Spirituality, incense and music

Partnership enthusiasts from parishes in Lower Saxony experienced an informative and musically captivating weekend.

"Why are there incense and altar servers in South African Evangelical Lutheran church services? How is my spirituality expressed here in Germany?" These and other questions were asked by people involved in the partnership between the regional churches of Hanover and Schaumburg-Lippe at a conference organised by the ELM on the topic of "Spirituality in South Africa and Germany - between tradition and modernity". It was organised by Marlene Altebockwinkel, secretary for international partnerships, and Dr Joe Lüdemann, secretary for Global Cultural Diversity and Ecumenical Cooperation South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini.

For over 40 years, parishes in Lower Saxony have been twinned with parishes within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa (ELCSA), one of the ELM partner churches. A side effect of these partnerships is intercultural learning, for example about church services and spirituality. The exchange about different spiritual elements also leads to reflecting on one's own practice

During the conference, Prof. Dr Moritz Fischer from the Hermannsburg University of Applied Sciences for Intercultural Theology highlighted the different historical roots and current practices of Christian spirituality in Germany, for example prayers for peace, Taizé devotions, "quiet time", the 7-step method of Bible discussion, meditation circles and many more.

Pastor Ntuthuko Nkosi from the ELCSA explained via Zoom how the "Africanisation" of the Lutheran church service in South Africa is changing the spirituality of church members: "Just as Martin Luther filled folk songs with Christian texts, we take melodies and rituals from our Zulu culture and fill them with a Christian message." In South Africa, even the children learn to sing along to the lively songs in the church service, to pray and to talk about their own faith. This accompanies them in all areas of church life.

In addition to the knowledge that the participants took away from the conference, the get-together reaffirmed their conviction that encounters with Christians on the other side of the world form the heart of church partnership work.

The ELM South-North volunteers from South Africa joined them on Saturday evening. At the "living room concert" in the "Aira" Hall of the venue with the South African musician duo Qadasi & Maqhinga, they enthusiastically joined in with the mixture of traditional amaZulu music and western pop and got the audience in Hermannsburg moving in the well-filled room with 80 guests.

After an eventful weekend, the 25 participants of the conference returned home on Sunday afternoon encouraged to continue their partnership work with South Africa in the congregation and church district with renewed vigour.