YOUTH CENTER "GLASNOST"

Church (but not as we know it) in Macedonia, a story by Scot Bower

2008-04-30T15:19:00.002+02:00

If you want to read the article click here.

If only you would listen...

2008-03-28T10:43:00.011+01:00

Last week at "Glasnost" we had a prayer room where we prayed for 48 hours non-stop or 24-2. It was a good experience just to get away and spend some time with God in a quiet place. In a world with so many voices, choices, problems, seductions, anger, it's great to come before the Lord and quiet our souls so we can hear from him.

Glasnost Video

2008-02-20T15:56:00.002+01:00

Video made by Shea Sizemore from Unheralded : (independent film company)

No Comment

2007-12-28T13:05:00.000+01:00

Weekend away - Bogomila (September)

2007-11-23T12:45:00.000+01:00

Hey Ho, Let's Go!

2007-10-03T10:26:00.001+02:00

Glasnost will host the Alpha Course (series of lectures and discussions about the Christian faith), so on Monday, the 8th of October everyone is welcomed to "Tocka" for the opening night which will include live music, an opening talk and lots of fun. So Hey Ho, Let's Go To Alpha!

Summer 2007

2007-07-10T09:45:00.000+02:00

Just to mention few things that will happen this summer.

From the 16th to the 31st of July a group of us will be in Ohrid praying, talking to people about faith and God and having fun. From the 23rd we will be joined by a group of people from Texas that will come together with Grayson and Debbie, our dear friends. We can't wait to enjoy some coffee sitting in the great bars by the lake. (those who have been there know what I mean)

Koska is putting together a concert/festival called Glassfest (www.myspace.com/glassfest) either on the 20th or the 21st of July in Ohrid and Vanity Fair (www.myspace.com/vanityfairmk) will be one of the bands playing. Should be great!

What's been going on?

2007-06-14T12:45:00.000+02:00

We were thinking to revive this blog and start writing regularly and to do this we’ll start with the things that already happened.
Around Easter a team from
Guilford boiler room visited us. There main goal was just to hang out with “Glasnost”, see what we are doing, chat and pray. We had two days of non-stop prayer, and what I like with prayer rooms is that gives you some feeling of sanctuary, place where you can meet with God. Not that you can’t do this at home or everywhere else, but again there is something special with this, everything around you is just immersed in prayer and you can not help yourself but pray. The Team visited Ohrid, where Scot and Misty are planning to start a boiler room. We had good chat also with Ian Nicholson and Tommie Naumann and after these talks “Glasnost “is officially part of 24-7 prayer movement. “Red moon rising “by Pete Graig, great book about the story of” 24-7 prayer” is in translation and we hope that we can raise money and print this book in Macedonian.
Another highlight was the team from Virginia. They were mainly focused on work with students. From the very first team that was here from Dwelling Place we had this feeling of strong connection which grows with the time. All in all “Glasnost” has more and more friends around the globe, friends that share the same dream, dream that is far bigger than ourselves, initiated by the ultimate dreamer, God himself.

Speak up for those...

2007-06-08T12:37:00.000+02:00

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those who are perishing. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice" (Proverbs 31:8-9).

Several months ago Glasnost joined the Stop The Traffik (www.stopthetraffik.org) initiative which is a global coalition against human traficking. The 25th of March was chosen to be the Freedom Day (representing 200 years since the abolition of the trans-atlantic slavery in England) when all the members of this coalition would organize different events where petitions would be signed. It was also a day to raise our voices and remind the people and the authorities that today there are more slaves that in the 450 years of the trans-atlantic slavery and that we need to do something.

For five days we went to the university campus and in the Skopje city square and collected signatures and on the 24th we had the final event also in the city square. We were surprised how enthusiastic the people were and at the end we had more than 2 500 signatures in the petition.
This also helped us make contact with other organizations that work in this area such as the USA embassy, the ministry of interior and others.

During the week of the campaign, every morning with started by praying for the victims and the authorities who are in position to act. Well, a very interesting fact is that since then a chain of actions began by the police and more then 50 girls were discovered and set free. For a week or two almost every day there was a story on the news about that. Someone might say that it's just a coincidence but I'm definetely sure that God hears when we pray and that He reacted on the behalf of the girls who were opressed.

