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New evangelical pastor: "Nice to be here again"

2023-01-04T14:17:09.132Z


New evangelical pastor: "Nice to be here again" Created: 04/01/2023 15:06 By: Peter Schiebel At home again in his hometown: Starnberg's new evangelical pastor Simon Döbrich in the Friedenskirche. The Carolinenhaus is to be retained as a community center, but it also needs to be used more intensively. Pastor Simon Döbrich on one of the tasks for 2023 © Andrea Jaksch After three months, Starnber


New evangelical pastor: "Nice to be here again"

Created: 04/01/2023 15:06

By: Peter Schiebel

At home again in his hometown: Starnberg's new evangelical pastor Simon Döbrich in the Friedenskirche.

The Carolinenhaus is to be retained as a community center, but it also needs to be used more intensively.

Pastor Simon Döbrich on one of the tasks for 2023 © Andrea Jaksch

After three months, Starnberg's new evangelical pastor, Simon Döbrich (46), feels at home again in the city where he grew up but left 25 years ago.

What he plans for the new year, why January 6th has a special meaning for him - the Starnberger Merkur spoke to him.

Starnberg

– Simon Döbrich (46) is of course aware that January 6th will be much smaller in Germany than in Spain.

A big party with gifts, a colorful parade with the Three Wise Men, elephants and many more participants - what happens on the streets and in the houses of Madrid on the night of Epiphany, none of that exists in Starnberg.

"There is a very big shift in the Christmas tradition," says Döbrich, who led the German-speaking Evangelical congregation in the Spanish capital for seven years before taking up the first pastorate in the Evangelical-Lutheran congregation in Starnberg on October 1.

The start was anything but easy: Döbrich took over a position that had previously been vacant for a year, and a few weeks earlier Pastor Dr.

Anne Stempel-de Fallois switched to teaching, which is why there has been another vacancy in Starnberg and Söcking since then.

And above all there is the prospect that the congregation will probably lose one of its three pastoral positions in 2024 anyway and that the contract with Pastor Johannes de Fallois will be limited.

But that doesn't bother him personally: "We feel very comfortable here as a family," he says, also speaking for his wife Ligia and their twelve-year-old son David.

"We were warmly welcomed and met a very committed congregation that is open, ecumenical, honest and warm and lives the spirit of being evangelical very strongly." own story back.

After all, his father Wolfgang Döbrich was a pastor in Starnberg in the 1990s.

Nevertheless, he "quickly noticed that there is a lot of work here" - organizationally, structurally, but also personally.

Pastor wants to visit or invite church members

Among other things, Döbrich wants to do more grassroots work again and, for example, visit members of the community personally or invite them, for example to birthdays.

"Show presence, build trust," he says.

The future of the Carolinenhaus in Söcking is likely to be a major topic.

“It should be preserved as a community center, but it also needs to be used more,” he says. In view of the requirements of the state church leadership, this means: “It has to become an object that can finance itself.” Döbrich can, for example present an expansion of the already existing after-school care offer.

Ultimately, you need a usage concept.

“The greatest possible community acceptance” is important to him.

He sees an increased need for space and staff at the social psychiatric service in Starnberg (SpDi), which is supported by the Evangelische Diakonieverein and has its rooms in the community center on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse.

In addition, there is the Starnberger Tafel's long-established wish for its own permanent building.

"It won't happen overnight," says Döbrich.

Nevertheless, he wants to tackle it in the new year and at least explore what is possible on the property at the Friedenskirche, where the voluntary Tafel employees have been setting up and dismantling their stands every Thursday in wind and weather.

And then in 2023, of course, the application process for the pastorate II, which has been vacant since Anne Stempel-de Fallois' change, will start. "That will be initiated in the spring," says Döbrich, hoping for suitable applications.

In addition, the future of Johannes de Fallois is open.

Döbrich is full of praise and gratitude for his colleagues: "I'm happy about every day he's here."

Despite the abundance of tasks: the 46-year-old feels completely at home in his old, new home.

"Starnberg has a very cosmopolitan climate, even if the people of Starnberg don't believe it," he says.

"It's nice to be back." And as far as January 6th is concerned, that should probably be the least change, especially since he really enjoyed Christmas Eve and Christmas in Starnberg.

"It was very impressive what was put together, from the station Christmas to Christmas at the lake to the classic church services."

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2023-01-04

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