Facing a media climate in which Seventh-day Adventists are not widely known, church communicators from Indonesia and Southeast Asia were challenged "to change the picture and make the public know that we exist," a church leader said this week.
Facing a media climate in which Seventh-day Adventists are not widely known, church communicators from Indonesia and Southeast Asia were challenged “to change the picture and make the public know that we exist,” a church leader said this week.
Pastor Bobby J. Sepang, East Indonesian Adventist church president, told participants at a two-day communication seminar that he was startled “at what appears in media—print, television, and radio—about other churches announcing church programs and activities, but not us.”
Thirty Adventist church communicators from throughout Indonesia and Southeast Asia attended the three-day seminar, facilitated by the Communication Department of the Adventist Church in the Southern Asia-Pacific region, along with communication leaders in three regions—Simon Siew, Southeast Asia; Djoko Suwarso, West Indonesia; and Marthen Saluy, East Indonesia.
“Next week will be a different one because after this seminar we will see Adventist news releases appearing in your daily news,” said Ray Dabrowski, Adventist world church communication director. He spoke on principles for writing in Adventist publications, media relations and the basics of photography.
“What difference can we [Adventists] make in the way we communicate and impact others’ lives?” Dabrowski asked.
Three other presenters addressed topics such as: news writing, editorial writing and writing for devotional messages, presented by Jose F. Sarsoza Jr., associate vice president for editorial affairs of the Philippine Publishing House; PowerPoint presentations by Simon Siew; and layout and design presented by Rhoen Shane P. Catolico, assistant program manager of Adventist World Radio-Asia.
The Manado event was the third such communication seminar for the region, following one in Bali, Denpasar in 2003, and a second at the Adventist University in Bandung, Indonesia in 2004.
