On Monday I arrived in Washington D. C. for a consultation of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and the United Church of Christ (UCC) on different topics and on the future of our Church Fellowship (Kirchengemeinschaft).
In the last days we – representatives of different Protestant Churches in Germany who are in partnership with Conferences of the UCC and representatives of the EKD and the UCC Offices in Cleveland and Washington D. C. – sit together discussing about the past, the present and the future of our Church Fellowship. We were honored through the presence of the General Minister of the UCC, Rev. Dr. Georgia Thompson, and Vice President of EKD, Bishop Petra Bosse-Huber.
We focused on topics „Faith in the Public Square“ and “Ecumenical Advocacy Partnerships”. We shared our commitments to Just Peace especially when looking on the wars in Ukraine and Israel – Gaza.
We discussed the challenges regarding the upcoming elections in the European Union, in some of the Federal States in Germany and in the US. We spoke about our fears of upcoming nationalism, right-wing nationalist parties and learned about Faith-Based Democracy Movements against Christian Nationalism. On our last day today we focused on the state of our churches and we found that we share some challenges in common: involving young people in church life, declining membership and searching for new forms of membership, how to become more diverse and open for people of other faith and how to overcome racism in churches and society. We learned a lot about the activities of the UCC Washington D.C. Office and it’s advocating for the vision of a just world! We share the goal to make a better world possible.
At the end of our conference we agreed to continue our common pilgrimage of justice, peace and the integrity of creation and committed ourselves to engage in appropriate processes seeking to expand Church Fellowship between our churches and to search for ways to just peace. A common commitment to Kirchengemeinschaft was signed in the closing service of our consultation by General Minister and President Dr. Georgia Thompson and Bishop Petra Bosse-Huber.