We will continue working in this area and probably next year we'll work on a bigger project in the area of raising awareness about this problem.

Stop The Traffik Campaign

2007-03-23T22:43:00.000+01:00

Stop The Traffik

2007-02-12T00:41:00.000+01:00

Stop The Traffik

More Precious The Gold

Reaching out

2007-01-17T13:56:00.000+01:00

Reaching out to God takes faith and effort. I love this magnificent painting from the sistene chapel fresco. God is reaching towards Adam, God is straining towards him whilst Adam lies back and makes little effort to make contact with God.

Lord Jesus today I reach out to you with faith. I am expectant and excited, take my hand and walk with me Lord, teach me and guide me.
Amen

Not the end, but the beginning

2006-12-29T11:57:00.000+01:00

Very shortly just want bless you with God's grace and peace into the New Year. Have a great time for the New Year's Eve and Christmass.

Also a quick reminder that we will not have meetings on the 31st of December and the 7th of January.

"Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with inexpressible and glorious joy." 1Peter 1:8

Rebel against your own indifference

2006-12-05T11:02:00.000+01:00

I was thinking the other day about the fact that God loves everyone, both those who believe in him and follow him and those who run away from him, curse him, deny him and so on. It says in the Bible that he lets the sun shine on the good and the evil and he sends rain to both good and the evil. When you have found your peace with God and enjoy your relationship with him, it's easy to forget that there are so many people whose lives are in a terrible mess and are desperately looking for a way out, for a better life. So instead of being concerned only about ourselves (if we have enough cool clothes, enough money to satisfy our desires, to buy this or that, or to go places) let's think a little bit about God's love and how he sees the people all around the world. The blood of Jesus is too expensive to let us spend our time chasing vanities.
It's time to rebel against our own indifference and try make a change in every way we can. And like everything else this also starts with small steps. Think for yourself, what are the small steps that you need to take.

"Right now there is the biggest pandemic in the history of civilization, happening in the world now with AIDS. It's bigger than the Black Death, which took a third of Europe in the Middle Ages. Sixty-five hundred Africans are dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease. And it is not a priority for the West: two 9/11s a day, eighteen jumbo jets of fathers, mothers, families falling out of the sky. No tears, no letters of condolence, no fifty-one-gun salutes. Why? Because we don't put the same value on African life as we put on a European or an American life. God will not let us get away with this, history certainly won't let us get away with our excuses. We say we can't get these antiretroviral drugs to the farthest reaches of Africa, but we can get them our cold fizzy drinks. The finest village, you can find a bottle a Coke. Look, if we really thought that an African life was equal in value to an English, a French, or an Irish life, we wouldn't let two and a half million Africans die every year for the stupidest or reasons: money. We just wouldn't. And a very prominent head of state said to me: "It's true. If these people weren't Africans, we just couldn't let it happen." We don't really deep down believe in their equality."

Getting the bias right - Intimacy and involvement

2006-11-27T09:28:00.000+01:00

These are bowling balls from a sport called lawn bowls. Lawn Bowls is a game played by old people dressed in smart white suits and is much harder than it looks!
The secret to Bowls is in the ball, each ball is weighted to one side. This means that it will never roll in a straight line and one must aim to the side to compensate for the imbalance and allow the weight to draw the ball back to the centre.

Last night I spoke about making sure we get the balance in our lives right between Intimacy - Loving God, and Involvement - Loving our neighbour. When the Pharisees asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was He said we should love God with everything we are and everything we have. BUT he also said, without pausing for breath, we must love our neighbours (i.e. everybody else)
Each of us has a natural imbalance; we tend to favour intimacy or involvement, and left to our own devices we can neglect the other. So inorder for our lives to run true and for us to hold our lives in balance we must compensate and just as you roll the bowling ball off centre to allow the weight to curve it back to centre we must concentrate on areas that come less naturally.

My challange to you this week is to do just that, if you are an 'intimate' person sacrifice time with God to spend with people, you might well find you see God in the face of others. If you are a people lover, cancel all meetings, hold all calls and get before your God to hang out with him to worship, pray and listen to what He wants to say to you. Let him give you His heart for the people around you.

