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United Methodists evangelize in Lithuania with ads, brochures

The Rev. Larry Hollon

The spots were aired for eight days, during the July 20-30 period, as part of the church’s Igniting Ministry welcoming campaign, themed “Open Hearts. Open Minds. Open Doors.”

The Lithuanian-language commercials, each lasting a half-minute, marked a new expansion of the advertising campaign into languages other than English. Commercials also have been produced for Spanish- and Korean-language audiences in the United States.

United Methodist Communications provided a $15,554 grant to pay for the 19 spots, which aired on Lietuvos Televisio, a major television station in Lithuania.

A UMNS photo courtesy of Igniting Ministry United Methodists in Lithuania aired "Advice" and two other commercials during July.

The television campaign was conducted in conjunction with an outreach evangelism project in Lithuania to distribute brochures about the United Methodist Church to people across the country.

“ My vision is that every Lithuanian deserves to know God personally and to know something about our great church and where to find it,” said the Rev. Herbert Lange, a missionary and retired United Methodist minister serving in Lithuania. Lange is a native of Lithuania who later moved to Germany and then to the United States, where he graduated from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky.

The commercials were “very relevant to the life of Lithuania,” Lange said.

The spots — with voices dubbed in the Lithuanian language — included “Advice,” which asks viewers to renew forgotten relationships with each other and with God; “Rain/Fence,” which uses simple occurrences in life as reasons for people to pause and gain new perspectives; and “A Thousand Hands,” which reminds viewers that it “takes more than a building to make a church. And it takes more than one hour on Sunday to understand why.”

“Hospitality and welcoming are at the heart of the Christian gospel,” said the Rev. Larry Hollon, top staff executive of the communications agency. “Jesus was expansive and inclusive in reaching out to people searching for God, the poor, the dispossessed and those broken by disease and hardship.

“Igniting Ministry is about the outreach of the church through hospitality and welcoming,
he said. “We are delighted that United Methodists in Lithuania creatively adapted the materials from Igniting Ministry to their context and expressed Christian witness in a way that fit their culture and social setting.”

A UMNS photo courtesy of Igniting Ministry "A Thousand Hands" is one of the church commercials dubbed into the Lithuanian language.

From July 24 to 29, United Methodists from churches all over Lithuania went to Vilnius, the capital city, to distribute brochures. Buses brought people from various cities to gather in the denomination’s Vilnius church, which is located above a car repair shop. The volunteers then went out in teams to selected areas and stood on the streets, handing out more than 65,000 brochures. The television commercials ran during this time period.

The brochure distribution campaign was adopted by the Lithuanian Annual Conference as its evangelism outreach project for 2006-2007. Similar efforts are planned in other cities.

At the end of 2005, the United Methodist Church had 536 members and 11 churches in Lithuania.

The United Methodist Church began its “Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors.” advertising and welcoming campaign in 2001. United Methodist Communications offers $1 million in funding annually to local churches, districts and conferences to help expand a welcoming ministry through an advertising presence in their communities.

This report was adapted from a United Methodist Communications press release, with additional material added. United Methodist News Service is a unit of UMCom.

News media contact: Stephen Drachler or Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.