c. 2007 Religion News Service

WITTENBERG, Germany _ Faced with declining membership, dwindling income and more demands to provide community services, Germany’s Protestants see an overwhelming stretch ahead of them.

And so, in search of inspiration, some 300 church members returned here, the town where Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in 1517, for a workshop to map out their future. Attendees brainstormed on media branding, structure, financing and how to make the church that Luther built viable for the 21st century.

They met as part of a “Future Congress,” officially titled “A Church for Freedom: Perspectives for the Evangelical Church in the 21st Century.” “Freedom” seemed a part of every sentence uttered at this conference, but “finance” might have been a more appropriate catchword.

Church attendance has dropped across Europe, and Germany is no exception. What matters in Germany are the automatic paycheck deductions _ taken from everyone who is a registered church member _ that are used to fund church operations, regardless of how often they attend services. It may be upsetting to see fewer people in the pews, but it’s a fundamental danger if they are not registered as church members.

Demographic trends indicate the church soon won’t have enough money to keep operating. About one-third of Germans belong to the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church in Germany. The worst-case scenario shows the church’s current membership of about 26 million shrinking to 17 million by 2030.

Thies Gundlach, head of the church services division, said financial questions clearly sparked the current debate. The main issue, however, is shaping a 21st century church now, while the church is solvent, instead of being forced to make rash decisions later, he said.

He noted that not all church members see the coming threat. “There is no firm conviction that we have to change,” he said.

But Wolfgang Huber, Berlin’s bishop and head of the Council of Evangelical Churches of Germany, is a believer. Last July, he released a 100-page paper laying out the problem and suggesting fixes to keep the church operational. Proposals include:

_ Consolidating or merging churches.

_ Unifying districts (Germany’s 23 church districts in no way line up with the borders of its 16 states), which has proven remarkably controversial.

_ Making do with fewer ministers and hiring more professional lay people for outreach programs.

Predictably, Huber’s suggestions sparked debates. The proposal to merge districts _ some of which have charters dating back to 1815 _ from the current 23 into 12 was not well received. Huber says he expected the controversy, and issued the proposals as little more than a conversation starter.

It’s quite the conversation he started. Ten years shy of the 500th anniversary of Luther’s 95 theses, church members met for three days to share ideas. Attendees included clergy and church officials, but also students, engineers and even a forester. During open-mike sessions, attendees aired their views of Huber’s original proposals.

The proceedings retained a definite German flair. The mention of one minister’s hometown prompted the crowd to sing a folk song about that town. During a discussion of demographic trends, the audience was encouraged to spend 15 minutes composing questions while enjoying the German wines laid out for them _ a suggestion that some, clearly, had already taken to heart well before the offer was made.

In some ways, this level of soul-searching is not unusual for a church that sends out surveys every decade or so asking its members if they’re happy with the church and its offerings.

“This institutional introspection is nothing new,” says Wilhelm Graeb, head of the theology department at Berlin’s Humboldt University, noting that problems aren’t as dire as they may appear because some parishes could live for years off bank accounts fattened by years of church taxes.

But this conference was different in many ways, said participants. For one, it was not limited to church officials. And they sensed that the church is no longer focusing on the present, but trying to be more proactive, more forward-looking.

“The surveys were always about ascertaining the status quo,” said Wolf von Marschall, a forestry and agriculture manager sent as a delegate by his church in Lueneberg. “Here we’re trying as a group to set goals for the future.”

The Right Rev. Nicholas Baines co-chairs the Meissen Commission, a cross-cultural organization between the Church of England and the German Evangelical Church. He came as an observer and found himself impressed.

“I think every church in the Western world, and particularly in Europe, needs to be asking these questions,” he said.

Gundlach said the German church’s efforts have elicited interest from churches in places like Switzerland, which could soon face its own demographic problems.

Conference members in Wittenberg, however, made it clear they were taking a page from Martin Luther’s book; they have no problem questioning church authority. At a closing session, participants shared recommendations. Some lined right up with Huber’s initial ideas, including more focus on fundraising and a better definition of what it means to be “Protestant,” for example.

The various proposals were met with gasps or applause, depending on their level of controversy. Proposals to merge church districts continued to cause a stir. Others argued for more transparency, since church members have no intention of letting leaders make decisions on their own.

Huber, in his closing remarks, said that’s just the way it should be. The future won’t come if the church won’t change, he said. He reminded the group that this was just the first step, that changes will come incrementally over the years.

“We’re under way,” he told the group. “Like good Protestants, we’re fighting all the way, but we’re started. We can no longer go back.”

KRE/PH END SORRELLS

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