14 September 2017 | St Albans [Victor Hulbert] It is always good to learn! That is a strong belief in the Trans-European Division office and was exemplified during three days of planning meetings, 11 – 13 September 2017. Interspersed throughout intensive meetings, directors and officers were challenged by a series of four lectures on basic theology, how to read the Bible, and the development and interpretation of our current 28 Fundamental beliefs.
“These four lectures were very important,” states TED president, Raafat Kamal. “A number of our directors have not studied at Newbold, while the rest of us also need a ‘refresher’.” But it wasn’t just the theologians, Daniel Duda and Tihomir Lazić, who challenged. During Monday morning worship Karen Holford, Family Ministries director, transformed the TED staff into a family as, in very practical ways, she demonstrated inter-generational worship based around Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast.
“We all felt part of the experience,” states David Neal, Stewardship director. Like the rest of the team, he is now looking at how to incorporate some of the ideas into his preaching. The final presentation came from ADRA EU director, João Martins who talked on Social Gospel, Synergy and Integration. While the focus of the three days had been towards mission, his closing statement quoting from Abraham Joshua Heschel, drew all the theology, voted actions and discussion together:“It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined, not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendour of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion–its message becomes meaningless.” [Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism]
Judging by the voted actions during the Tuesday morning mission board, there is little danger of religion becoming dull, oppressive and insipid in numerous parts of Europe. Support was voted for church plants in Poland, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Serbia. The Hungarian Union applied for funding to assist with an innovative TV outreach called, ‘Come as you are’. A young adult in the Netherlands made another proposal to develop a social media app that will give youth 95 reasons for involvement and activity. Tihomir Lazić, Campus Ministries director, spoke passionately about how a project like this, generated by youth for youth, could be part of the follow-on from this past summer’s Youth Congress that will keep youth engaged with church, community and mission.
Mission is so central to TED planning that Gary Krause, director of the office of Adventist Mission at World Church headquarters, accepted an invitation to attend together with four members of his team. His Tuesday morning message focused on Jeremiah 29:7, praying for the ‘shalom’ or ‘peace and prosperity’ of the communities in which we find ourselves. He noted that in comparison to traditional evangelism that is proving less effective in cities and urban areas world-wide, initiatives that allow people to belong before they believe, are making a difference. Conversion must happen, not just on an intellectual level, but must speak to a mixture of emotion, tradition, culture and the heart. Our 28 fundamental beliefs may best be shared by ‘mingling’ in people’s lives more than by preaching. “It’s not, how do we bring people to us, but how do we get church members out of the pew and mixing with our communities,” he said.
Part of that comes by sharing good mission stores, stated Rick Kajura, Communication officer for Adventist Mission. He commended the TED for its reporting of mission stories that change people’s lives and that can be copied and multiplied in other places. Doug Venn, Urban Mission co-ordinator, made famous by his slogan, ‘I want this city’, noted that “we need to meet people’s needs and that it is only then that we can make disciples.” In focusing on Europe as a mission field, Jeff Scroggins, also from the Global Mission office, noted that mission in this territory is becoming most successful among recent immigrant groups, but is a real challenge both among second or third generation immigrants and, even more significantly, among indigenous populations. How to reach them? “Money is not the problem,” he emphasised, “We can find the money. The issue is people. Spiritually filled people.”
Those people are there – as was noted by Zlatko Musija, TED Youth director. He, along with all other leaders, was impressed by the commitment and enthusiasm of the 4,000 youth who attended the youth congress in Valencia this summer. “Those youth give me hope,” he said, noting that “we need to continue engaging with them after returning to their homes. Their witness can help change Europe.”Planning meetings also covered the routine and mundane, necessary parts of any administrative meeting. But while staff now leave the office to fulfil service and training requests across the 22 countries of the Trans-European Division, they also feel refreshed in purpose and mission. [tedNEWS]
tedNEWS Staff: Victor Hulbert, editor; Deana Stojkovic, associate editor
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.ted.adventist.org
tedNEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division.
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.ted.adventist.org
tedNEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division.
