Byun SeongJun, NSD Communication Director
On Aug. 30, 2022, the Communication department of the Northern Asia-Pacific Division (NSD) held a 2022 NSD Communication Advisory at NSD headquarters in Paju, Korea, by inviting General Conference Communication Director Williams Costa Jr., and all the Communication directors of each Union, Conference, and Mission. A division advisory meeting is supposed to be held every five years, but this time, it was held after six years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Williams Costa Jr., the re-elected GC Communication director, introduced new directions, projects, and initiatives of GC Communication to the advisory participants. He stressed that the communication department needs to engage in corporate communication and actively participate in direct mission activities. For this reason, the GC Communication department made a new slogan, “Communication for Mission.” To achieve this goal, there are seven categories: Adventist News Network, Global Adventist Internet Network, Service and Support, Communication and integration, Public Relations, Adventist Communication Training, Evangelism, and Care.
Of these seven categories, Costa emphasized the importance of the Adventist News Network (ANN). This is to gather news and videos from each division every month and share them with the world church leaders and members.
The second emphasis was on the Global Adventist Internet Network (GAiN) conference. The GC Communication department has been holding an annual meeting of GAiN in various locations around the globe. Starting in 2023, the GAiN meetings will be held on each continent—North America, South America, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Oceania. This means that the GAiN meetings will be customized according to local needs.
The central focus of the NSD Communication Advisory was “digital evangelism.” Due to the influence of secularism, postmodernism, and social distancing measures, the need for digital evangelism has been more emphasized by the General Conference. Plenty of people in our division territories are connected to the digital world through the internet and various devices, and people are accessing various digital media content. Therefore, it is important to help people find our church through content and platforms. Also, it is strongly encouraged that our church find a way to adopt digital transformation in various aspects of our services so that people can easily access the message of truth from our local churches.
Through the NSD Communication Advisory, the delegates and participants of the meeting were able to learn and discover the current situation of communication ministries of the GC and each territory, and they decided to dedicate more time and energy to developing ways for gospel ministry.