13 July 2009

Writing skills, a great need in evangelism

Who wouldn’t want to visit the summer capital of the Philippines especially for a training seminar that hone skills to write effectively in pursuit of people for Christ’s kingdom?

This question occupied the minds of those who battled the strong rains as they negotiated the zigzag roads leading up to Baguio City, the summer capital of the Philippines. The tail of the recent storm still required hoisting signal 2 in northern Luzon’s area of responsibility. Nevertheless, these did not drown the spirits of those who travelled from far and near to attend the Writing Seminar, July 13-14, organized for enthusiasts, editors, and church leaders at the headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Mountain Provinces (MPM).

Communication directors and their teams from Central Luzon, Northern Luzon, South-Central Luzon, and the host field of Mountain Province numbering 60, battling the cold weather, learned techniques of writing and translated them into beautiful layout and design to meet the need for communicating God’s love through print and electronic publications.

“I have been a teacher many years but haven’t gotten techniques as simple as these presentations to help me communicate to my students a better way to tell God’s love to those around them,” said one participant as she voiced her elation of attending the seminar.

An English teacher at one of the church-operated high schools was mesmerized by the versatility of the graphic software in translating literary articles into beautiful and captivating designs for publication. “It is only now that I learned the way to making good designs for my school papers,” she said.

Mr Reuben A Pagaduan, chair of the Tradigital Fine Arts at the Adventist University of the Philippines, widened the interests of the participants to the unlimited possibilities of making their publications attractive to their readers. His presentations dealt on layout and design, photography, and software application. Mr Jose F Sarzosa, Jr, vice-president for editorial services of the Philippine Publishing House and editor of the Health and Home, an award-winning health journal published by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Philippines, introduced the participants into the beauty of well-written news stories about day-to-day events in the church and other stories that uplift the well-being of humanity.

“The law of attraction works well with us as communicators,” said Dr Jonathan C Catolico, communication director for the church in the southern Asia-Pacific Division, “when we transmit God’s glory in both verbal and non-verbal methodologies.” Dr Catolico also challenged the trainees to be on constant lookout for better ways to communicate God’s love to those they get in touch with.

The lecture on electronic publication presented by Mr Winelfred Pasamba, systems administrator of the Online Information System of the Adventist University of the Philippines (AUP), was also well received by the participants as they saw how modern communication reaches the elites of society and the ‘natives’ of this technology. [AND staff]