{"id":383,"date":"2014-08-29T09:25:08","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T09:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2014\/08\/29\/meet-me-on-the-mountain\/"},"modified":"2014-08-29T09:25:08","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T09:25:08","slug":"meet-me-on-the-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/meet-me-on-the-mountain\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Meet me on the Mountain’"},"content":{"rendered":"

22 August 2012, Roga\u0161ka Slatina, Slovenia\u00a0[Victor Hulbert,\u00a0ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/span> \u00a0Roga\u0161ka Slatina is surrounded by mountains.\u00a0 It’s not surprising then that Laurence Turner used the theme on Wednesday morning, and Pastor Mark Finley continued it at the end of the day with a sermon focused on the Mount of Ascension, ‘Meet me on the mountain’.<\/p>\n

Ministers and their spouses may already have thought they were on the mountain top, but by 8:00 pm the thankfully air-conditioned marquee was full.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a>The warm up to Finley’s sermon included Ronald Knott, Director of Andrews University Press, promoting some very practical assets for the Ministers professional library.\u00a0 Claire Sanches, TED Children and Family Ministry director, shared how to turn the tide in which 51 percent of our European youth leave the church before the age of 21.\u00a0 \u201cKIDS in Discipleship\u201d<\/em>, she emphasised, \u201cis one of the solutions whereby parents and children worship, learn and develop faith together.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

More focus on Mission came with Miroslav Pujic, Director of \u2018LIFEconnect\u2019 social media project.\u00a0 \u201cIf you are not on any social media you don’t exist,\u201d<\/em> Miroslav stated.\u00a0 LIFEconnect is trying to maximise on that phenomenon, and is now available in over 20 languages, with digital missionaries in every TED country.<\/p>\n

The 3D project, an initiative in Iceland, allowed people from this very secularised nation to pass through an exhibition telling the story of the Bible in nine stages from Creation to Re-creation. It was the Gospel in Icelandic terms.\u00a0 \u201cNo religion is taught in schools \u2013 but we did things for children and we had a deluge of children,\u201d<\/em> Manfred Lemke told an enthralled audience.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Edna and Heli presented \u201cJesus 7\u201d, a Hungarian programme that shared seven sides of Jesus life in very public forums.\u00a0 This took seven stories and seven Holy Land presentations to 60 locations in seven weeks.\u00a0 Local pastors adapted the programme in creative ways, including exhibitions and books. This resulted in 2,500 visitors \u2013 more than the membership of the church in Hungry.\u00a0 Another 40,000 people followed online.\u00a0 Janos Kovacs-Biro, TED Evangelism director, emphasised that this was an excellent tool in countries where there are many nominal Christians.<\/p>\n

Looking from the past to the future, Mission to the Cities, a World Church initiative is taking root in London, the largest city in the Trans-European Region.\u00a0 This is a joint project and, according to Pastor Ian Sweeney, it is linked to praying together.\u00a0 He noted that there are some 10,000 members in London who will have to reach out to 18 million people.\u00a0 Leaders from across Europe will join them in community witness and evangelism.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cAncient Words, ever true, changing me, changing you,\u201d<\/em> introduced us to the message of the evening, and a story of mountains, Mt Moriah, Mt Sinai, Mt Carmel, Mt of Beatitudes, Mt of transfiguration, Mt of Olives, Mt Calvary, each one sharing a part of the Gospel story.\u00a0 Most importantly, the Mount of Ascension.\u00a0 \u201cMan steps off a mountain and goes down,\u201d<\/em> Finley stated.\u00a0 \u201cChrist steps off a mountain and goes up!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Following through with the challenges and needs of the disciples in the ascension story, Finley skilfully wove their needs and desires into the reality of our need today.\u00a0 \u201cTake some time while in Roga\u0161ka, to head out into the beauty of the mountains, to find a rock, or sit under a tree, and spend some time alone with God.\u201d <\/em>He suggested getting together with friends in a hotel room and doing the same.\u00a0 Taking us to the Mount of Ascension he noted how Jesus empowered the disciples, even when some doubted.\u00a0 \u201cWhen God puts a vision in your hearts, Jesus will dispel your doubts,\u201d<\/em> he said, noting that \u201cJesus is the great doubt dissolver\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The quote for the evening that touched ministers’ hearts was: \u201cI’d rather try and do something great for God and fail, then do nothing for God and succeed.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The concluding challenge, \u201cWhat dream do you have for your church, your community?\u201d\u00a0<\/em>[ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/p>\n

To see more photos of Wednesday programme, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Miroslav Pujic, director; Deana Stojkovic, editor; Dragana Selakovic-Duval, Frederic Duval \u00a0& Tor Tjeransen, photographers
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: tednews@ted-adventist.org
Website: www.ted-adventist.org<\/p>\n

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":"

22 August 2012, Roga\u0161ka Slatina, Slovenia\u00a0[Victor Hulbert,\u00a0ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/span> \u00a0Roga\u0161ka Slatina is surrounded by mountains.\u00a0 It’s not surprising then that Laurence Turner used the theme on Wednesday morning, and Pastor Mark Finley continued it at the end of the day with a sermon focused on the Mount of Ascension, ‘Meet me on the mountain’.<\/p>\n

Ministers and their spouses may already have thought they were on the mountain top, but by 8:00 pm the thankfully air-conditioned marquee was full.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1569,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication-media-technology","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}