As in many other countries, Sabbath School (SS) seems to be languishing in Bulgaria. According to a survey by the Sabbath School Dept. of the Bulgarian SDA Union in Q2 2022, among 749 laity (12% of the union’s membership), 142 Sabbath School teachers and 25 pastors, only 40% of the youth attend Sabbath School regularly.
InVerse
In this same period (Q2 2022), Miroslav Milkov, a youth leader of one of the churches in Sofia and a volunteer in the Sabbath School Dept., was browsing the international church’ resources for ideas when he came across the inVerse Bible study guide. “inVerse quickly got me hooked,” says Miroslav. “It was like nothing I had seen before, and I quickly realized that, with its fresh concept, this contemporary Bible study could transform the way the young adults study their Bibles and even bring them back to church and Sabbath School.”
The first test
Miroslav decides to test the Bible study with his small youth group that meets every Friday night. “At first, some members of the group were confused by the new titles of the sections in the lesson. [Fast forward to] only a few weeks later and I started seeing motivated youth coming to the group meetings with their notebooks. My friends were inspired by the truths that they had discovered on their own during their Bible study and were willing to share with the group. Soon, we didn’t need to look at the guide anymore as we already knew what questions to ask in each part of the lesson by heart. A guy was driving 250km, regularly, to attend our group meetings each Friday,” concluded Miroslav.
Translating the project
Seeing God’s blessings at work among his small group members, Miroslav decided that the new study guide was too good to be kept in secret. To make inVerse accessible for all in Bulgarian, a translation needed to be made. He shared the idea with his Sabbath School team and got their support. The team came up with the clever plan to involve young volunteers in the translation rather than using a professional translation service. This way, the youth involved would become motivated and would also spread the news to their friends. “Everything – from team gathering to translation, editing and publishing - needed to be organized in a month so that we [could] have the lessons for the next quarter (Q4 2022) ready in time,” Miroslav remembers. “At first, a few people joined the team. Then a couple more. The deadline for having the team set up and running was approaching. I had already come up with the lesson distribution – each translator would need to translate 2 lessons. Then, in the last moment, God blessed the project deeply: A girl texted me providing 5 names of young people who wanted to become part of the team. Not only did we have a translator for each of the 13 lessons but we now had more translators than lessons.”
The first publication
After the lessons for Q4 2022 were translated, they were published in the official Sabbath School app of the GC. The digital version of the study guide became the preferred media. Having met the tight deadlines and after making all lessons available at the start of the quarter, Miroslav and his team were facing another challenge: spreading the new study guide in the entire country and getting local churches’ buy-in. The Sabbath School Dept. came up with a cool marketing campaign to appeal to the youth. Special inVerse journals were designed and printed that contained information about inVerse and had space for personal notes, as well as the inVerse methodology guide. Water bottles were branded with the inVerse logo. A bottle was distributed every week – a prize for the winner of a weekly inVerse challenge running on the department’s Facebook page. A question based on the weekly lesson was asked and the winner was randomly selected.
First results
All this, combined with God’s rich blessings on the project, produced great results over the next weeks. “People started texting me to express their gratitude for the new study guides,” Miroslav recalls. “The youth Sabbath School group became the most visited group in our church. People were finally participating, animatedly, in the discussions. The Holy Spirit led a young couple to our services and Sabbath School group. Their experience with inVerse contributed to their decision to devote their lives to Jesus.” It was time to organize the translation of the next quarter’s lessons. More people wanted to join the team, having learned about inVerse from their friends. This is how the team got the ball rolling. A lot of churches made the decision to adopt the new study guide from the following quarter (Q1 2023).
Stoyan Petkov, pastor and Sabbath School Ministry Director for the Bulgarian SDA Union, stated: “My dream was to revive the participation of church members after the pandemic. I knew this would happen through the young people and I see, now, that it is happening with the inVerse Bible study groups not just in our church but throughout Bulgaria. It can easily become contagious all over Europe.”
More about InVerse
inVerse is a Bible study guide for university students, young adults, working professions, and young parents (ages 18–35+). Published by the Seventh-day Adventist Church®, two of the four quarters correlate with the same study topics as the Adult Bible Study Guide, while the two remaining topics specifically address young adult issues.
*Miroslav Milkov is Youth Leader in local Sofia-West Church and member of the National Sabbath School Ministry Department.
