December 2005 Pastor Simeon's Update

Dear friends,

I am writing this update to inform you about some of the notable events in our church and ministry in recent weeks.

• the church's 42 days fast
• the cross and the sign
• PAOB Pastors' conference in Plovdiv
• the sparkle of unity - pastors' prayers

The first of these events was our church's 42 day fast. This chain fasting and prayer continued for six weeks from October 3rd to November 13th 2005. About 25 members of our church took part in the fast and some of us even fasted twice a week. Although the fast was long it was not too heavy since our common desire was to fast daily until 17.00 h., because for some of the people in our church this was the first time they had ever fasted and some take various kinds of medicine that require food.

Praise the Lord that he gave us strength for this fast although we had enormous attacks during it. In the beginning one young man from our church left us in order to go to an ultra charismatic church and at the end of the fast, during one of our family meetings, we had a remarkable conflict that arose out of nothing and was about the wooden cross in our sanctuary. An older brother suggested putting a cross on the wall behind the pulpit. I said: "OK, would you take the initiative for this?". He said: "OK", but then another brother said: "Is this the most important thing to do now?" The older brother said: "When people enter our church all they see are just four white walls, so we need a cross in order to identify ourselves as a church." The younger brother objected: "Well, should we always conform to public opinion? People will always be dissatisfied with us. When we were in the old school they said when you move to your new church building we will start coming. Now they want a cross... Maybe later they will want icons and candles too…" But this objection irritated the older brother enormously and for some time he stopped coming to our services. He objected that the cross has nothing to do with icons and almost implied that we are against the Cross of our Lord… Later another family said that we should have not just a cross but also a sign showing that we are a church (although we have a large cross on the front of the building but they said that this cross is too high for people to see it…), they even suggested that the church is suffering some kind of spiritual disease because of the lack of a cross in our building. Of course all these decorations were in my plans in advance but I did not consider them as important as completing the outside of the church - rendering, pathways and fence.

All these stupid conflicts brought me to the point where I was one step away from resigning my position but because all these people were leaders in the church I did my best to satisfy their wishes. I tried to remind them that the church is not the building but the people gathered in the name of the Lord. And that we should bear our cross daily and not just decorate our buildings with it but it didn't work. So, now our church has a cross and a sign.

Another event I would like to mention is the pastors' conference that we attended in Plovdiv on 17th and 18th November. This was not just some kind of teaching event but an organizational conference, the purpose of which was to prepare for the official denominational convention that is held every four years and has the authority to choose the leadership of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Bulgaria and to change its constitution. The agenda of the conference was: financial issues; organizational issues, and spiritual issues. At this conference it was acknowledged that the number of the members of the churches had decreased tangibly and the leader of PAOB said that all sponsorship to the denomination from the West had been terminated. Please pray for the Bulgarian church and her pastors and ministers.

At the same time new missionaries have started to come to Bulgaria. In Burgas now, as far as I know, there are two missionary families from the USA, and, as far as I know, scores of others are preparing to come to Sofia and the other main cities. This is good but at the same time ridiculous. The church in the West does not help Bulgarian pastors to do their job well here and does not support them, but they send their own missionaries that do not know the language and the culture and need years for preparation. At the same time the 10/40 window is starved of Christian workers. Is this fresh interest in our country just because the standard of life here is increasing so fast?

The last event I want to mention is the spark of unity that was set on fire in the last few weeks. After I returned from the pastors' conference I invited some of the local pastors to come to Dolno Ezerovo for a pastors' prayer meeting. Three of them responded and we had a wonderful time in God's presence in our church on November 22nd. The next such prayer meeting was held in the First Pentecostal Church in Burgas on December 2nd, and at it we had seven pastors. The next pastors' prayer meeting will be on January 13th in Vetren (a village 12 km north of Burgas) so please pray for the unity of the Burgas Pastors that is so important for church growth and the advancement of the kingdom of God.

One of the results of the pastors' prayer meeting was that on November 30th Pastor Ivelin Minkov from the Baptist Church in Burgas ministered in our church in Dolno Ezerovo, and on Thursday the following week I was invited to preach in their church in Burgas.

The good news is that I reorganized our Bulgarian sermons website a little bit and put a counter on it. It shows more than a thousand hits in less than a month, which is a considerable achievement for me.

What lies in the future is first, Operation Christmas Child, and second, my teaching on Homiletics II at Sofia Pentecostal Bible College from February 13th to 24th. Please pray for us. We really need your prayer and financial support.

May the Spirit of God be with your spirit!

Pastor Simeon Krastev