For Georgian Banov, prophetic evangelism is more than just the latest Christian buzzword. It’s a movement he sees spreading across the body of Christ, a strategy to ignite believers to cast out demons and lay hands on the sick and see them recover.
“The goal is to do what Billy Graham did, but not just with salvation,” explains Banov. “We want to equip believers to use the gifts of the Spirit to bring salvation and healing to the lost.”
A former member of the Christian group Silverwind, Banov has been a missionary evangelist since 1979. He and his wife, Winnie, lead evangelistic outreaches among the poor worldwide through their Florida-based ministry Global Celebrations. But Banov believes God is leading him to train others to spread the good news through his School of the Supernatural.
Right now, his outreach vision is still in the infancy stages, but he’s thrilled with the fruit he sees nationwide at workshops he and Winnie have been offering several times a month for the past year. “It’s great to train someone in the prophetic, release them and watch God give them a word of knowledge for someone in the harvest field,” says Banov, a Bulgarian who came to Christ at the tail end of the Jesus movement in 1974.
Bill Vanderbush, who teaches School of the Supernatural workshops, says there are dozens of testimonies, such as a young man named Noah from The Bridge Metrowest church in Natick, Mass. Ten-year-old Noah saw a girl in the mall elevator with a broken arm and asked her if he could pray for her arm.
“She said, ‘Sure,'” Vanderbush says. “So he lays his hands on it. The arm gets hot and the pain leaves. … I could tell you reports like this by the hundreds.”
Juan Rivera, pastor of New Life in Poland, Ohio, took more than a dozen members of his church to Banov’s School of the Supernatural. Afterward, they put their training to work at a local psychic fair. The team saw people saved, baptized in the Holy Spirit and healed, including the psychics’ staff.
“It got to the point where the psychics were wondering what was going on at our booth,” Rivera says. “Two of the staff members visited our church on Father’s Day. One of them, David, came to the altar and God delivered him and broke bondages in his life. He was a heroin addict for years and tells us he hasn’t thought of the drug since.”
Banov envisions new believers like David attending stadium events in the future, where they’ll learn the fundamental teachings of Christ and will be trained to go back out and evangelize with signs and wonders. As the cycle repeats itself, Banov believes, entire cities will be transformed.
“This is a real movement. I can taste it,” Banov says. “We do it in small measure now, and we are being obedient to what the Lord is asking us to do. He will multiply it. I have a tangible sense of how we can take cities with prophetic evangelism, and I am overjoyed in my heart. This could spread like wildfire.”
