building a community of grace

Bank Details: Anglican Church in Freiburg: Sparkasse Freiburg IBAN: DE29680501010002511920 BIC: FRSPDE66XXX (Konto Nr.: 2511920 BLZ: 68050101)

anglican church in freiburg newsletter

March 2015

Address:Lorettostraße 61.

www.freiburganglicanchurch.wordpress.com

A Locum from the Old Catholic Church

It might be unusual for an Old Catholic minister who is German to become an ACF locum for two months. As far as I know, this is happening for the first time, despite the Full Communion that has existed between our two churches since the 1930s. I am grateful for your confidence in me and am looking forward to sharing your international community life, and praying and celebrating with you.

Martina and I live in Kenzingen, 25 km north of Freiburg. Since 2013, I have been serving as a non-stipendiary priest at St. Ursula’s. In the 1990’s, I studied Theology in Freiburg and Paris, and was ordained as a priest in 1999. After four years in church youth work, I became the director of a retreat centre near Frankfurt where I served for eight years. Involved in several international activities (pilgrimages, work camps, and cultural programs), I discovered the richness of religious life in different contexts and ecumenical fraternal community. Martina is working with people with mental health problems in an AWO institution in Lahr; she is interested in music and in international contacts as well.

Church e-mail: freiburganglican@gmail.com

In a few weeks we will celebrate Easter together – the death and resurrection of Jesus, a new life for all of us and for our world. May we spend an inspiring, hopeful and blessed time together!

Please don’t hesitate to contact me: 07644 -92 89 778

Markus Laibach

Easter Services 2015 April 2 19:30 Passover MealApril 3 17:00 Good Friday ServiceApril 4 20:00 Easter Eve at St. Ursula’s April 5 11:30 Easter Sunday, Holy Communion

Annual General Meeting The ACF's Annual General Meeting

(AGM) will be held on Sunday 15 March, after the service. It will be presided over by our Area Dean, Rev. Ken Dimmick from Stuttgart.

The AGM is an important event in church life. It is when we discuss our finances and decide on who will serve on our Church Council for the next 12 months (among other things).

To vote at our AGM you need to be on the ACF electoral roll. Application forms for

ANGLICAN CHURCH IN FREIBURG NEWSLETTER PAGE 2

The Anglican Church in Freiburg is a part of the Diocese in Europe of the Church of England. It is also in partnership with the Anglican Church in Basel. Email: admin@anglicanbasel.ch

Markus Laibach:

07644 -92 89 778

Church Wardens :

Almut Schulz ,0151 25696204

Judi th Moratscheck,0151 57629354

Please visit our website:http://freiburganglicanchurch.wordpress.com

April Newsletter

If you have any items for the April newsletter, would you please send them to Cindy by March 23rd. Thanks.cindywyneken@ gmx.de

enrollment will soon be distributed by email and available on the welcome desk at church. To be elected, you not only need to be on the electoral roll but also to be nominated. Nomination forms will also soon be circulated. Should you wish to nominate someone please ask the person first and find someone willing to second your proposal.

Should you have any questions about the AGM, please contact one of the ACF wardens, Judith Moratscheck or Almut Schulz, or the Council secretary, Malcolm MacLaren.

All-inclusive Prayer MeetingGentlemen, have you prayed heart-to-heart with God about matters that

affect you with your brothers and sisters in Christ in the church ? Ladies, have you done likewise? If not, then perhaps your prayer is the blessing that she or he needs to hear.

It has been proposed that an open all-inclusive prayer meeting start at the church premises one or two times a month. All interested are invited to contact Christopher Stead in person (preferably after services) to fix dates.

Sunday Services in March 

March 1 11:30 All Age Service 19:30 Taizé Service with Holy CommunionMarch 8 11:30 Morning WorshipMarch 15 11:30 Holy Communion Followed by Annual General MeetingMarch 22 11:30 Praise and WorshipMarch 29 11:30 Holy Communion Palm SundayActivities:Lent Bible Study every Thursday in March at 19:30h, led by George NorwoodMarch 3 19:30 P.O.P. Environmental GroupMarch 12 19:30 Women’s Prayer GroupMarch 15 after Annual General Meeting service Tuesday morning Women's Group every Tuesday at 10:00 at Cindy’s house. Please contact Cindy or Margaret for details.North Freiburg home group. Please contact Ceri or William for details.South Freiburg home group. Please contact Margaret, Ina, or Michael for details.

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New life!We congratulate the parents and siblings of three babies born earlier this winter, and wish all of

the families God's blessing as their children grow in body and spirit.

