Churches with a new concept
Frankfurt: Church services with Harry Potter and vinyl DJs
Updated on November 17, 2024 – 10:50 a.mReading time: 4 min.
The Evangelical St. John’s Church is breaking new ground when it comes to church services. (Source: Helmut Fricke/dpa/dpa-bilder)
Congregations are sometimes taking new approaches to attract people to church services. Even if it gets colorful or loud: faith is the focus.
At the vinyl service in Frankfurt-Bornheim, the altar becomes a DJ booth and a guest brings the music. Celebrities such as rapper Moses Pelham and DJ Ata have also attended the vinyl service in the baroque Protestant St. John’s Church. Despite the unusual setting, like other church services, it’s about faith, religion and “the big questions of life,” says Pastor Lars Heinemann. During a panel discussion, each guest explains why they brought these songs with them. Things often get very personal here.
During the music, the church doors are open, as Heinemann explains, and there is liveliness in the room. “When the blessing is said, people stop and it becomes very quiet.” The pastor wants to arouse interest with the vinyl services; around two thirds of the people on these evenings rarely or never went to church. But well-known faces from the community were also there. “It’s about people having a stimulating, good evening – which they associate positively with the church.”
“The unusual church services are intended above all to inspire a new audience for the church and the faith,” explains the spokesman for the Evangelical Churches in Hesse and Nassau (EKHN), Volker Rahn. In fact, this works very well for conceptual celebrations such as the vinyl service. “What counts is not necessarily just full pews, but also positive headlines on site to show that the church and the community are much more lively and close to life than some prejudices say,” emphasizes Rahn.
Other special services in the EKHN communities include the hit service in the Odenwald, where visitors can sing along to songs such as “Marble, Stone and Iron Breaks” and “But Please with Cream”. A continuation is also planned for the Darmstadt “pub service”, which was last celebrated in a wine bar – with a “sermon on tap”.
“We are observing lively interest in these special formats,” explains the spokeswoman for the Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck (EKKW), Anja Berens. “For example, the Melsung town church was packed for the ABBA service: around 700 people came – 200 more than could fit in the church.” A Harry Potter service in Vellmar also filled the pews. “It becomes clear that we reach people with our message when we go where they like to be, when we use the potential of unusual places or popular topics and convey faith topics creatively.”
Like at the whiskey tasting in the Niedervellmar Evangelical Community Center in the Kassel district. The Ahnatal-Vellmar-Fuldatal cooperation area of the Kaufungen Protestant church district recently invited people to the tasting. “The response was very good. We were fully booked with 32 participants and still had a waiting list,” says Johannes Kraft, deacon for the area in the northern old district of Kassel. The aim was to talk to young adults who didn’t go to church services and had nothing else to do with church.
“Statistically speaking, this is the group that leaves the church most often and at the same time would have the opportunity to change the church before it dies out,” says Kraft. The event was not a church service, he explains. And the whiskey only flowed in manageable quantities. “In fact, we provided insights into the origins, production and tasting of the fine wines, and in doing so we took a link to the church.” Legend has it that it was monks who invented whiskey.
One of the unusual church services in the diocese of Mainz is the “blues service” in the Gießen cultural church of St. Thomas More. “Blues services are different, not classic services, but rather subversive and radical, thought from the roots. There is no priest preaching at the altar here,” the invitation says. The evenings focus on questions such as: What gives us hope? What is troubling us? What gives us courage and what gives us confidence? The parish of St. John XXIII is also about music – but of a different style. in Viernheim, southern Hesse, the service with songs by Reinhard Mey.
In the diocese of Limburg, the St. Raphael church in Wißmar, central Hesse, has opened its doors to “fresh ideas and creative encounters” since the end of 2022. Under the title “Air for improvement – for everything that is sacred to you,” there is space for art, music and clothing swap parties in addition to church services, as the diocese reports. At the Lichterkirche in Dillenburg, pieces of music, texts, prayers or meditations can be played via a control panel. To match this, the altar area is bathed in a predefined light.
“For us, every service is special because it creates a space for encounters with God. This celebration in community with other believers strengthens our faith,” says the press office of the diocese of Fulda, referring, among other things, to carnival services, blessing services for animals and special ones Church services on the occasion of the church year, such as Thanksgiving or All Saints Day.
