Adventist communicators reflect on how to connect with others despite limitations.
Adventist News – October 15 was a special Saturday for over 180 Adventist media leaders and experts gathered in Bucharest, Romania, for GAiN Europe (Global Adventist Internet Network). Testimonies, songs, a deeper understanding of Scripture and reflection on the implications of being an Adventist communicator in the 21st century characterized the day.
“Write the vision, engrave it on tablets, so that it can be read easily” (Habakkuk 2: 2) is the biblical text that set the tone for the events.
“This is still our challenge today,” said Paulo Macedo, Director of Communications at the Inter-European Region of the Church “GAiN is about how to connect with people who may find it increasingly difficult to read, listen and watch what we have to say” .
From the Romanian Parliament
The participants received greetings and personal testimony from Pavel Popescu, honorable member of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies and secretary of the Commission for Information and Communication Technologies of the Chamber of Deputies. Popescu, a seventh day Adventist, thanked the organizers for the opportunity to address the group and told how in 2019 he was asked by the then president of his party to lead a digital campaign for the European Parliament.
Popescu acknowledged that his church education influenced the way he chose to communicate.
“Most of my experience actually came from my local church, Sabbath School and Adventist TV shows,” he said. She then told how he coordinated a team of professionals and how his party won the elections in the end thanks to a video on the Romanian diaspora that was central to the campaign.
“It doesn’t matter who in this world tries to tell us what truth is,” he concluded, “there is a truth that is biblical truth.” And the truth is that “this world will end and Jesus will come to save us and bring us home. Always remember that the truth will prevail ”.
How to move forward
The past. Simret Mahary gave the sermon. Mahary lends her pastoral service in Germany, where she has created the “Culture Lounge” (cultural lounge), a venue in Frankfurt, where musical, artistic and spiritual reflections take place. The Culture Lounge helped church members connect with people living in a secular metropolis, inviting them to ask deep questions and explore new ideas.
Reflecting on GAiN’s motto “Let’s Move Forward,” Mahary reiterated how essential it is for Adventist communicators to know how and where to move. And he used the story of Abraham, told in Genesis 11 and 12, to reflect on the subject.
The pastor noted how we often overlook the fact that Abraham’s journey did not begin with Abraham, but with his father Terah, who left with his family from Ur to live in Caran. “To move forward, we need to know the history of those who preceded us. We need to reflect on their dreams, their broken dreams and their limitations “underlined Mahary who added” It is when we connect with the stories of our church, even if painful, that we can understand where we are now, so that we can predict which it will be our next step ”.
But not everything went smoothly for Abraham, Mahary recalled. After arriving in Canaan, he found famine in the country, so he had to change his plans and go down to Egypt. Abraham may have wondered why God allowed such a thing to happen, yet he continued to trust him. “We must have the humility of not knowing, of living without knowing and still trusting in the Lord,” said Mahary.
Finally, the pastor invited communicators to learn to live with limited resources and to keep moving forward.
“In this world we are thirsty and we remain thirsty. We have to live with constant desire, the desire for a better place ”.
[Foto: Tor Tjeransen/Adventist Media Exchange. Fonte: Marcos Paseggi/Adventist Review]