depth prophetic and pastoral messages to the Seven Churches.
The value of the messages to the Seven Churches of Revelation is constituted by the fact that they are the last recorded Biblical messages to the Christian Church.[1] The letters to the Seven Churches obviously do not contain all of the usual elements used in the New Testament epistolary form. It is generally accepted that they were written as an application of the Revelation context and not as individual messages to the churches.
This contextual connection between the seven letters suggests a network of inter-church communication which was established between the seven churches. Several common elements are obvious from the text, the most obvious is their common geographical location as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Distances between the Seven Cities of Revelation
The addressed churches are located clockwise, almost like they are forming a strategic circle of ministry.[2] Most churches are located thirty to forty miles from one another, which perhaps was the possible daily limit for traveling during that time. The shape of the circle of ministry, based on the order in which the churches were addressed, suggests a method of managing known today as Management by Walking Around (MBWA). The example in Revelation not only presupposes such methodology, but purposefully gives its clockwise direction in relation to the location of origin of the letters from the Island of Pathmos.
The purposeful positioning of the churches provided a common network (circle of ministry). It is also obvious from the text that at the time of writing, simplicity and democracy in organization were characteristics of the New Testament church government.[3] In the context of networking, each church maintained its own individuality because it is addressed separately in the text.[4]
Furthermore, the seven churches shared a common context of ministry in the area of Asia Minor which consisted of a great mixture of languages, customs and religions. All of the seven churches were located in cities which were under Roman rule and combined the customs of Roman, Greek, Assyrian, Persian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Jewish cultures as well as the various languages and dialects within them. The commonality in the context of ministry continued with the presence of numerous religious groups, cults, sects and gilds which were closely interwoven with civil affairs. Universal citizenship, universal religion, and a universal church were all ideas for which the Roman Empire was beginning to prepare. In such context, the seven churches shared a common goal of ministry, namely, spreading the Christian message.[5]
The seven letters were inspired by one occasion and one purpose as a tool for inter-church networking.[6] The message was not sporadic or spontaneous but thoughtfully planned and designed for each of the churches, based on an in-depth knowledge of the individual problems, members and solutions for future development.[7] The text demonstrates a common structure within the church illustrated by the common structure shared by each message. The letters reveal that the congregations shared similar practices of worship, ministry and teaching which were accompanied by problems and persecution.
A significant part of the common structure was the leadership because each church had a divinely-appointed messenger,[8] addressed by a common “divinely-charged”[9] network elder, who received a transmitted divine message. Such process shows that the networking was done by means of communication, of which the epistolary form is also proof.[10] The written text was only a formal documentary or a contract of the holistic communication accomplished through various multimedia means including those that relied on audio, visual and other senses. It constructed a mystical, divinely-inspired, supernatural and non-virtual reality which transformed the recipient of the message in the same way it did the messenger. Through this means, the network communication was not a miscommunication, but rather an authentic translation from the divine source to the very members of the congregations.
This form of communication was absolutely necessary for the common context of ministry in which the seven churches operated. This common context was the earth, not heaven,[11] and their common goal was to conquer.[12] Yet, at the same time the text is undisputable in that each church contained people prepared to conquer. This fact makes the victory of the church inevitable. Thus, while the churches are dealing with various problems and persecutions, they are already conquerors.
This observation brings the reader to the final commonality which the seven churches share; namely, that besides the earthly network of ministry there is another greater, divine, heavenly network which is in control. Such a conclusion is obvious from the fact that all of the churches without exception are known to the sender of the messages.[13] Their problems are relevant, criticism and encouragement which are prophetically delivered solutions are divinely provided and conquest of the church over the problems is definite and inevitable. This is undisputable proof that a God-centered New Testament networking of churches is the dependable and enduring model for both ministry networking and church government. Precisely this heavenly network is the supernatural source of the unique approach through which problems of the churches are to be solved. Thus, in addition to a common present reality, the churches share a future earthly applicability of the paradigm of ministry which makes their message relevant today.[14]
[1] Wade H. Horton, Lectures on the Seven Churches (Cleveland: Pentecostal Resource Center, n/a), 6.
[2] Henry M. Morris, The Revelation Recorded (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1987), 66. Merril Tenney, Interpreting Revelation (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pubslihing Co., 1957), 50. For an in-depth discussion on the geographical location of the Seven Churches, its significance for the circulation of the letters and the leadership organization see William M. Ramsey, The Letters to the Seven Churches (Grand Rapids: Baker book House, 1979), 186.
