“We have already been doing it for five years but it is always like the first time,” Corrado Cozzi, Director of Communications for the Inter-European region (EUD) of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (Adventists), shares his enthusiasm.
For five years, the Youth Department of the General Conference of Adventists has annually organized an entire day dedicated to one theme: Be the Sermon! Such a slogan speaks for itself by revealing, through its intention and fulfillment, an invitation to the youth of the Adventist Church to spend at least one Sabbath being a living sermon.
The program is transmitted through live streaming for 24 hours. In approximately 24 global branches, the local youth departments organize themselves to develop mostly humanitarian projects where the youth are the main protagonists. From the Fijian Islands to California, with respect to their time zones, the screen showed an army of youth in action. The wonder of it is only a pale expression of the emotion felt in seeing how much passion and commitment our youth put into their contributions.
In 24 hours, we touched all 5 continents and the youth worked on projects in approximately 100 countries worldwide, followed on social networks like Instagram and Twitter with 63,587,266 marks (likes, retweets, shares and reposts) and on Facebook, 65,461,743, for a total of 129,049,009 marks. But the number is constantly increasing. These numbers speak for themselves. It could be the largest social media campaign ever to be organized by a Christian denomination.
The main motto for GYD 2017 was inspired by blood donations. In almost all the countries, the youth and the aged willingly donated their blood, motivated by the desire to share a part of their lives, as was confirmed by an Hispanic girl.
Hundreds of projects have been accomplished in these 24 hours. These were ecological projects, to clean the environment, and social projects, such as visiting hospices, prisons and hospitals. There were projects promoting health through distribution of water, food, and even providing a fruit instead of a cigarette. Many projects were located in the squares, where the youth shared thoughts and hugs, gestures to attract the attention of passersby and simply share their faith in God, praying with whomever accepted. Books were distributed, along with informational material about why the Adventist youth do what they do. There were also several projects to visit refugee camps or even their homes: a much-appreciated activity.
The words of appreciation offered by the local authorities were far from few, especially from the medical sector that witnessed an unexpected influx of blood donations. Not to mention what high quality blood, because our youth don’t smoke or drink, and take care of their nutrition. Simply put, the motto “Be the Sermon” was generously employed.
The “core” of the program was seeing the young people live in action. The 24 branches of transmission were equipped with a special device that permitted this connection. All the contacts were directed by the technicians at the EUD Media Center Stimme der Hoffnung, located in Germany.
“GYD was a lot of work to make visible what the young people are doing all around the world, for the sake of the whole world,” affirmed Wolfgang Schick, Vice President of Media Services for Stimme der Hoffnung.
“The GYD was a fascinating example of what the youth can do worldwide if they have a goal and if they work together,” echoed Sascha Schuster, IT Director of Stimme der Hoffnung.
Together with Tobias Pratz, an extraordinary team, competent and active for 24 consecutive hours, sought to resolve even the most extreme situations such as reestablishing connection with a distant country that had lost connection, and this achieved remotely.
There was never a moment of concession regardless of the accumulated exhaustion (especially since their attention needed to be more than acute to maintain the various connections) and the understandable stress to which they were subjected. Even this was a true act of “Be the Sermon!”
The various activities, which are rare on our planet, were harmonized through the interventions of connection by the two hosts (moderators) of the entire transmission, Kerhys Sterling and Sam Gungaloo. Their congeniality and capacity for interaction unified the whole program, creating bridges that allowed the audience to find the common logical thread in this 24-hour-long program, and all of this on live streaming.
“Dream the impossible because with God, all things are possible. GYD is the expression, the true expression, of a worldwide family,” they both finally declared.
To conclude, it is necessary to mention that the program is a result of meticulous preparation of structures that the various local branches adapted to their needs, while respecting the common goal of the event. The logo, the jingles, the communal images, the intervention slots, the simulations, and everything else, were all studied with care by Daryl Gungadoo, Engineer at AWR (Adventist World Radio). When someone works with competence, passion and total involvement, the results cannot be less than complete satisfaction.
“From a technological production point of view, what we noticed is that this year we had less technical failures and faults in the connections with our usual contact destinations. What we found is that most of the sites we had selected had pretty good internet, including West Africa. It was the first time for West Africa, this year. It was a real miracle because we sent the wrong equipment to them. We sent them a receiver instead of a transmitter. 12 hours before we were supposed to go on air, we found someone willing to fly down from England, taking the equipment to them, just a few hours before the show started, and we made it. For me, it was a fantastic miracle.”
We can imagine the enthusiasm of the technicians when all devices work accordingly.
Sam Neves, GC Communication Associate, assisted with the management of social network aspect (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), indispensable to creating contacts and controlling the traffic of the social media campaign of competence.
“There are very few opportunities in a global church for all of us to feel we are one. GYD is perhaps the most powerful opportunity. For 24 hours, we have just one purpose, to represent Jesus in the community,” affirmed Neves.
The coordination of the organisation for the entire program was overseen by Pako Edson Mokgwane, GC Youth Leader Associate, who was assisted by Abner De los Santos, GC Vice President. It was a perfect harmony with the rest of the team.
“It is an opportunity to serve, but especially an opportunity to rebuild a world in God’s love,” explained De los Santos.
“Jesus loved the world. I can see in Global Youth Day an expression of the three angels’ message, because our youth represents the angel who is proclaiming the last message – not through words but through their life. Global Youth Day is a lifestyle.”
Pako Mokgwane focused on the youth as an opportunity: “I think that, today, what came out very strongly for me is the fact the we have a vast majority of young people to invest in. Their creativity, their willingness to be present in communities, is indeed something that we can use as a way of providing this Church with good public relations. People are going to know about the Church. People will know that young people came and they will ask ‘Who are you?’ to which the answer will be ‘We are the Adventists’. So this is giving a good image to the Church and it is all a result of the young people’s creativity, their willingness, and their excitement about GYD.”