Communication Leaders Meet in Slovenia
content management system for church web pages.
Macintosh users shared the best row in the conference hall
The meeting was opened by the Trans-European Division Communication (TED) department leader Miroslav Pujic, but then it had unnusual twist — all participants were brought to the lake Bled where at the foot of the Alp mountains and brightly green-blue lake Mike Ryan (General Conference Vice-president) preached sermon about the “big living” according to Jesus.
One of the most interesting insights into the postmodernity was shared by Michael Dabrowski (General Conference). “The age of information brought the end of the universal truth. It was replaced by personalised truths and kind of emptiness. People ask themselves: Which truth is the right one? Everything is true for someone. There is emptiness of purpose. So many opinions, in what to believe? Science hasn’t proofed anything in terms of spirituality, so experience is the only truth left.”
“We must work on the idea of belonging. People have deep need for belonging which modernism destroyed,” he concluded.
Reger Smith (General Conference) discussed church logo and modern technology usage. In 1860’s Adventists gathered several thousand people in their tent meetings. Tent meetings were cutting-edge “technology” of those days. “What cutting-edge technlogy are we using today?” he asked participants.
R. Smith explained details about the usage of the church logo. It’s part of the church corporate branding and therefore cannot be used by other entities. If the logo is to be used by any organisation which belongs to the church, then the requirement is that logo must have word “Adventist” in its title, in official Goudy typeface. Guidelines manual about the church logo usage can be obtained at your conference office, from your local pastor or from the official church web site (www.adventist.org).
Matt Aimonetti (netAdventist.info) shared success of building brand new content management system (CMS) for the Adventist church. “We hope to finish new system next year. It will be provided free of charge to all local Adventisth churches worldwide.” New system is built in Ruby (Ruby on Rails) programming environment, which provides easy way to build very complex things.
Matthew Vincent (USA) presented usage of modern technology. He strongly encouraged communicators to switch to Macintosh computers as they provide better multimedia and web programming experience.
TED Communication department director M.Pujic presented very helpful insights how to communicate in the Postmodern culture. “There has been paradigm shift in the society, and it reflects in how people communicate. We must learn these changes, new values of Postmodern age, and take advantage of it by communicating Gospel of Christ accordingly. That’s present truth for today.”
Participants also gave reports about the Communication department work in their local fields. Conference lasted 4 days and gave opportunity to hear about the new trends in communication methods and directions. Baltic Union Conference was represented by Guntis Bukalders, Estonian Conference by Lauri Beekmann, and Lithuanian Mission by Mantas Kučinskas.
Guntis Bukalders,
Baltic Union Conference Communication Director