28 April 2015 St Albans, United Kingdom [Ivan Milanov, Laszlo Gallusz, Deana Stojković/tedNEWS] At the Trans-European Division (TED), Mission is our top priority. Making God Known in Europe characterises almost all of the activities of our Division. Outreach is governed by the Adventist Mission and Evangelism Committee (AMEC), and monitors the Mission activities within our territories. In close consultation with the General Conference we endeavour to promote and implement the initiatives of the World Church and to foster new patterns and methods of outreach which are relevant to the European culture and mind-set. All TED Departments are joining together to help our Unions and Fields make a positive difference in their territory of influence.
Mission to the Cities is on a dynamic move in the South-East European Union. The central point of attention is Belgrade, where the integrative approach to the mission utilises five streams of outreach: (1) biblical-evangelical, (2) health, (3) family, (4) youth-humanitarian, and (5) artistic ministries. After two years of working, the peak was reached in the first quarter of 2015, in which public series of different profiles were held on four locations in the city.
New Belgrade, the largest residential city area on the Balkans with more than 350, 000 residents, has been the focus of the Mission to the Cities project in the SEEUC. The main goal of the project is to establish Seventh-day Adventist presence in New Belgrade by planting a new church. The intensive planning activities started in the second part of 2013 and their practical implementation began in March 2014. So far, several evangelistic projects, such as the Bible Open University, public lectures on Ancient Near East archaeology and large number of Bible studies have been realised.
The church plant team have created many follow-up activities such as practical help for the visitors with material needs, Bible study meetings, prayer meetings, home visits, weekend public lectures focused on family issues and public presentations of topics proposed by the visitors themselves. The church planting team are not planning to stop at planning only one new church; their vision is ‘one Adventist in every home in New Belgrade’. In order to achieve this extremely ambitious goal, the church plant team know that they must remain a local Adventist movement that will constantly be in a process of planting new churches until the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
As part of the Mission to the Cities initiative in the SEEUC another series of evangelism programme was organised in Senta, in a beautiful museum located in the town centre. To our surprise, the director of the museum granted the main hall free of charge for the series, as well as for the follow-ups. The local radio also advertised freely the event, while the local TV station charged a symbolic 1,25GBP for an advertisement broadcast for five days. The working of the Lord’s hand was evident which blessed the Senta Adventist church with 90 visitors. While this church is not among the largest churches in the SEEUC, all its members are determined to help this group of visitors grow in their interest in the gospel and following Jesus Christ.
The pastors and church members involved in these two evangelistic projects were convinced that God’s Spirit worked intensively during these series. Slavče Miladinov, an elder of the Senta church said, ‘We worked a lot to prepare the series. The Lord has opened a great door for the gospel in our town and our church is determined to do its best to use this opportunity to glorify His name’. [tedNEWS]
tedNEWS Staff: Miroslav Pujic, director; Deana Stojkovic, editor
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