This week we take a look at an anniversary in Australia and a campaign for a better future. There certainly are reasons to celebrate, but there are also always moments to pause and reflect and pray for others.

“Why?” is one of the most common questions. Sometimes one asks out curiosity, other times it is out of sheer despair. Here is an excerpt from a sermon on how to deal with the unexplained.

A burning bush, thunder, and lightning. Encounters with God are described as terrifying events in the Bible. Yet, District Apostle Joseph Opemba Ekhuya from Kenya in East Africa looks forward to it in spite of this.

Joy and sadness often exist side by side. While some can come together and celebrate again, others are struggling to come to terms with destruction. Let’s pray for all.

“Let us trust in God, let us believe in Jesus Christ, let us believe in the effectiveness of the Holy Spirit and act accordingly. Those who do this will benefit fully from salvation. This is nothing new, but I don’t know of anything else that would be more important for us than that.”

Podcasts are becoming more and more popular all around the world. People use them to talk about everything on God’s green earth. And since God is the Creator of it all, it wasn’t long before some of our own members decided to take advantage of the opportunity to use podcasts to profess their faith.

A reliable range of video services has accompanied the faithful since the beginning of the pandemic. The changes in the weekly overview are becoming fewer and fewer. Here is this week’s list of countries, languages, and links.

Again the Chief Apostle was hardly able to travel in the first half of the year and could therefore ordain and retire only a few Apostles. Instead, he asked the District Apostles to perform these ministerial acts on his behalf. At the end of June 2021, 337 Apostles were active around the world.

Is there a need for women in pastoral care? There sure is! This is the conclusion reached by an official work group in the New Apostolic Church Western Germany—and the group has concrete figures to demonstrate the need for a response to this demand in the congregations.

None of us know how the future will look. And yet there is one thing we do know: Christ is our future. District Apostle Wolfgang Nadolny of Berlin in Germany tells us about the tasks involved.

“When you look at a construction site, you might think, ‘What will this become?’ But sometimes there is a picture that shows what the building will look like in the end. The picture is Christ,” District Apostle Michael Deppner said on Pentecost. Following is an overview of church buildings and other facilities under construction.

The Chief Apostle’s trip to Zambia and the DR Congo has been cancelled. He will not be able to travel there. He is very disappointed, but what pains him the most is the disappointment of the brothers and sisters. He is well acquainted with the conditions of the members there.

The New Apostolic Church recognises the equality of the sexes. An essay in the new issue of community summarises findings by the District Apostle Meeting from the biblical account of creation. Here is the summary of a summary.

Four dead, two survivors: a boating accident on the Kahamba River leaves a huge void. Many congregations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are deeply saddened. Those killed in the accident were their ministers.

“It is the same everywhere, only different,” Chief Apostle Hans Urwyler once said many years ago. Life and faith differ greatly in the congregations around the world, yet there is so much we have in common. community presents some of these commonalities in its latest issue, 03/2021.

“Sown into the heart”—this was the motto of the Christian churches at the Federal Garden Show in Erfurt, Germany. All around the world, Christians are sowing positive things into the hearts of their fellow human beings. For example, our Apostles sow love, and our young people are sowing the notion of taking responsibility for the creation.

Trust or doubt, forgiveness or bad memories, love for our neighbour or prejudices? When packing for our future with God, let’s only take along what is truly important. District Apostle Michael Deppner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who worked for the UN refugee agency as a doctor, explains what matters.

There was certainly plenty of buzz on the social media sponsored by the New Apostolic Church. The subject of women in ministry generated hundreds of comments. And the reactions could hardly have been more different.