New premises inaugurated

The publishing company celebrated the inauguration of its new premises over two days with a number of distinguished guests on Tuesday and an open day on Wednesday. Among the guests were the retired Chief Apostle Wilhelm Leber, the District Apostles Bernd Koberstein and Michael Ehrich, as well as the former managing directors District Apostle (ret.) Hagen Wend and District Elder (ret.) Jürgen Hendriock.

A very positive development

“We are glad to have the publishers,” District Apostle Koberstein said on behalf of his colleagues, the other District Apostles. Acting as spokesman for the shareholders, Bernd Koberstein, who is president of the New Apostolic Church Hesse/Rhineland-Palatinate/Saarland addressed the restructuring measures of recent years, why they had become necessary, and highlighted the company’s performance. The publishers have made a very positive development, he said, making a point to thank the staff and, above all, the company’s managing director, District Evangelist Jürgen Kramer.

On the second day, colleagues from other German District Churches and business partners were given a chance to come and see the new premises. Two floors instead of four, plus extensions—much has changed at Bischoff Publishers. The company’s new location is Neu-Isenburg, a small town on the outskirts of Frankfurt am Main, with good transportation links. Also from an economic standpoint it is better than the old premises at Frankfurt Westhafen—an area of Frankfurt that is in the focus of urban developers.

Strategic reorientation

The old location was no longer economically viable, not least of all because more and more offices came to be vacant over the last few years—a consequence of restructuring measures that began in the year 2010. Bischoff Publishers and Bischoff Printers parted ways because the print shop was no longer able to operate cost-effectively. The Publishers began to outsource services, starting with shipping and warehousing in 2012 and customer services at the beginning of 2015.

At the end of 2014, the Our Family and Notre Famille, as well as other foreign-language editions, were discontinued. A new chapter began in early 2015 with the launch of the online news magazine nac.today and community, the international quarterly published by the Church. Both the print and digital formats are being produced for the New Apostolic Church International at the premises of Bischoff Publishers. The Church continues to rely on the proven professional services of the publishers, for example with the production of the Divine Service Guide—the monthly publication for the ministers of the Church—and video transmissions of divine services.

More than 80 years of tradition

New Apostolic publications have a long-standing tradition and go back to the year 1863. Already shortly after the Hamburg congregation separated from the Catholic Apostolic Church, the prophet Heinrich Geyer launched a magazine Der Sendbote. Other German-language publications followed.

In the mid 1920s, then, Chief Apostle Niehaus commissioned his assistant, Johann Gottfried Bischoff, to move the publishing activities of the Church to Frankfurt. His son, Friedrich Bischoff, established a printing shop in 1929 and a publishing company in 1932. The company produced a number of German-language publications, which were later also issued in English and other languages. He founded periodicals such as The New Apostolic Review, Word of Life, and the Youth Guide. The German magazine Unsere Familie was launched in 1933, and in 1952 its English counterpart, the Our Family, as well as The Good Shepherd, a periodical for children. This was replaced in 1998 by the magazine Our World. In 2002 Bischoff launched spirit, a German-language magazine for young New Apostolic Christians.