{"id":2802,"date":"2019-05-09T14:54:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T14:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2019\/05\/09\/media-academy-in-bulgaria-inspires-youth-to-serve-the-church\/"},"modified":"2019-05-09T14:54:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T14:54:00","slug":"media-academy-in-bulgaria-inspires-youth-to-serve-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/media-academy-in-bulgaria-inspires-youth-to-serve-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Academy in Bulgaria inspires youth to serve the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

9 May 2019 | Sofia, Bulgaria [Ivalina Ilieva\/EUDNews\/ted<\/em>NEWS]   <\/p>\n

Inspired by the cross-media interaction of ideas and teams during the 2018 GAi<\/em>N Europe* conference in Valencia, Spain, Communication leaders in Bulgaria committed themselves to develop similar outreach projects in their own country \u2013 a land that is traditionally Orthodox but that is today very secular.<\/p>\n

While Bulgaria is part of the Inter-European Division [EUD], it shares common ground with many of the media challenges in the TED, resulting in Trans-European Division Communication director, Victor Hulbert, being invited to join with the eighty participants at the Bulgarian Media Academy over the holiday weekend of 3-6 May.
Under the motto \u2018Let Us Do Something New!\u2019, Seventh-day Adventist leadership organised the Academy in order to actively develop the use of communication skills so they could reach people with the good news of salvation. <\/p>\n

\"Bulgaria<\/a>According to Communication director, Peter Kuzev, the volunteers invited to the event, many of whom were \u201cthe best, of the best of the best\u201d. Seeing their commitment and enthusiasm during the meetings at Hotel Detelina near Varna, on the Black Sea Coast, Hulbert would have to agree:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Media Academy was an inspiration to me. To see a very small, but committed, team of church employees generate such a high level of commitment, dedication and passion from a mixture of youth and volunteer professionals makes me wonder how many times this could be mirrored across Europe,\u201d Hulbert stated. <\/p>\n

\"Bulgaria<\/a>Addressing the audience, Corrado Cozzi, EUD Communication director, remarked that the audience looked to him like a youth camp. \u201cThis is surely the best investment for the Church: to have young people involved in evangelism through media,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The aim was to combine lectures, workshops and the development of practical projects. To help motivate and train the participants, Kusev, invited outstanding international speakers like Pedro Torres, Franco-Belgian Union Communication Director, Wolfgang Schick, Vice-President of the Stimme-der-Hoffnung Media Center in Germany, as well as Hulbert. <\/p>\n

They talked to the group about the role of media in the Church\u2019s outreach activities, how to get a local church event into the news, how to avoid the traps of the fake news, and how ordinary lay-people and volunteers may become full-time media employees.<\/p>\n

On the first evening, participants were challenged by Cozzi to decide who they want to be \u2013 journalists or witnesses. Journalists report other people\u2019s stories which they have never seen for themselves. Witnesses talk about their own experiences as the Gospel\u2019s mission demands. <\/p>\n

The highest point of interest for the participants was linked to workshop topics like: \u201cSmartphone vs. Hollywood\u201d; \u201cBlog & Vlog\u201d; \u201cJournalistic Writing\u201d; \u201cHow to become successful leaders\u201d; \u201cArtful writing of text for an article, documentary and movie\u201d and \u201cHow to improve the image of the Church in society.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bulgaria<\/a>Many ideas emerged during the conference, including a major plan to celebrate the historic translation of the Bulgarian Bible with a roaming exhibition around the country as well as a media presence, to produce a series of social media clips highlighting the importance of fathers in a country where almost 50% of birth registrations do not name a father, and to record at least thirty clips of young people sharing their first-hand faith experiences. Working through the night, some of the youth managed to produce several short video clips on values and presented them during the closing ceremony.<\/p>\n

\u201c\"Bulgaria<\/a>The dedication to the task that could be felt during the Media Academy was outstanding. I compliment the Bulgarian Union for the very good organisation and their efforts to include young people in the work of the Church, for the benefit of all,\u201d Wolfgang Schick shared. <\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing so many young people engaged and willing to serve God and His church has encouraged me to continue in my ministry with even more enthusiasm,\u201d reflected Pedro Torres. \u201cThe Church in Bulgaria has a brilliant future,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was impressed by the creativity and constant improvement of the talents and abilities of the communication, and other departments involved in this meeting in Bulgaria,\u201d said Elsa Cozzi, EUD Children\u2019s Ministries director. She was present at the Academy to support child-oriented projects and believes that the plans they developed will be a real blessing for children across Bulgaria. <\/p>\n

Hulbert believes their vision may stretch even further. \u201cThe engagement in the workshops and projects was impressive,\u201d he said. \u201cIt bodes well for Mission for Bulgarian-speaking people, both in the country and the wider diaspora.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bulgaria<\/a>Among recommendations that came from the young participants was a perceptive one to include retired people as a viewer-target group on YouTube, an often-overlooked group. However, the main recommendation was to dedicate more time to practical implementations of the group\u2019s ideas as their hands were itching to get right to work!<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Media Academy was an inspiration to me,\u201d affirmed Iskra Tomanova, co-organiser of the event. \u201cWith an army of young people willing to share their faith in contemporary ways through social media while trusting in God as the Helper at their side, both the present and the future of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Bulgaria looms bright.\u201d That is the hope and belief of the organisers.<\/p>\n

The original verson of this article was first published in Inter-European Division News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

WATCH: Victor Hulbert recorded one his reflection series<\/a> while at the Bulgarian Media Academy.  You can watch it here.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=h1Kcl6EdCP0<\/p>\n

*GA<\/em>iN Europe is the combined Global Adventist internet Network of the Inter-European and Trans-European Divisions. It will next meet in Bucharest, Romania, 24 \u2013 27 April 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Victor Hulbert, editor; Deana Stojkovi\u0107, associate editor
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: tednews@ted.adventist.org<\/a>
Website: www.ted.adventist.org
ted<\/em>NEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division. Readers are free to republish or share this article with appropriate credit including an active hyperlink to the original article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9 May 2019 | Sofia, Bulgaria [Ivalina Ilieva\/EUDNews\/ted<\/em>NEWS]   <\/p>\n

Inspired by the cross-media interaction of ideas and teams during the 2018 GAi<\/em>N Europe* conference in Valencia, Spain, Communication leaders in Bulgaria committed themselves to develop similar outreach projects in their own country \u2013 a land that is traditionally Orthodox but that is today very secular.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1568,1569,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-children-teens-young-adults","category-communication-media-technology","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}