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By Brian Blackwell, Message Staff Writer
WEST MONROE – A Louisiana Baptist church has obtained the exclusive publishing rights to the Experiencing God book in the nation of Bulgaria.
And by doing so, Cedar Crest Baptist Church in West Monroe hopes this is just the beginning of many changed lives in this East European country.
Cedar Crest has been working in partnership with the Baptist Union of Bulgaria and the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention since 2009. The church has taken teams to Bulgaria to conduct pastor training and leadership development, VBS style events for children and sports camps for all ages.
The idea to translate Experiencing God into Bulgarian began in 2010 when Cedar Crest hosted a Fresh Encounter conference on spiritual awakening. The conference was led by Henry Blackaby, co-author of Experiencing God, and his son Richard, now President of Blackaby Ministries International. At the conference, Richard Blackaby discussed with church leadership the possibility of obtaining the publishing rights, although BMI does not handle the actual distribution of those rights.
“Experiencing God has had such a significant impact on our church here that when we began working with pastors and leaders in Bulgaria, it was just a natural thought to incorporate this material into the process,” said Greg Clark, senior pastor of Cedar Crest.
The church immediately began attempts through Lifeway Publishing to obtain the rights, only to find out that those rights had been purchased by another organization. Attempts over the next year and a half to contact this organization proved unsuccessful.
In early 2012, Lynn Wilson, Cedar Crest’s administrative pastor, once again contacted Lifeway about the Experiencing God material. Only this time, he was informed that the publishing rights formerly held by the other organization had expired and were in fact available for purchase.
“I told them as of right now those rights are no longer available to anyone else because we want them,“ Wilson recalled.
By that summer, Cedar Crest began to have discussions with a Bulgarian translator, Vlady Raichinov, about the possibility of having the book translated into their language. The process of translation took almost an entire year to accomplish and when completed was 330 pages in length. Wilson said that since most Bulgarians they have encountered do not use the workbook style material commonly used in the United States, the actual book was used in the translation.
In the meantime, Cedar Crest had begun discussions with the Baptist Union of Bulgaria in hopes of sponsoring a national Baptist pastors conference in the capital city of Sofia. David Moreland, missions pastor at Cedar Crest, added that developing good relationships with the pastors and leaders in Bulgaria was key in getting the Bulgarian leadership to the point where they would be comfortable in accepting the gift of Experiencing God in their native language.
“During the first three years of the work there, we were able to establish a good working relationship with the BBU,” Moreland said. “They don’t just open their arms and welcome people in, so it was quite a moment for us when we realized that they accepted us.
“We have tried to be very prayerful in seeing what God would have us to do there and He’s been very faithful in doing just that,” he continued. “As God opens doors, we have tried to be faithful and obey.”
Ultimately, the BBU agreed to work with Cedar Crest in holding a national conference for Baptist pastors. It seemed to be a natural fit to use the Experiencing God material as the theme for the conference.
Cedar Crest contacted Blackaby Ministries and soon had both Richard Blackaby and his brother Tom Blackaby committed to leading the teaching sessions for the conference.
All the praying and planning finally came to fruition, when in October of 2013, 127 pastors and leaders from all across the country of Bulgaria came together for a 3 day period of teaching, worshipping and fellowship. At the conclusion of the conference, approximately 300 copies of the Experiencing God book were distributed free of charge to Bulgarian pastors and leaders.
“Because of economic reasons they cannot come together as a group, so to see the pastors and leaders together in fellowship was an incredible experience for us to be a part of,” Wilson said. “It also has now provided some legitimacy for Cedar Crest and what God is leading us to do over there.”
Moreland added that the exciting thing is that until now the church mission teams have been primarily going to the northwest region of Bulgaria but now God has opened the opportunity for them to go other places in the country.
“We have been getting invitations from other churches to do the same kinds of things in their regions,” he said. “What began as a small work in one particular location has now blossomed out so that we now have the ability to go throughout the whole country and minister.”
Clark stated the whole process of working in Bulgaria is a slow one, so one must get accustomed to that slow process. “
We felt like God had opened this door for us and it didn’t matter how long it took or what the process was, we were just going to hang in there until something happened,” he said.
A team from Cedar Crest traveled back in Bulgaria at the end of March, conducting more teaching with pastors and encouraging congregations in this very difficult environment. Discussions are currently on-going for the next national conference that will be held in April 2015.
The effort by Cedar Crest to reach the Bulgarian people reflects a larger mission to fulfill Acts 1:8 and is a part of the church’s Global Mission Strategy.
Its local missions efforts include a Cowboy Church that meets every Tuesday in the church’s fellowship hall, participation in a ministry to the homeless in Ouachita Parish, support of a local church plant and weekly mentoring of at-risk children at a local elementary school.
Statewide, Cedar Crest has partnered with a church plant, One Life Baptist Church in Port Vincent and with Chad Thibodeaux of Vatican Baptist Church and will begin working with Ryan Melson, a church planter in New Orleans beginning in January of 2015. Nationally, the church has just concluded a 3-year partnership with Connect Church in Atlanta, Ga, conducting summer sports camps for children in inner city Atlanta. Cedar Crest will begin a new church plant partnership with Passion Church in mid-town Atlanta sometime early in 2015.