[3] McDowell, 38.
[4] McDowell, 37.
[5] Ramsey, 120-21.
[6] Ramsey, 40.
[7] Ramsey, 39-40.
[8] Bruce M. Metzger, Breaking the Code (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993), 30. Ramsey, 69, 74ff.
[9] Ramsey, 80.
[10] McDowell, 37.
[11] Metzger, 29.
[12] Metzger, 30.
[13] Wade Horton, Seven Golden Candlesticks (Cleveland: Pathway Press, 1974), 72.
[14] Edward A. McDowell, The Meaning and Message of the Book of Revelation (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1951), 35. Clovis G. Chappell, Sermons from Revelation (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, n/a), 59.
Set yourself on fire…
New Wesley Room at Bristol
Here is a bit more about the building from the Methodist Heritage Organization:
George Whitefield invited John Wesley to preach outdoors for the first time to the miners of Bristol in 1739. Within a few weeks’ work started on building the New Room as a meeting place for two of the religious societies in the city, thus creating the world’s first Methodist building.
The current building dates from 1748 when the New Room was doubled in size. Its lower floor became known as John Wesley’s Chapel. It is still in regular use for worship as well as being used for cultural and educational activities and exhibitions. Upstairs John Wesley created twelve rooms around a beautiful central octagonal window. These provided accommodation for himself and any visiting preachers assigned to the Bristol circuit. They now contain a highly interactive Museum devoted to telling the story of John and Charles Wesley and the relevance of their work today.
Being well placed in the heart of the city, the New Room became a center for the Wesleys’ work in Bristol. It was where John’s strong sense of social justice was first expressed. The New Room became a base for running a school for the poor, for providing food and clothes to the needy, for offering free medical care to the sick, and for helping those in the nearby prison. It was also the first place to use John Wesley’s ‘class’ system, where members were divided into sub-groups for mutual support and development. The New Room has been described as ‘the cradle of Methodism’.
The New Room was one of John Wesley’s three key centers. Many of the annual conferences were held there, including the one that first created Methodist circuits. Bristol’s trading links encouraged the growth of American Methodism. Thomas Webb, Francis Asbury, and others committed themselves to working there and sailed from nearby.
Encouraged by the Diary of JOHN WESLEY
O HOLY GOD we, have come to a point where
pastors text and post on facebook during sermon hour while thousands are going to hell in a hand basket while listening to a sermon
teachers be sipping a beer with friends on Saturday night and get up to teach Sunday school on Sunday morning still with alcohol on their breath
seminary professors teaching it is OK to drink in the Bible during the so called Theology on Tap meetings in a local pub
lonely pastors sitting in their cars shooting whiskey in the darkness of the church parking lot after preaching 2-3 services on Sunday
preachers are concerned with every social, political and cultural issues except the salvation of eternal human souls
We read the story in Wesley’s journal:
Sunday, 7.-–I preached again at St. Lawrence’s in the morning, and afterward at St. Katherine Cree’s Church. I was enabled to speak strong words at both; and was therefore the less surprised at being informed that I was not to preach any more in either of those churches.
The following weekend – Sunday, 14.–I preached in the morning at St. Ann’s, Aldersgate; and in the afternoon at the Savoy Chapel on free salvation by faith in the blood of Christ.
I was quickly apprised that at St. Ann’s, likewise, I am to preach no more.
I preached at St. John’s, Wapping at 3PM and at St. Bennett’s, Paul’s Wharf, in the evening.
At these churches, likewise, I am to preach no more
THEN HE WRITES:
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I had continual sorrow and heaviness in my heart.
BUT THEN Wednesday, May 24.– about five this morning that I opened my Testament on those words
“There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, even that ye should be partakers of the divine nature” [II Peter 1:4].
Just as I went out, I opened it again on
those words, “Thou art not far from the kingdom of God” [Mark 12:34].
In the afternoon I was asked to go to St. Paul’s. The anthem was, “Out
of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice. Oh,
let Thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint
“I Felt My Heart Strangely Warmed”
In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change
which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.
I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.
I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial
manner despitefully used me and persecuted me.
