Enchanted by Ludwig Harms

175 years of mission in Hermannsburg: building bridges in the spirit of Jesus Christ.

The 175th anniversary celebration including the installation of the first Director from the Global South, Dr Emmanuel Kileo, and the new Managing Director Holger Nerlich. The Evangelical Lutheran Mission in Lower Saxony celebrated all of this last Saturday as part of its annual mission festival. Around 300 guests travelled to the special day. They came from the supporting churches in Lower Saxony, from Bavaria (where Emmanuel Kileo worked as a pastor) and also from international partner churches, including in South Africa. The new director's wife, mother, and two sons travelled from Tanzania.

Thomas Wojciechowski welcomed the worshippers in the campus of the University of Applied Sciences for Intercultural Theology. "Old lady mission" wears new clothes today, but she remains the same, he explained, looking back at its 175-year history. In the 21st century, she is committed to a different, fairer world.

"Building bridges" was this year's festival motto. In her introduction, Indra Grasekamp, a pastor and ELM Secretary for Worldwide Spirituality, related it to the Christian faith: "united by the one God, we are on the way together." The Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, Ralf Meister, saw the new Director of the ELM as a bridge builder. "You are a wanderer between the worlds, a bridge builder between North and South," he said to Emmanuel Kileo, who was elected to his position by the Mission Committee last autumn and has now been introduced by the regional bishop in a church service - just like Managing Director Holger Nerlich, who, according to Meister, can of course "deal with numbers", but also sees the concerns and perspectives behind the numbers and seeks dialogue.

 

Emmanuel Kileo gave the sermon based on John 17:3: "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." According to the new director, the Gospel of John was also central for Ludwig Harms. And he himself was "enchanted" by Harms. "Ludwig Harms preached less than 200 metres from here. And I'm standing here now and feel honoured." Harms also realised: "It's not enough to be religious. You have to have Jesus Christ in your life and bear witness to him." Mission often began with the premise that the religion of "others" was wrong. "Today we know that being different is not wrong, it is simply different. When we recognise the true God, we are all one." The sentence "Human dignity is inviolable" is also derived from this realisation. And this in turn calls on us to take a stand against right-wing extremism, war, dictatorship, violence and abuse.

 

Numerous speakers then took to the microphone to share their thoughts and wishes with the new director: Sabine Rudnick as deputy mayor of the municipality of Südheide, Kileo's doctoral supervisor Prof. Emeritus Dr, Dieter Becker, the director of Evangelische Mission Weltweit, Rainer Kiefer, Jochen Döring from the partnership work in Tanzania from Bavaria and Andreas Kunz-Lübcke, rector of the Hermannsburg University of Applied Sciences for Intercultural Theology.

 

The 24 North-South volunteers, who were sent to their places of work around the world during this service, also want to act as bridge builders. They will spend a year volunteering in church or diaconal organisations. Their "colleagues" from the Global South, who are doing the same in German organisations, are already here and also joined in the celebrations.

At the end of the programme, there was a call to take part in the demonstration against right-wing extremism in Eschede in the afternoon and a statement from the ELM on the topic of sexual abuse. The ELM will ensure that victims receive help, play its part in coming to terms with the abuse, and do its part to prevent it in the future.