Memories of Bremen Kirchentag

Andrew and Wendy Clark have been visiting this massive Protestant two yearly festival in Germany that attracts some 100,000 people.

For us events kicked off with a special welcome talk for overseas visitors being further split into national groups. The top overseas participant country was Kenya. In the evening there was an opening service on the Bürgerweide (citizens meadow) only it was now asphalt - no seating (and we forgot to bring our camping stools) but not for the closing communion service where the capacity was sixty plus thousand for 100,000 visitors. Fantastic amplification and very large TV screens. One can now imagine what a Wembley pop concert must be like. Both string and brass band music, no shortage of orders of service and the sermon translated into English for us.

From Thursday through to Saturday there were themed presentations from eminent people of faith, political and academic standing.

Our choice for day one with simultaneous translation from German into English was the topic The Bible and its church: does the bible undermine church statements? It was a challenging talk the detail of which now escapes us, except to say it might but it need not be threatening.

Day two was the topic human dignity. Memorable one liners were: why does a girl on the till in a supermarket lose her job for the sake of Euro 1.20 whilst bankers have received 600 billion; redundancy is not only devastating because of a lack of money in the family but there will be loss of self esteem. The solution may be for the government to inject money into schemes to kick start work opportunities and start the whole process afresh. There were only two speakers, both lawyers supporting the church one of which grew up in the DDR whilst the other in the grape vines surrounding Trier. It was the DDR church groups with their so-called Monday groups that through public protest enabled the wall to come down. The Oslo agreement led the way with East Germany a signatory to the document.

For day three a late change and a young associate professor with a background in Social Science; for her doctorate she compared the movement of German and English university graduates into the job market. Germany attaches importance to leaving certificates without which job opportunities are slim. Comparisons were made with established pro education German families and those of immigrant and non-interested families. The average without any qualification is 15% but is much higher when based on immigrant families; sadly German born 3rd generation Turkish students are poorer than their elder 2nd generation ones. The authorities are trying to create more pre-vocational courses to equip this group with a chance of an apprenticeship as a follow on. 80,000 students are truants so there is an undermining worry of civil unrest and an increase in theft. The pre-school kindergarten group are known to do better and steps are being taken to fund free placements for children aged 3 upward. It is said that an investment of ¤8000 with this age group will give a profit of ¤21,000. Clearly we in England share some of these problems and will need to find solutions.

There are many opportunities outside of the topics to enjoy, events musical and social, in an amazing atmosphere far from any type casting of glum stuffy Christians.

Andrew Clark