# Der Lutheraner_Frankfurt am Main_Januar 1950_S8 # AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) Page 8 January 1950 Number 1 For the Congregations of the Ev.-Luth. Free Church From the Hannover Pastoral District If the readers of our "Lutheraner" could once glance at my map of Lower Saxony, they would find more than 40 localities underlined in red in the southeastern portion. In these places live the members of our pastoral district, some in congregations that are served regularly, some gathered into smaller preaching stations, but some also individually. These are visited as regularly as possible at longer intervals and provided with Word and Sacrament. The overall picture in the Hannover pastoral district has changed since before the war. At that time, to my knowledge, only the preaching place of Braunschweig belonged to Hannover, and it had only a few members. Today Braunschweig, where our members and Old Lutheran members are to grow together into one congregation, has developed to such an extent that consideration is being given to establishing an independent pastorate there at some point. New members of the congregation have joined from the former Evangelical-Augsburg Church in Poland. We hold our worship services in the cathedral chapel, a beautiful and dignified space that has been made available to us for use through the friendly accommodation of the regional church. But we are under no illusion that this can be a permanent state of affairs if congregational life is to be fostered. The numerous refugees from the East, of our church and of the Old Lutheran Church, who live scattered throughout the Braunschweig region as far as the Harz, can maintain little or no connection with the congregation in Braunschweig. We therefore had to try to set up preaching places in various, somewhat centrally located places, in order to give them the opportunity to take part in Lutheran Free Church worship services, so that they would not become estranged from their church. Thus there now exist congregations and preaching places in Rhüden, Lautenthal, Osterode, and Olxheim. In Lehrte and Völksen Bible hours are held. In Rhüden originally only one of our families lived, which diligently bore witness there to what moved its heart and to what our church intends; now a quite sizable group gathers there, one that "gladly hears and learns." Above all, in our work we are concerned with the spiritual care of our members, especially also the instruction of the growing youth; but not least we keep in view the mission work commanded to us by the Lord of the Church, which is meant to proceed from these young congregations as a nucleus, and indeed does so. We must still direct the special attention of our dear readers to the southernmost part of our district; I mean Göttingen and the localities belonging to it in the Solling and the Eichsfeld. In this area there has so far been no Free Church congregation. Only after the war did a small group gather in Göttingen, which grew over time and soon found itself compelled to exchange the room of a house it had previously used for a larger rented room. There, worship services are now held every three weeks, with Bible hours and instruction in between. Since an assistant preacher has been working in our district, we have been able to carry out our far-reaching sower's work somewhat satisfactorily, without having to constantly rush from one place to another. Admittedly, we still face a number of unsolved problems; not least among these is the work with confirmed youth. But this is neither merely a financial question nor a question of time or space alone; rather, it is also connected with the fact that here we are dealing with congregations that are only gradually coming together, getting to know one another, gaining trust in one another, and becoming able to form a genuine fellowship with one another. Much detailed work must be done in the individual places; only in this way may we expect to see fruit ripen over time. It is clear that we must also make use of weekdays for our travels to serve these places; today the difficulty that men cannot come to worship on weekdays is also no longer so great, for many have become unemployed and are glad and grateful that someone cares for them. * We cannot close our report without saying a further word about the outward hardship of our refugee congregations in particular. Here too, in the western zones, it is the case for the great mass of the population that they just barely get by with their means. But when we see the life of our unemployed refugees, who are in many cases recipients of public welfare, only then do we truly know what hardship really is. Much has already been said and written about this; however, that does not change the situation of our brothers and sisters. I say this so that it may once be properly brought to light that most of them make real sacrifices, even when they spend only a few pennies for the streetcar or a few marks for a Sunday round-trip ticket in order to attend the worship service. And when you, dear readers, learn that not a few not infrequently cover more than 20 km on foot in order to hear God's Word and take part in the fellowship of Christians, this ought to deeply shame many an indifferent and neglectful Christian in our church who has the church right at his door and yet does not come. By far the majority of our brothers and sisters in the faith, scattered throughout southern Hannover-Braunschweig, are not shaken in their loyalty to the Lutheran Free Church — to which they have belonged since childhood or which they found only after the war — by the great hardships they have to endure, both inwardly and outwardly. What has been described is only a slice of the work of our church as it takes place in many locations, and a piece of life that is struggling to take shape. There is much that is gratifying, and also much that is unpleasant and even painful, that had to be said. But none of that is what is decisive; rather, what is decisive is this: that people are won for God's kingdom and are kept therein through the preaching of the divine Word and the distribution of the holy Sacraments, even if this must happen amid much hardship and disappointment. And if only a single person were won, that would, according to the word of our Savior in Mark 8, be worth more than the whole world — but also worth more than our labor, our concern, and our disappointment. This certainty gives joy and strength to continue the work; and this certainty should make the Christians in our congregations willing to intercede and to cooperate. Erich Heine, Pastor, Hannover. The 70th-Anniversary Congregational Jubilee of the Freie Ev.