I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart
Banned from most churches in the area, he meets with Whitfield who has just returned from America
Whitfield tells him they can minister in the fields like they did in America
Thursday, 29th –-I left London as I could scarcely reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which Whitfield set me an example on Sunday;
I had been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order
that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.
Monday, 2.--At four in the afternoon, I submitted to be more vile and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city where gathered 3,000 people
Sunday, 8.--At seven in the morning I preached to about a thousand persons at Bristol, and afterward to about fifteen hundred on the top of the Mount in Kingswood.
Tuesday, 17.–At 5 in the afternoon I was at a little society in the Back Lane. The room in which we were was propped beneath, but the weight of people made the floor give way; so in the very beginning of PREACHING the post which propped it fell down with a great noise.
NEVERTHELESS the floor sank no farther; so that, after a little surprise at first, they quietly attended to the words that were spoken.”
VBS for Adults
For reasons obvious to most of our readers, I was able to attend no less than 10 (ten) VBS/Kids crusades this summer. Seven Baptist, several Pentecostals and a Methodist one.
The themes ranged from jungle journey and the Lion King to giddy up cowboys and cowgirls and world/planet/time travelling. All cool themes with lots of props and much careful preparation all in the name of bringing the Good News to the little ones. A noble cause truly worthy of any expense and labor for any church out there.
Time and length ranged from one whole day or one evening service to three nights and even several week long ones. For most of it, the ones held in most Baptist churches were designed by LifeWay and were well structured with kids constantly moving from station to station. The rest were somewhat free style, but still designed with the expectation of lots of children attending. In between each module there was candy, snacks or even a full blown supper.
The location of each VBS and the way it was designed for the crowd flow made the initial impression important. Signs welcoming and directing newcomers were grate, but the friendliness of the people made up for less signage and more human touch. Registration was a must and parents’ preferences were not taken lightly. The decorations of each room helped the children adjust to the new setting and work through the set curriculum. And yes, lots of kids made lots of mess so cleanness in class rooms, play areas and bathrooms were tended to. Some churches had a designated team that made sure the facilities were clean for the next group. And where cleanness was not intentional, it was observed that many parents did not return with their children.
Most VBS programs were designed around age groups. Some included even classes for toddlers and several had adult classes too. The ones that did not, included a family night toward the end of the week for parents to attend. A family night was a great feature for parents who did not attend but dropped their kids every night and picked them up afterwards. They were addressed with materials and opportunities for a spiritual renewal.
The thematic VBSs progressed with learning daily and build up on the previous day. The groups of children toggled between Bible lesson, crafts, games and lots of music. Kids were greatly encouraged to participate and learn the songs and dancing, recite Bible verses and answer questions from the covered material. Some parents participated too.
Prayer was made a central focal point for most of the VBSs observed. The Baptists ones, especially, had pledges of allegiance at the start of the service and assembly with prayer toward the end. A memorable experience for all children who enjoy social setting, making new friends and learn the Bible.
Here are several take ways to observe for a VBS in your church:
- Prepare for lots of children – if you have it they will come
- Train your workers. Form teams for each task. Assign measurable goals to ensure smooth moving through the program
- Self designed VBS programs work as good as the paid ones, as long as designed with the children and families in mind
- Chose the length of the event carefully with regard of your constitutions. For the most of it, less is really more.
- Do not underestimate friendliness, cleanness and the safety of the children.
- Don’t miss a family day. Everyone likes hot dogs and water slides on a hot summer day.
This goes without saying, but focus on God – it is easy to lose track and purposes in the larger design of such events.
REVELATION RELOADED 2019
Sunday: 20 Signs of the Last Days
Monday: Spiritual Solutions from the 7 Churches
Tuesday: Rapture of the Church
Wednesday: A Place Called Heaven
Although the Book of Revelation has been vastly studied and interpreted throughout church history, usually the focus is on one major issue within the text, namely, the role and future of the church. The main reason for this has been the in-depth prophetic and pastoral messages to the Seven Churches. The value of the messages to the Seven Churches of Revelation is constituted by the fact that they are the last recorded Biblical messages to the Christian Church. For this reason, the letters to the Seven Churches obviously do not contain all of the usual elements used in the New Testament epistolary form.
