I was saved…
During the month of September, our ministry is celebrating 30 years in the ministry. I was saved in my hometown of Yambol Bulgaria on August 9, 1990 and baptized with the Holy Spirit seven days later. In two weeks time God called me to preach and I preached my first sermon one September Friday at the Church of God in the small mountain town of Pravetz, Bulgaria. Fourteen were present at the meeting. The Bulgarian Church of God was still underground. Little I knew that only a few months later, the youth group of the church would count over 100 strong and growing, the Berlin Wall would have had fallen and revival would’ve been on the way. That night in Pravetz Bulgaria I just preached a sermon from the Word. That same Word, which God still claims cannot return void. For Revival must go on …
Our story has a humble beginning working with small Pentecostal-holiness groups in the Bulgarian mountains and growing the Pravetz Church of God youth group to over 300 members in a city of 5,000. And thus our ministry moved forward: from the storefront churches of Bulgaria to establishing the Bulgarian congregation of Chicago; from the backwoods Bulgarian villages to postgraduate level research; from the old red back hymnal to the latest technological invention; from hitchhiking to the charter flights and using any transportation necessary to get to the Sunday morning service and minister. We have done whatever needed to be done for the ministry to go on in Bulgaria and abroad. But we never forgot where we came from and we have faithfully kept on returning to minister to our humble beginnings…
At age 30 a ministry is not an old veteran, but just starting in its prime. We are both convinced and committed toward a new level of ministry in 2020 in a new spiritual realm. With this vision in mind, we have present the Bulgarian Church of God a dynamic strategy for the next five years of its development and ministry. We invite you to partner with us in payer and fasting for this endeavor.
This book should have been published seven years ago in 2013. Its original subtitle was going to read “7 Years in Bulgaria.” Instead, it took seven years to finish it with all documents, research archives and new cases. Now, it is finally here and it finally reads like a story – not just choppy interviews, deposition documented testimonies or court records, but a story of struggle, strength and solitude. A story of life and a story of us.
1995-96 The establishing of the first Bulgarian Church of God in Chicago and its first split
2000-01 The contracted building of the ministry center for the Central Church of God in Sofia
2002-03 The church split in Southaven and what followed next
2005-06 The post-communist split of the Bulgarian Church of God and consecutive sub-denominations
2010-13 The social media network that cost us millions (of souls)
2016 The vote that forced to kill a church
2019-20 The sale of the ministry center for the Central Church of God in Bulgaria
