{"id":3470,"date":"2016-10-10T14:58:47","date_gmt":"2016-10-10T14:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2016\/10\/10\/ted-outreach-initiatives-highlighted-at-gc-annual-council\/"},"modified":"2016-10-10T14:58:47","modified_gmt":"2016-10-10T14:58:47","slug":"ted-outreach-initiatives-highlighted-at-gc-annual-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/ted-outreach-initiatives-highlighted-at-gc-annual-council\/","title":{"rendered":"TED outreach initiatives highlighted at GC Annual Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

10 October 2016 | Silver Springs, USA [ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/p>\n

How do you pack the essence of mission into a five-minute time slot? That was the challenge given to Victor Hulbert, Trans-European Communication director when asked to prepare a presentation on Mission to the Cities for Friday night vespers at the Annual Council meetings of the Seventh-day Adventist World Church. His answer, the only one he knew: \u201cTell stories\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Seventh-day Adventist Church world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. (Brandan Roberts\/ANN)<\/figcaption><\/figure>Following days of intense meetings, several hundred leaders from across the world of Adventism packed the auditorium at World Church headquarters in Silver springs, Maryland, USA, to see in the Sabbath with a time of worship including mission reports from around the world. Friday evening, 7 October saw the stage and screen become a portal to an Adventist world of member-involved evangelism.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>That screen came alive during the TED presentation as the story jumped from a large evangelistic initiative in London, England, to a small bookshop breaking through Orthodox prejudice in Belgrade, Serbia, to Pathfinders as one of the best forms of outreach in Scandinavia, covering health outreach, youth initiatives and church plants in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

TED AC Report<\/a><\/p>\n

The video closed with the personal story of Valdis Zel\u010ds, an engineer who changed career path to open a health food store in Riga, Latvia \u2013 using the principle of business evangelism. With an appeal calling for prayer not just for Valdis, but for the many thousands of church members across the TED who are committed, using their particular skills, to share their faith across the Big Cities and rural communities of Europe.<\/p>\n

\"Raafat<\/a>
Geoffrey Mbwana prays with Raafat A. Kamal, TED president, and Doug Venn at the Friday evening Council on Evangelism and Witness. (Photo: Brent Hardinge \/ ANN)<\/figcaption><\/figure>Those stories, simply presented, made an impression. Greg Scott, VP for Adventist World Radio called it \u201can excellent report\u201d while Prince Bahati, Communication director for the East Central Africa Division stated that it is \u201cinspiring and very contextual\u201d.<\/p>\n

Contextual is very important. The 22 countries of the TED are a rich mix of cultural and religious backgrounds. Each one needs to find the best way to share faith. \u201cIn my limited travels around the Division this year I have been continuously impressed by the commitment and vision that our church members and leaders are making,\u201d Hulbert stated. \u201cIn this video I just wanted to share their passion with a wider audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other reports during the evening came from North America, Australia and, in particular, Africa. World Church VP, Duane McKey shared how the church pulled together in Total Member Involvement for a month long evangelistic campaign in Rwanda, conducting programmes in 2,200 sites. \u201cYou can do anything for Jesus, just so long as it is connected to a plan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Adventist Review News editor, Andrew McChesney, was part of the Rwanda programme and rejoiced in the 100,000 baptisms that came as a result. More recently he also travelled in Europe and recognised the challenge and differences of witness in European society. He was present at some of the locations where the TED report was filmed. \u201cI am just so thrilled to see how God moves and changes people\u2019s lives,\u201d he said, \u201cwhether that be in the multitudes of Rwanda or a small bookshop in Belgrade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those few examples stimulated more ideas as the video spread on social media. Daniel Pedley commented about the Vegana restaurant that is a centre of influence in Finland, while Elisabeth Sang\u00fcesa Abenia commented on another lay-led bookshop that is making a difference. A minister in the Netherlands thrilled in how she saw \u201csome of the work being done in parts of Europe by Adventists, reaching across sharing the Good News.\u201d She concluded, \u201cGod is love, God saves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
1. Health store in Riga, Latvia; 2. "Knjigolovka" bookstore in Belgrade, Serbia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That is a thought that world church president, Ted N C Wilson would agree with. \u201cWe have packed this annual council with so much mission emphasis that you will be excited,\u201d he told delegates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe only had time to share a few stories Friday evening,\u201d TED Presdient, Raafat Kamal expressed. \u201cWhat I am impressed by is seeing how God is working in so many different ways, within our own contexts and cultures, both in more secularised Europe, and across the world. That thrills me.\u201d [ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/p>\n

For more on the Annual Council evangelism programme including links to other video reports visit the Adventist Review website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Victor Hulbert, director; Esti Pujic, 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.
You are free to re-print any portion of the bulletin without need for special permission. However, we kindly request that you identify ted<\/em>NEWS whenever you publish these materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10 October 2016 | Silver Springs, USA [ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/p>\n

How do you pack the essence of mission into a five-minute time slot? That was the challenge given to Victor Hulbert, Trans-European Communication director when asked to prepare a presentation on Mission to the Cities for Friday night vespers at the Annual Council meetings of the Seventh-day Adventist World Church. His answer, the only one he knew: \u201cTell stories\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1572,1576,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evangelism-mission","category-leadership-development","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3470","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}