"LIFEdevelopment.info," a new evangelistic initiative sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Britain, was launched last week at a special meeting in Swanwick, Derbyshire, England.
“LIFEdevelopment.info,” a new evangelistic initiative sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Britain, was launched last week at a special meeting in Swanwick, Derbyshire, England. More than 170 ministers from throughout the British Isles, including representatives from Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Yugoslavia, attended the event, held February 10 to 13.
Miroslav Pujic, executive director of LIFEdevelopment.info, describes the concept as a “long-term process, not a single event.” It represents a “paradigm shift away from short-term evangelism,” he says.
“This is not another evangelistic program,” explains Pujic, “but a strategic vision based on building friendships with secular people. It will be an ongoing process with not only the full commitment of church members, but also of pastors and church administrators. If we don’t meet people on their terms, where they are, we won’t be able to reach them for Jesus Christ.”
“Each church can customize the way they participate,” says Cecil Perry, president of the Adventist Church in Britain. “This creates a unique situation where every member and different departments of the church are mobilized under one common mission.”
LIFEdevelopment.info also encourages Adventists to further develop their friendships with people in small group settings, café churches, and Life Development centers, explains Pujic.
Part of the LIFEdevelopment.info package will include a production of television programs, featuring Pastor Dwight K. Nelson, of Pioneer Memorial Church at Andrews University in Michigan, United States. Nelson, who attended the Swanwick gathering, spoke of the different attitudes shown by secular people today. “Secular people are driven by experience rather than knowledge,” he said. “A secular person coming to your church will need to belong before he or she will believe.”
The television program will be produced during October 2003 in England and transmitted around the world by satellite and the Internet. All small groups, café churches, and Life Development centers will be able to connect to the LIFEdevelopment.info Web site and share information, concerns, questions, and experiences.
“We need to know the language that is understood by people living next to us with very different life concepts and values,” says Bertil Wiklander, president of the Adventist Church in the Trans-European region. “To acquire this language we must fundamentally change the ways we communicate our faith …only then can we reach the majority population in Europe.”
Training will be made available to Adventist pastors and members in each element of LIFEdevelopment.info strategy—from the skills required in building friendships with secular people, to the development of small groups, Life Development centers, and planting new churches.
“There are no easy answers and there is no single way to share one’s faith within a postmodern environment,” said Jan Paulsen, president of the Adventist world church, in his message to the LIFEdevelopment.info conference. “But I am confident that this new initiative will provide the church members with a valuable new resource for communicating God’s love to a society that desperately needs it.”
