Looking at the treasure of the global church

Partnership service of the Stolzenau-Loccum church district with guest from the Ev.-luth. Mission in Lower Saxony.

The South African flag, the banner of a partnership anniversary and choruses in the isiZulu language during the choir's warm-up singing signalled to ELM speaker Dr Joe Lüdemann at first glance that he was in the "right place" - at the partnership service of the Stolzenau-Loccum church district. He had already got to know Birthe Hagestedt, the chairwoman of the partnership committee, as a regular and active participant in the South Africa partnership conference organised by the Ev.-luth. Mission in Lower Saxony (ELM). Now she had invited the ELM consultant for ecumenical cooperation with South Africa, Botswana and Eswatini with the request for a sermon and a report on the celebrations of the ELCSA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa) on its 50th anniversary. Dr Joe Lüdemann had travelled to Rustenburg / South Africa in December 2025 for this purpose and was now asked to tell the story - if possible with pictures.

The choir immediately set the mood for a service with an international ecumenical focus, both in terms of language (isiZulu) and content. In the sermon, Lüdemann took the 70 or so people attending with him to an encounter with a street boy in Durban who deals drugs and one day comes into contact with an older woman. She belongs to the women's group of the ELCSA inner-city congregation in Durban. Lüdemann invited the listeners to empathise with this story themselves and to take a fresh look at the welcoming and non-judgmental outstretched arms of our God.

Members of the partnership committee then reported on the current status of the partnership with the Eastern Cape church district of the Cape Orange diocese of the ELM partner church ELCSA and looked back on more than 40 years of shared history. A greeting from the superintendent of the Eastern Cape church district was read out.

One of the founding members of this church district partnership gave a particularly moving review of its beginnings and his personal reasons for getting involved right from the start. The 94-year-old recounted that he was confirmed during the Second World War and was a member of the Hitler Youth at the time. He reported how the Nazi regime had declared everything "different" as inferior. A few decades later, in the 1970s, the partnership work of the ELM and the regional church of Hanover gave him a glimpse of the global church, which radiated a completely different message: "For the first time, I met Christians with a different culture, yes, a different skin colour! ...and they celebrated faith in the same God as I did. ...and I was able to get to know them and visit them and they visited me. That was something very special!"

The celebration in its entirety became a glimpse of the rich treasure that God gives us through the invitation to participate in the worldwide church - an encouraging evening!