Dying to self

2006-11-20T10:01:00.000+01:00

"Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified."

Dying to self, refusing the desires of the flesh, and instead choosing to follow Christ is not easy. anybody who tells you it is is a liar!

I read this quote from CS Lewis last week:
“The Christian way is different: harder and easier. Christ says ‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact I will give you, Myself: my own will shall become yours.”

When we realise that we were crucified with Christ on the cross and that we no longer live but Christ lives through us we find release, things do get easier! we can then choose to join with Paul and say that 'for me to live is christ and to die is gain'.

(Thanks to Guildford Boiler Room for bringing the quote to mind)

"Glasnost" The Opening

2006-10-13T11:41:00.000+02:00

On the 1st of October we had the opening of the sunday meetings of Glasnost Youth Center. We will be meeting at Mayday Club every sunday at 6 p.m. so everyone is very welcomed to come. Admission is FREE! If you have any question as to where the place is and stuff like that, please drop as a comment.

24-7Prayer London

2006-10-13T10:56:00.000+02:00

Three of us went for the 24-7Prayer International Leaders Gathering in London last month. We were in London for 4 days and then spend 5 days in Guildford staying with the team from the Transit community. London is great!

Love

2006-09-20T13:44:00.000+02:00

I've been thinking lately how important it is for us to look out for each other, encouraging one another and so on. That's what makes for a loving community. It's so easy for us to think that someone else needs to do it, but I say let's each of us start ourselves - look out for who is hurting and needing a kind word, an encouragement to keep going, or in need of prayer, and then going to them and helping them, loving them. Like it says: "Encourage one another daily ... so that you don't get hardened by sin's deceitfulness." (Heb 3:13). God is love, and whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him (1 John 4:16). As we put it into practice more and more we will see God in our lives more and more.

Glasnost and 24-7 teams together

2006-08-06T16:15:00.000+02:00

Celebrating the Lord

2006-08-06T16:04:00.000+02:00

Night out

2006-08-06T15:57:00.000+02:00

Glasnost team on beach volleyball competition

2006-08-05T01:39:00.000+02:00

Ohrid lake beach

2006-08-05T01:32:00.000+02:00

More photos from Ohrid

2006-08-05T01:19:00.000+02:00

Photos from alpha course

2006-08-04T15:53:00.000+02:00

Photos from Ohrid

2006-08-04T15:07:00.000+02:00

ALPHA

2006-07-24T15:16:00.000+02:00

Od denes 24 Juli (ponedelnik) pa do petok 28 Juli (petok) vo Ohrid vo kafe B'52 vo trgovskiot vo carsija ke imame Alfa kurs (kurs za osnovite na hristijanskata vera). Sekoja vecer od 21 c. do 22.30 c. dobredojdeni ste tamu. Se gledame!

Farban & his family

2006-07-23T23:29:00.000+02:00

Team from USA

2006-07-23T23:25:00.000+02:00

Prepare for celebration of the Lord

2006-07-23T23:20:00.000+02:00

Team from UK

2006-07-23T23:09:00.000+02:00

Timot of London sto bese so nas vo Ohrid od 14 do 22 juli.

GLASNOST ?

2005-01-29T13:10:00.000+01:00

Glasnost e
da se bide agresivno glasen za ona sto go veruvas i vrednuvas
Glasni sme zosto ne mozeme da molcime za ljubovta sto ja
iskusivme od Isus
Glasni sme zosto go iskusivme Isus razlicen od onaka kako
go pretstavuvaat popovite
Glasni sme zosto sakame poveke od nasite zivoti
Glasni sme zosto ne mozeme da ostaneme ramnodusni
na nepravdata i bedata okolu nas
Glasni sme zosto znaeme deka mora da ima nesto poveke

Glasnost e inside-out
zato mladi
Zaceslani i razbusaveni
kelavi i dolgokosi
sukani i istetovirani
prifateni i otfrleni
ispirsani i uredni
pop-fanovi, transeri
metalci, korci
pankeri i turbo folkeri
bubalici i kecasi
dojdete i pridruzete ni se da bideme glasni za onoj koj
ne se zasrami da ni bide prijatel
onoj koj ne se uplasi da umre za nas
za Revolucionerot nad Revolucionerite
Isus Hristos