He is not one known for grand gestures, but for genuine closeness. District Apostle Mark Woll from Canada built structures and touched hearts. Now he is retiring.
“Hi, I’m Mark!” The way District Apostle Woll walks into the unfamiliar office may be the Canadian way. But with him, it does not come across as professionally contrived, but rather as personal and authentic. Open, benevolent, focused: these are his strengths.
From Kitchener to Toronto
Mark Woll was born in March 1959 and grew up in Kitchener, virtually the New Apostolic capital of Canada. This was already the case in the era of the almost legendary District Apostle Kraus. Mark Woll’s grandparents had immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1929 and were sealed in 1931. Both his grandfather and father were ministers: one was a District Evangelist, the other an Apostle.
Like many of his generation, Mark Woll was called to ministry at an early age: he became a Sub-deacon at 16. He studied business administration. While at university, he also met his wife, Marion. They have three children, two daughters and a son. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, with a major in accounting, he worked in various companies ranging from manufacturing to administration of benefit trusts as chief financial officer and general manager.
From Canada into the wider world
Then the time came when he could contribute his professional expertise to the Church. Mark Woll was ordained an Apostle in May 2000, was assigned as District Apostle Helper for Canada and large parts of India two years later, and installed as District Apostle in 2010.
His working area covered eleven countries: from Pakistan to Cambodia in Asia and from the Republic of Congo to Chad in Africa. Sometimes he was on the road 180 days a year. It could happen that he came directly from South Asia to the District Apostle Meeting in Switzerland and then travelled on to Central Africa immediately afterwards.
Order, clarity, future
He reorganised structures, district by district, congregation by congregation, calmly and analytically. “Thanks to his training in financial and administrative matters, he was able to provide significant support in the work of God both at home and abroad,” Chief Apostle Jean-Luc Schneider writes in his message to the Apostles worldwide. In this way, District Apostle Woll made the Regional Churches entrusted to him fit for the future.
He also contributed his expertise internationally: for example, in the Finance Committee, from which the Board of Directors of the New Apostolic Church International (NACI) ultimately emerged; or as chairman of the CTM (Children’s Teaching Material) project group for over twelve years.
The person behind the ministry
To see Mark Woll only as a numbers person would be doing him a great injustice. He exudes a sincere and relaxed friendliness. No matter what happens, he always finds something good in his counterpart, say long-time companions. And this is not a deliberate method or how he wants to be seen. It is simply his nature.
His accessibility is both a great strength and a minor weakness: there is hardly a phone call that he does not answer, hardly an email that he does not reply to, and certainly hardly a conversation that he does not take the time for. Sometimes his closest colleagues had to protect him a little from himself.
His years as congregational rector were his happiest. “I had the chance to build up a very close and trusting relationship with my brothers and sisters,” he says. Because “the fellowship in the congregation gives us strength”. And where does this strength come from? “Not just by being together,” he says, “but by communicating with one another, uplifting one another, encouraging one another, comforting one another, caring for our neighbour, serving and supporting one another.”
The thank-you videos and good wishes from the congregations, which were broadcast after his last divine service on Wednesday, show how District Apostle Woll touched the hearts of those entrusted to his care: