As of: March 27, 2024, 2:39 p.m
By: Jörg Domke
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Toni Beer, parish council chairman in Forstinning.
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The Christian churches have reached a turning point.
Means: Urgent need for action at the grassroots level in the parishes.
Toni Beer from Forstinning has his ideas.
Forstinning
– Toni Beer is in a hurry.
On the way from his job in Munich, he stopped by the flower shop to buy a few roses.
“For some members, they are in the women’s association,” he reveals to the chronicler.
The women's association, says the chairman of the Forstinning parish council, is ultimately one of the very important pillars of the parish of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, to which Beer has felt close ties for many years.
According to his own words, he was particularly pleased in recent days that younger women from Forstinning have again agreed to get involved in the group.
Important insights gained at a seminar in Freising
Beer knows that such commitment in a church organization is no longer a given these days.
A little over a year ago he invited people to a parish meeting in his Catholic parish to draw attention to what he saw as a dramatic development in front of parishioners and the otherwise interested public.
A development that not only affects the parish of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, but all Christian communities throughout Germany.
“You notice that it’s getting more and more difficult,” he says, without seeming resigned at the same time.
The local women's association, Beer adds, has developed well.
And the Kolping family is also on the right track.
But this is far from being a local trend reversal.
He recently attended a training event at the Domberg Academy in Freising, which dealt with exactly this question: “Will the trend turn around succeed?” However, what Toni Beer heard there was not very encouraging for him.
The answer to the question of whether it would still be possible to get people excited about local community work again was simply: no.
It was addressed to one of the speakers of the day, the Protestant regional bishop Christian Kopp.
Also focus on the needs of the members
The forces of modernity, it continued, were now too strong.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, Beer took away as further information, has determined for itself: One should concentrate on what the church can do and what the people also need, especially the members.
The Freising event was also about an evaluation of the 6th church membership survey.
The Forstinninger does not want to distinguish between the current situation of his Catholic and Protestant churches.
The problems of this time affected both of them equally, the Forstinninger said.
Church, it was emphasized at the seminar, must be personal again, otherwise it is not a church.
Or: You have to talk to people in a way that they understand.
The social impact and effectiveness of the church must be taken seriously.
Reforms should allow freedom and creativity.
Beer: “We grew up with church.
But today we have to recognize that religiosity is no longer a given.”
Statistical surveys confirm this. Only four to six percent of those surveyed, he explains to the EZ-Chronist, described themselves as believers with a close connection to the church.
What, the committed Forstinninger is currently asking himself, will happen if the volunteers also stop?
What comes next?
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“We have to convey our product better”
Subtle successes can be seen in Forstinning through the introduction of new formats: devotions that take place in a special light display.
Recently a night of organ music.
Church services outside in the schoolyard as often as possible.
According to Beer's credo, we just have to take care of the 33 percent who say that they are still committed to the church, even if they are critical of many things.
Toni Beer has long talked about the church as if it were an economic product.
“We have a great product, but we have to get it across correctly,” he says.
And I know that such a sentence is easy to say and yet takes a lot of effort to put into practice.
So how can you approach this type of advertising?
He is currently asking himself how to get people to think about what would be missing if the church and the values of the church no longer exist.
What does all this mean for a parish like the Visitation of the Virgin Mary?
Find a mixture of old and new forms of lived community.
Show up and get involved when the local social situation requires it.
Show yourself at every opportunity;
for example at club presentations, as happened in the sports center last year.
“Go out and not just take care of your own clientele,” says Beer.
Make it clear that the church is fundamentally diverse.
He and his team don't seem to be lacking in ideas.
Next year, Toni Beer is currently thinking, he is planning an event in the local parish hall at which all local clubs will present themselves.
The goal: to open the Rupert Mayer House even more and further than before.
And to bring it even more into the consciousness of all Forstinningers.
There are still a few important construction sites on site
This year, however, there are further tasks ahead.
In November it will be about the election of the new church administration.
“I think that the church administration is a very strong body of voice for lay people in the church.
We are looking for new candidates for this.
If anyone is interested in this and would like further information, please feel free to call me on my cell phone number.”
And then there are a few other “construction sites” in town.
Toni Beer: “We still have a lot of plans in Forstinning, such as making the cemetery and the parish hall (future-oriented), for this we need a strong committee that helps develop ideas.”
The more the better.
A sentence that stands in stark contrast to all the findings of the participants in the seminar on Domberg.
Namely, that church action can no longer assume that religiosity is a constant that cannot go back.
You can read even more news from the Ebersberg region here.
By the way: Everything from the region is also available in our regular Ebersberg newsletter