-Luth. St. Matthäusgemeinde Brunsbrock. On Sunday, November 6, 1949, the Freie Ev.-Luth. St. Matthäusgemeinde Brunsbrock was able, by God's goodness, to celebrate its 70th anniversary. At the center of the festival service, which the congregation's brass choir and children's choir worthily framed with sacred music, stood the sermon of the local pastor on 1 Corinthians 3:9b: "You are God's field, God's building." In the early afternoon the children of the congregation — about 75 — gathered for a service in which they were told various things worth knowing from the history of the congregation, and were called upon to grow properly, with God's help, into the inheritance of their fathers and mothers. Afterward the whole congregation gathered once more in the church, where the local pastor recounted various things from the founding period, the growth, and the development of the congregation up to the most recent times, and called on it to remain in the future too a place where God's Word is proclaimed purely and clearly and the Sacraments are administered according to Christ's institution. May the Lord God grant His blessing to this end! The choir and brass choir also graced this festive hour with their music. The congregational gathering that took place at the close of the day had a festive character. May the faithful God grant the congregation many more such glorious days! Griesheimer Pastoral Conference of the Northern District. This year's autumn pastoral conference of the northern district took place on October 25 and 26 in Brunsbrock. The local congregation had provided in exemplary fashion for the lodging and meals of the conference participants. The congregation's choirs took delight in contributing to the enrichment of the conference worship service, followed by the celebration of Holy Communion for all the pastors. At the conference itself, besides exegetical questions, a paper on right and wrong polemics, a catechesis on the Seventh Commandment, and various reports, internal church matters were also discussed at length. Thus these days became a source of inner joy and strengthening for all participants. Griesheimer Choir Directors' Conference of the "Sängerbund der Evangelisch-Luth. Freikirche im nördl. Bezirk" in Wittingen. The choir directors, junior conductors, and especially interested choir members of the northern district, as well as guests from southern Germany and Hesse, met in Wittingen. Pastor Reuter-Wittingen gave a paper on the tasks of church choirs. He warned the choir directors against striving one-sidedly only for increased achievement on the part of the choirs. Just as a house is built wrongly if only ever higher walls are erected without a foundation, so too is choir work misguided if one forgets that our whole age has largely unlearned how to sing. The Christian is called to sing a hundredfold by the Bible and the hymnbook, and only when singing once again rings out daily in the Christian home does it become worthwhile to keep building further on choir work. The choir directors thereupon adopted a resolution calling on all choirs to feel responsible for this and to take steps so that congregational singing would be encouraged, singing would take place during family devotions, and the singing of children and mothers would once again become far more a matter of course. At an evening event the Wittingen church choir offered samples of its work, and all those present enjoyed themselves in the communal singing of folk-song settings that Cantor Paul Kretzschmar had prepared for youth work in the Free Church. Cantor Kretzschmar then gave a paper in which he showed the manifold relationships between word and music and demanded that all church music, in its service to the congregation, drive home the Word of God; only in this way, he said, would a church choir do justice to Luther's demand that "the notes bring the text to life." The next morning united the choir directors with the Wittingen congregation in a solemn worship service, in which Pastor Reuter preached on the confessional commitment of church music. The choral pieces presented in this service introduced the choir directors, in both word and music, to the right stance of Lutheran church music. After business discussions in the afternoon and a paper by Teacher Kayser-Uelzen, the numerous listeners then, at the festive hour that followed in the church, listened in deep emotion to the mighty strains of the chorales from Bach's motet "Jesu, meine Freude" [Jesus, My Joy]. All the other performances likewise proved that even in small congregations church-musical work can be carried on that helps to proclaim God's praise. It also seemed remarkable that the new organ, with its eleven speaking stops, developed an extraordinarily large number of tonal possibilities under Cantor Kretzschmar's hands. Although only music was heard during this festive hour, it nevertheless became a true worship service. — The out-of-town guests spent the evening with their hosts in a convivial evening of music, with chamber music and singing. It was an uplifting conclusion to this conference when all those present struck up Bach's setting of "Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren" [Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation]. J. K. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐ Elderly farming couple seeks Girl Refugee or orphan child, age 16—20 (possibly also a refugee woman), who can work on a medium-sized farm and also help out in the kitchen and house. Replies to: Herrn Lehrer G. Kräuse, (13a) Herreth/Ofr. üb. Lichtenfels, Schule. └─────────────────────────────────────────┘ Publisher: Lutheraner-Verlag G.m.b.H., Frankfurt/M., Taunusstraße 43. — Editor: Präses Heinrich Stallmann, (21b) Bochum IV, Gahlensche Str. 146. Printing: Maindruck, Frankfurt/M.-Fechenheim. — Published monthly. — Subscription price: single issue DM —.45, quarterly 1.35, plus postal delivery fee for postal subscriptions.