{"id":399,"date":"2014-08-29T09:49:17","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T09:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2014\/08\/29\/the-grace-and-the-change\/"},"modified":"2014-08-29T09:49:17","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T09:49:17","slug":"the-grace-and-the-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/the-grace-and-the-change\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Grace and the Change”"},"content":{"rendered":"

25 August 2012, Roga\u0161ka Slatina, Slovenia\u00a0[John Surridge,\u00a0ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/span>\u00a0Sabbath School morphed seamlessly into the divine service as the EPC organisers worked to bring the programme forward and spare the pastors and visitors in the packed marquee the discomfort of rapidly rising temperatures.<\/p>\n

The scene was set by the third and concluding installment of a drama portraying the parable of the prodigal son. Performed by Dejan Stojkovic, Sam Neves and Gert Tapp, the drama illustrated the contrast between the prayers of the older and the younger brothers, but with a twist. This was no black and white, simplistic retelling of the well-known story. In fact both sons came in for condemnation. To the younger son the father said, \u201cI\u2019m here to answer your needs, but you\u2019re trying to do it yourself. I\u2019ll take care of your needs. I\u2019ve forgiven you, and I\u2019ve forgotten your bad deeds, but you need to let go. If you dwell on the past you\u2019ll just end up being embarrassed and ashamed. That\u2019s not my purpose for you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"To the older son he said, \u201cYou need to be quite and listen. Get your phone, look at the invitations I\u2019ve sent you. You were too busy\u2026 Scroll down further, look, I wanted to be with you, watching your son play football, but you were too busy\u2026 Your brother needed you. He didn\u2019t need to be judged; he needed you, to take care of him. Be quiet, be still. You talk far too much. That is the problem with all my children. That\u2019s why I created you perfectly \u2013 with one mouth and two ears! But you don\u2019t listen. You never slow down, and all this busyness, it distracts you all. It is so hard for me to be with you so that you can be still and know that I am God.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The parable ended with both sons removing their black t-shirts labeled \u201clost\/prodigal\u201d, to reveal white t-shirts underneath saying, \u201cchanged\u201d.<\/p>\n

The message? The parable Jesus told applies to all. Younger sons, older sons. Those in the world and those in the church. Members and, yes, pastors too. [ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/p>\n

To see more photos of the drama, please click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Miroslav Pujic, director; Deana Stojkovic, editor; Dragana Selakovic-Duval; Frederic Duval & 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":"

25 August 2012, Roga\u0161ka Slatina, Slovenia\u00a0[John Surridge,\u00a0ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/span>\u00a0Sabbath School morphed seamlessly into the divine service as the EPC organisers worked to bring the programme forward and spare the pastors and visitors in the packed marquee the discomfort of rapidly rising temperatures.<\/p>\n

The scene was set by the third and concluding installment of a drama portraying the parable of the prodigal son. Performed by Dejan Stojkovic, Sam Neves and Gert Tapp, the drama illustrated the contrast between the prayers of the older and the younger brothers, but with a twist. This was no black and white, simplistic retelling of the well-known story. In fact both sons came in for condemnation. To the younger son the father said, \u201cI\u2019m here to answer your needs, but you\u2019re trying to do it yourself. I\u2019ll take care of your needs. I\u2019ve forgiven you, and I\u2019ve forgotten your bad deeds, but you need to let go. If you dwell on the past you\u2019ll just end up being embarrassed and ashamed. That\u2019s not my purpose for you.\u201d<\/em><\/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":[7,1577],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-organisational-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399","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=399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}