"Authenticity is the key"

Two pastors - one from Durban/South Africa, the other from Hanover - discovered their similarities and differences during a neighbourhood walk in Hanover-Linden.

A rainy Monday in Hanover-Linden. Two pastors from different worlds meet. One, pastor of the Gospel Church Hanover, YouTuber and official internet pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover. The other, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa (ELCSA) in Durban, on the "Mission to the North" programme of the ELM Lower Saxony. Christopher Schlicht and Ntuthuko Nkosi have an appointment for a walk and an exchange between their worlds of experience.

Despite the rain, they stroll through the neighbourhood in search of a café. They quickly get down to the basics: "Why did you become a pastor?", "What is God to you?", "Does pastoral care work on the internet?" No café in sight. Nkosi remembers a tourist wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Don't follow me, I am also lost". They both laugh out loud. So onwards through the rain.

Schlicht, who only moved to Hanover a few months ago, feels at home in the city, even though it was hard for him to leave Bremerhaven. Nkosi also misses his former place of work. His current community in the metropolis of Durban is a four-hour drive from his home.

Engrossed in the conversation, we continue on, on the other side of the Ihme, a cosy café invites us to linger. Nkosi shows mobile phone photos from a visit to a cattle farm in rural Kwazulu-Natal; he is standing in the pasture wearing a collared shirt and dressed as a pastor, clearly visible to all.

Schlicht considers this to be superfluous for his church outreach. He wants to be as normal as possible, including in terms of language, i.e. understandable and accessible to people. "I used to think that the message of the sermon was hidden behind the most complicated and intelligent-looking sentences possible; today I'm flabbergasted when people thank me at the exit for making sure they've understood everything." Both agree that authenticity is the key. People immediately sense when someone doesn't stand behind what they say. "Just be real".

"In my church," says Pastor Nkosi, "there is no separate children's church. The children are part of it, why should we send them away?" Schlicht is enthusiastic and adds: "Yes, that's exactly how it is here, and it's absolutely forbidden to tell children to be quiet."

The two men in their late thirties discover even more similarities: The internet offers great opportunities for communication and is a useful tool, they both agree. "During the coronavirus pandemic, our WhatsApp groups got so big that we had to switch to other messengers," says Nkosi. "I started my career during the pandemic, so it wasn't difficult for me to keep in touch with the community digitally," adds Schlicht.

In the end, both are moved by how much their areas of work and theological convictions overlap, despite the great distance and different working contexts in Germany/Hanover and South Africa/Durban. A reunion at Christmas in South Africa would be great, with sunshine and 32 degrees.