7 January 2021 | St Albans, UK [Paul Lockham] <\/p>\n
\u2018Vision\u2019 Music Contest, organised by the Trans-European Division\u2019s Youth Ministries department, provided an opportunity for youth around the Division to start the New Year in an atmosphere of joy, celebration, togetherness, and hope. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The programme was broadcast live on New Year\u2019s Eve on both the TED YouTube channel<\/a> and Youth Ministries Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n The programme started with a lively rendition of ‘Mary, did you know?’<\/a> by ACT-J from Scotland, one of the fifteen countries that participated in the contest. <\/p>\n Despite a slight glitch with the YouTube channel at the start of the broadcast, the audience rapidly grew to over 400 across the two platforms. Although the audience was expected to mainly come from the participating countries, there were visitors from Brazil, Mexico, Germany, and Chile to name but a few. <\/p>\n The host for the evening \u2013 Pastor Dejan Stojkovi\u0107, British Union Conference Youth Ministries director \u2013 introduced each of the songs and entertained the audience throughout the programme sharing a few facts about each of the countries. <\/p>\n The audience were also reminded on how to vote for their favourite songs using the live.voxvote.com platform and chats on both platforms enabled participants to post New Year\u2019s greetings, give thanks for the songs presented, encourage others to vote for a particular favourite, and cheer the submissions.<\/p>\n The fifteen entries were varied and three of them had been written specifically for the contest: \u2018You lift me up\u2019<\/a> by Leo Lammi from Finland, \u2018Here in Norway<\/a>\u2019 by Natanya Lundstom from Norway, \u2018I surrender all<\/a>\u2019 by Leandra van Ommeren from the Netherlands. It was evident from comments in the chat that these three songs appealed to the audience in a special way. However, other entries were very much appreciated as evidenced by the following comment from one of the chats, \u201cEvery song and country has its own charm.\u201d Just looking at the list of entries and listening to the music from these different countries* makes it clear that the youth of the Division are \u201ctalenTED\u201d!<\/p>\n The official \u201cjury results\u201d were declared country by country, which when tallied, placed Finland as the winner, followed by Norway and England.<\/p>\n The climax in the programme came when the audience were given their last opportunity to vote while a short clip from each country was played, followed by a \u201cspoken word\u201d rendition by Scottish Andrew Ace Bamusi<\/a>, after which the host was able to give the results of the audience vote with similar results to the jury\u2019s vote with the first three songs being from Finland, Norway, and Serbia.<\/p>\n Comments in the chat towards the end of the evening summed up how the majority felt about the New Year\u2019s Eve Music Party: \u201cWhat a nice way to spend the last hours of the year 2020\u201d, \u201cIt was wonderful to hear the love of God shared in so many languages\u201d, \u201cThank you so much, everyone, hope we do this again next year\u201d, \u201cGreat to hear such diverse music and talent from across Europe! Also, wonderful to spend this time with all of you!!\u201d<\/p>\n The programme was brought to a close with a New Year blessing<\/a> given by the Youth Ministries directors from around the Division.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of our goals for the event was to promote the international, multi-cultural appreciation and feeling that we are together in these strange times and to bring joy and hope both to those participating and those watching,\u201d explained Zlatko Musija, TED Youth Ministries director. \u201cHaving in mind these purposes, I think that the event was quite successful. I believe it united the youth department leaders from all across our Division and brought some joy and positive outlook in these challenging times,\u201d Musija concluded.<\/p>\n At the time of writing, the programme had about 5,000 views and is still available on YouTube<\/a>. If you haven\u2019t had the opportunity to watch the programme, you can watch it below and see just how talented youth across the Division are.<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/aYqzMrAry-w<\/p>\n * Albania, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, England, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Scotland, Serbia, and Wales.<\/span><\/p>\n
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