12.11.2014 Victor John Rittman, son of Céline and Martyn

21.11.2014 Cecilia Clare Herrlinger Carhart, daughter of Melanie and Thomas

4.12.2014 Xenia Sarah Jauslin, daughter of Petra and Matthias

Announcements1. The group P.O.P. is starting to meet again after a long break. Our first meeting in the Petrus

Gemeinde will be on Tuesday 3rd March at 19.30. As was announced in church Sunday a week ago, Emmanuel has finished his Doctorate successfully and will be returning to Tanzania in the middle of March. As he has been in the group from the very beginning, we would like to congratulate him and say Farewell! We shall certainly miss him and his family. He has also said he will take up contact with Pastor Amos  of the Anglican Church in Morogoro, to see what they might need to do their cooking. That was the project we took up with Robin before he left. We have discussed many ways of doing it, including a solar cooker. Now with Emmanuel on the spot, this might become a reality. We hope to meet with those interested in this project, and in future discussions on protecting or Healing Our Planet Earth. Jesus said “I am the Root ... and the bright Morning Star.” Revelation 22:16     

2. The German Conversation group is also planning on starting up again. Following up on a number of enquiries there will be a short meeting after church on Sunday either the 8th or the 15th. The date will be announced. Ester Leach will be leading this group, but as she has a small child she might not be always available. Therefore we are looking for a second native speaker to support her. If interested, please speak to either Ester or Rafaela. Interest has also been shown by members of the Petrus Gemeide in an English Conversation group. Maybe a tandem will be possible! This would certainly be a way of getting to know one another.

3. A combined Women’s Breakfast is being planned for April. More in the next Newsletter.

4. The Home Group South is planning to start as from March. We shall meet at Michael and Ina's home in Haslach, on the third Wednesday in the month at 19.30. Please speak to Michael or Margaret. All interested parties are welcome whatever your beliefs!

Xenia Sarah Jauslin

Victor John Rittman

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The ACF’s Primary Recipient of Outward GivingCatherine Eklou, APERSEC

-Update- It was in December 2013, after hearing Claudine Goebel-Giroud’s experience with Catherine

Eklou in Burkina Faso, that the church council voted to make APERSEC its primary recipient of outward giving. As such, the organization has been receiving € 2300 per year since that time.

A trained nurse, Catherine Eklou saw the vast need for basic hygiene training in Burkina Faso. Coming twice a year to Freiburg, she works to earn money to buy medical supplies and to discuss her activities – training sessions in basic hygiene in villages, construction and staffing of a school, drilling a well - with her donors. She has visited the ACF several times, spoken to and thanked the congregation and, in 2014, presented her organization within the context of the POP group.

Recently Catherine sent us an update with photos of her most recent accomplishment, the building and staffing of a medical center! Here a few of those photos:

Truly miraculous what God and Catherine are doing! Let us continue our support and our prayers for her and APERSEC.

Linda Sloan-Ecker

Catherine is the third from left.

All of her supplies come from either donations, such as those from ACF, or direct materials donated by hospitals and other health-care professionals in Germany.

Here is the team (Catherine second from left) in the physician’s office:

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Dear  Brothers  and  Sisters  in  Christ,  

BISHOP’S  EASTER  MESSAGE  2015

“We  are  an  Easter  People  and  Hallelujah  is  our  Song!”

The  great  St.  Augus@ne  of  Hippo  wrote  these  words  1600  years  ago  and  they  have  spoken  to  people  through  the  ages  down  to  our  own  @me.  Being  an  Easter  people  means  that  resurrec@on  is  part  of  our  life  experience.  Easter  celebrates  how  Jesus  dies  and  rises  in  each  of  us  –  in  our  personal  lives  and  in  the  community  of  the  church.  Easter  celebrates  how  Jesus  is  present  in  our  daily  work,  our  rela@onships,  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  the  world.  

We  are  an  Easter  people,  in  a  Good  Friday  world.  Within  Europe,  many  countries  con@nue  to  live  with  the  grinding  effects  of  austerity.  In  the  South  of  the  con@nent,  we  have  a  whole  genera@on  of  young  people  growing  up  without  work.  Eastern  Ukraine  has  faced  the  misery  and  devasta@on  of  armed  struggle.  This  is  in  addi@on  to  the  conflicts  in  the  wider  world  –  in  Afghanistan,  Pakistan,  Nigeria,  Syria  and  Iraq  -­‐  with  their  tragic  humanitarian  consequences.    

In  this  kind  of  world,  it  could  seem  that  the  only  God  in  whom  we  might  believe,  or  refuse  to  believe,  would  be  a  deist  god  –  that  is,  a  god  who  may  have  created  the  world  back  in  the  mists  of  @me  but  has  since  then  leX  it  alone  to  run  down  by  itself.  Whilst  philosophers  might  find  it  interes@ng  to  debate  whether  or  not  such  a  god  exists,  the  deist  god  would  not  make  any  prac@cal  difference  to  the  way  the  world  is.  