Network of the Seven Churches of Revelation (PDF)
Read also: Revelation Revealed
- 20 SIGNS of the LAST DAYS (Revised: January, 2019)
- Spiritual Problems and Solutions from the 7 Churches of Revelation
- Rapture of the Church (A Reformed Theological Perspective)
- The Great Tribulation
- Daniel and Revelation
The LOSS of IMAGINATION
In the 1950s kids lost their innocence.
They were liberated from their parents by well-paying jobs, cars, and lyrics in music that gave rise to a new term —the generation gap.
In the 1960s, kids lost their authority.
It was a decade of protest—church, state, and parents were all called into question and found wanting. Their authority was rejected, yet nothing ever replaced it.
In the 1970s, kids lost their love.
It was the decade of me-ism dominated by hyphenated words beginning with self.
Self-image, Self-esteem, Self-assertion….It made for a lonely world. Kids learned everything there was to know about sex and forgot everything there was to know about love, and no one had the nerve to tell them there was a difference.
In the 1980s, kids lost their hope.
Stripped of innocence, authority and love and plagued by the horror of a nuclear nightmare, large and growing numbers of this generation stopped believing in the future.
In the 1990s kids lost their power to reason.
Less and less were they taught the very basics of language, truth, and logic and they grew up with the irrationality of a postmodern world.
In the new millennium, kids woke up and found out that somewhere in the midst of all this change, they had lost their imagination. Violence and perversion entertained them till none could talk of killing innocents since none was innocent anymore.
IN MEMORIAM: Samuel Thomas “ST” Scroggs
Samuel Thomas “ST” Scroggs, 90, passed away peacefully at his home Thursday, January 10, 2019. He was born in Seneca August 8, 1928, a son of Paul H. and Ethel Rose (Hughes) Scroggs.
His livelihood was in textiles for 45 years. He worked hard to provide for his family. ST loved being a farmer. Nothing brought him more joy. His wife, Rev. Evelyn Edgar Scroggs was an ordained minister and ST was a co-minister with his wife, supporting her in her ministry. He enjoyed hunting, fishing, watersports when he was younger, hiking and camping. He loved his senior social group at the Newry Church of God.
ST is survived by two daughters, Phyllis Durham and husband Bill of Easley and Marcia Harrell of Gastonia, NC; a son, Greg Scroggs and wife Marilyn of Anderson; son-in-law, Raymond Duane Harrell; grandchildren, Matthew Nix and wife Lindsay, Brandon Harrell and Morgan Floyd, Andrew Harrell, Weston Scroggs and wife Caitlan, Kyle Scroggs, and nephew, Tommy Sluder; great grandchildren, Colbi and Jaxon Scroggs, and Mattie, Evie and Olin Nix; and many nieces and nephews. In addition to his parents, he was predeceased by his wife of 54 years, Evelyn; sisters, Irene Barton, Juanita Vickery, Ruth Johnson, Charlene Leopole, Ava Brush, and Betty Owens.
Funeral services will be held 2:00 PM Monday, January 14 at the Newry Church of God, 234 Newry Road, Seneca. Interment will follow at the Oconee Memorial Park.
The family will receive friends 2-4:00 PM Sunday, January 13 at the Duckett-Robinson Funeral Home, 108 Cross Creek Road, Central.
The Bulgarian Church of God Celebrates its 90th Anniversary
Excerpt from “Spirit-Empowerment of the Poor in Spirit: Dr. Nicholas Nikolov and the Establishment of the Bulgarian Assemblies of God in 1928” presented at the Missions & Intercultural Studies Interest Group, 47th Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies (Lee University, 2018)
In 2018, the Pentecostal Union in Bulgaria is celebrating 90 years since its establishment. The organization of the Bulgarian Assemblies would have been impossible without the leadership of Dr. Nicholas Nikolov. But while Nikolov successfully fulfilled the mission set by the American Assemblies of God, the larger part of Bulgaria’s young Pentecostal movement remained unregistered and mainly underground. Recently published intelligence reports by the Communist Regime propaganda placed the beginnings of the Bulgarian Church of God in 1922-1924 – much earlier than the separation from the officially organized Pentecostal churches. The establishing meeting of the Bulgarian Pentecostal Union in 1928 simply reaffirmed the already existing division among Bulgarian Pentecostals and the beginning of the Bulgarian Church of God. The year 2018 rightly marks its 90th anniversary.
