Evangel Fellowship International began in 1983. At that time I was Senior Pastor of Evangel Cathedral in Spartanburg, SC. Evelyn and I moved to Spartanburg from Mableton, GA where I had pastored the First Assembly of God Church in Mableton.
Prior to 1983, I had served on the Board of Directors of the National Leadership Conference for several years. Serving on the board with me were John Hagee, Jamie Buckingham, Ken Sumrall, and Jim Jackson. We conducted an annual conference for pastors and leaders at Ridgecrest, NC for a number of years.
Also in 1982, I began to meet with a number of pastors for encouragement and mentoring. These pastors requested that I pastor them. At first I recommended that they join another existing fellowship rather than start something new. Their answer was “We don’t relate to them. You are our pastor.”
We informally organized in January 1983. If I remember correctly we started out with ten couples. This gathering was followed up with a retreat both in the spring and in the fall. The following year we received our exempt status (501 c3) with the IRS.
From that time on we held conferences twice a year until the year 2005 when we decided to go with one conference a year. During this period of time we had outstanding pastors and ministers to speak at our conferences. This includes T.D. Jakes, Miles Monroe, Charles Blake, Bob Mumford, Rick Godwin, Tommy Barnett, Jamie Buckingham, and Ken Sumrall.
In addition to Minister’s Conferences we launched luncheon meetings for ministers held every January through the southeast. Also, an annual Youth Retreat is held in February at Gatlinburg, TN called “Ski Invasion.” We had men retreats and ladies retreats for the laity of our churches. These were held in the spring and fall.
Today, EFI has 36 missionaries serving in countries around the world. In 1991, we launched “Operation Russia”, an effort to take the gospel to the Russian people. In 1992, we did 25 evangelistic campaigns throughout Russia. Many additional campaigns were done in the following years. I personally, with a team from my church, did six crusades a year for several years. Thousands of people surrendered their lives to Christ. Everyone who attended a crusade was given a New Testament in the Russian language.
St. Basil, Red Square, Moscow
In 1993 we started conferences in Moscow. These were followed up later with Regional Pastor’s Conferences in various cities in Russia. For years we maintained an office in Moscow. The team there booked our campaigns, did the airport pickups, and translated our material, and distributed Bibles and books.
Passing Out Bibles
In 1993, I printed 5,000 copies of a book I wrote entitled, Sermon on the Mount in the Russian language. These books were distributed throughout Russia. Although we did meetings in other countries belonging to the Commonwealth of Independent States, our main push has always been Russia which was the dominant country. Today we are working with 672 churches in that country. My 45th trip to Russia was in October 2007.
In addition to Russia, EFI has sponsored ministry around the world. I have led teams to India, Burma, Vietnam, China, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hungary, Romania, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile, Peru, Croatia, Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus, Mexico and Kazakhstan. Next year we have conferences planned for the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.
Pastor’s Conference 1991
Pastor Victor & Dianna Sudakov and Daughters
Ministry Team
Kazakhstan
December 18, 2007
More about EFI in the next blog –