By  contrast,  the  Chris@an  Easter  insists  that  God  is  not  a  god  who  is  far  off,  but  one  who  in  Jesus  draws  very  near.  In  Jesus,  God  himself  comes  among  us.  As  the  Church  Fathers  insisted,  “what  God  has  created,  only  God  can  redeem”.  In  his  burs@ng  from  the  tomb  on  Easter  Day,  God  releases  new  energy  into  the  world.  Far  from  allowing  his  world  to  decay,  according  to  a  relentless  law  of  entropy,  God  in  Christ  ini@ates  a  programme  of  renewal.  Beginning  with  the  first  disciples  a  new  community  is  created  that  exhibits  a  remarkable  degree  of  joy,  hope,  and  love.  2000  years  later,  the  Easter  people  is  s@ll  growing  rapidly  in  number,  especially  in  Africa,  in  China  and  in  some  other  Asian  countries.

The  Bishop  in  EuropeThe  Right  Reverend  Dr.  Robert  Innes

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Unfortunately,  in  the  old  con@nent  of  Europe,  the  churches  (or  at  least  the  tradi@onal  churches)  are  generally  not  enjoying  numerical  growth.  Our  own  Church  of  England  has  been  declining  at  the  rate  of  about  1%  per  year  for  many  years.  On  top  of  this,  the  average  age  of  our  church  has  increased  so  that  it  is  now  much  higher  than  the  average  age  of  the  UK  popula@on.  This  means  that,  even  if  we  manage  to  replace  all  those  who  leave  the  church,  we  will  s@ll  decline  as  a  large  propor@on  of  our  current  membership  comes  to  the  end  of  their  lives.  Moreover,  a  bulge  in  the  clergy  age  distribu@on  means  40%  of  our  clergy  are  due  to  re@re  in  the  next  10  years.  

Faced  with  this  reality,  one  approach  would  be  to  dig  our  heads  in  the  sand  and  either  pretend  that  decline  wasn’t  happening  or  that  it  doesn’t  macer.  If  our  God  was  a  God  who  had  simply  leX  the  world  to  decline  in  its  own  way,  than  that  might  be  permissible.  But  as  an  Easter  people  we  simply  daren’t  do  this!  

Aware  of  the  great  challenge  facing  the  church,  the  General  Synod  at  its  mee@ng  in  February  approved  a  range  of  reports  that  cons@tute  an  ambi@ous  programme  of  ‘Reform  and  Renewal’.  At  the  heart  of  these  is  a  renewed  commitment  to  personal  discipleship  across  all  dioceses.  There  are  plans  to  alter  the  way  in  which  central  church  funds  are  distributed  so  that  the  church  par@cularly  addresses  areas  of  depriva@on  and  possibili@es  for  growth,  plans  to  increase  the  number  of  candidates  for  ordained  ministry  by  50%,  proposals  to  simplify  the  process  of  church  plan@ng,  all  backed  by  a  significant  investment  programme  from  the  Church  Commissioners.

The  February  General  Synod  was  a  gathering  of  some  historic  significance,  and  it  leX  me  with  a  real  sense  of  hope  in  the  future  of  our  church.  But  all  of  us  are  aware  that  ‘renewal’  is  not  something  that  can  be  programmed  or  managed  centrally.  Renewal  happens  personally  and  locally.  It  is  in  our  local  congrega@ons  that  lives  are  touched  by  the  love  of  Jesus.  It  is  through  personal  friendship  and  invita@on  that  people  come  to  know  and  follow  the  Lord.  It  is  in  the  gathering  for  worship  of  our  local  communi@es  that  minds  are  challenged  and  hearts  transformed.  

This  Holy  Week,  I  will  be  spending  Palm  Sunday  in  Naples  and  Easter  Sunday  in  Florence.  I  am  deeply  thankful  to  all  our  clergy  and  lay  people  who  will  be  involved  in  the  prepara@on  and  conduct  of  worship  for  Holy  Week  and  Easter.  I  pray  especially  for  those  who  will  be  endeavouring  to  communicate  the  Easter  message  in  ways  that  will  connect  with  regular  churchgoers  and  visitors  alike.  I  hope  there  will  be  an  expectancy  that  people  will  come  to  faith  in  Jesus  through  the  welcome  and  worship  we  offer.  We  have  a  great  story  to  tell  and  a  wonderful  song  to  sing!

I  wish  you  a  blessed  and  joyful  Easter,  

+Robert  Gibraltar  in  Europe