Unregistered Pentecostal Churches and the Underground Bulgarian Church of God
The larger majority of Pentecostal churches in Bulgaria remained reluctant to join the Pentecostal Union with particular skepticism toward registering with the government in 1928. Many perceived the new organization with 20 members led by Nikolov as betraying the original Pentecostal message brought by Zaplishny and Voronaev. As the older Pentecostals in the country saw it, a young man sent from America, took a dozen of believers and formed a new organization – nothing others have not done before him.
Almost immediately a prophetic word was given to Spas Stefanov,[1] in whose Sofia home Pentecostal meetings were held. The prophecy was from the book of Isaiah 8:10-12: Say ye not, a confederacy[2] [union], to all them to whom this people shall say, a confederacy [union]; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid.
No more than a fortnight later, the largest recorded earthquake in Bulgaria occurred and was immediately seen as divine confirmation; especially when taking under account, that its epicenter in Chirpan, and the close-by Plovdiv and Mirichlery, were renowned cities of Pentecostal Evangelical work at the time. The effect was much like the Great Earthquake of San Francisco during the Azusa Street Revival. Another confirmation to the prophecy was seen during the following winter when the Black Sea froze right at the headquarters of the newly established Pentecostal Union in Bourgas.
With a confirmed prophecy in hand, the majority opposing the new organization was lead by the seven presbyters ordained personally by Dionisey Zaplishny during his first visit in Bulgaria. They accented on the leadership and gifts of the Spirit in the unregistered (free) churches without manmade organization and order. Most of the groups that united around them were in Northern Bulgaria in the cities of Pleven, Lovetch, Etropole, Vratsa, Vidin, Montana, Nikopol, Troyan, and village churches near Ruse, Razgrad and Yambol. Presbyter Stoyan Tinchev formed and led the largest group among them, which grew into an underground movement during the Communist Regime and formed the Church of God in Bulgaria.
Boris Grozdanov, who held direct communication and was personally visited by Swedish Pentecostal evangelist Axel B. Lindgren, led groups in Verdikal/Bankya near Sofia and Pernik (both places visited often by Zaplishney).[3] Many more were located in Southern Bulgaria, between Stara Zagora and the Turkish border at Malko Tarnovo, led by Ivan Broshovsky of Yambol.
[1] Father of pastor Toma Spasov, who was sentenced and deported in the 1980s by the Communist Regime with two other Church of God pastors for leading unregistered underground churches.
[2] Translated in the Bulgarian Bible as “union” and resembling the newly established Pentecostal Union.
[3] Letter from Lindgren instructed him to hold the pure teaching and stay out of organized religion. Recorded December 14, 1930 in Protocol 14 of Minutes of the Executive Committee of the Evangelical Pentecostal Churches in Bulgaria (Personal archive of the author).
Recommended Reading:
- Autobiography of Pastor Dionisey Zaplishny (cir. 1927)
- Dinko Zhelev, former president of the Bulgarian Pentecostal Union (personal archives)
- Diulgerov, D.V. (with statistical data submitted by Dr. Nicolas Nikolov) in Annual Publication of the Theological Faculty at Sofia University – Sofia, 1932
- Donka Kinareva: Family Chronicles by J. Markov (unpublished)
- Joseph Gourbalov, Birth and Early Historical and Theological Development of the Baptist Movement in Bulgaria, 2002
- Letter from Axel B. Lindgren to Boris Grozdanov (April 10, 1930)
- National Archive Records, Ruse – Bulgaria (Archive collection, F319K)
- Nikolov, Nicolas and Martha. Ministerial files, personal papers and family correspondence (1924-28)
- Paul Gourbalov, Birth and Development of the Evangelical Pentecostal Movement in Bulgaria (manuscript)
- Travel Diary of Marry Zaplishna (cir. 1924)
52 DAYS AWAY
The Nehemiah Experience: Devil, did you hear, I done built the wall!
2018 Revival Harvest Campaign: The Nehemiah Experience
Nehemiah 1: Who cries, fasts and prays for the desolated church?
Nehemiah 2: Dear, devil, I am back!
Nehemiah 3: 12 gates of Jerusalem
Nehemiah 4: Devil, did you hear, I done built the wall…
(1)Time to enter through the Door
(2) Time for junk no more
(3) Time to wage war
Calling on the Nehemiah Generation
Strangers will come in the Church
And the walls need to be fortified…
