The New Apostolic Church in North-Rhine Westphalia (Germany) is comprised of 30 districts. One of the largest districts is Essen with its eleven congregations and 3,400 members. The Chief Apostle will be visiting them this coming weekend.
Chief Apostle Jean-Luc Schneider as well as all the District Apostles and District Apostle Helpers from around the world will be in Essen. This certainly does not happen often! The concert on Saturday as well as the divine service on Sunday will both take place in our church Chief Apostle Jean-Luc Schneider as well as all the District Apostles and District Apostle Helpers from around the world will be in Essen. This certainly does not happen often! The concert on Saturday as well as the divine service on Sunday will both take place in our church Essen-Rüttenscheid. The church has a seating capacity for 550 worshippers. A choral concert will attune the members to the Sunday service. It’s title “Mercifully grant us peace”. The district choir, female choir, children’s choir, and a male ensemble will perform—the district has quite a bit to offer musically.
The divine service on Sunday will also take place in our church in Essen-Rüttenscheid. And because the Chief Apostle is coming, it will be transmitted via satellite and IPTV. Many thousands of New Apostolic Christians in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and other European areas that are cared for by the New Apostolic Church NRW, will be able to participate in the service live. More than a thousand members who are ill and can no longer attend the divine services will also be able to follow the service either by telephone or Internet.
Meetings of various Church bodies
North-Rhine Westphalia was chosen as the location for this divine service because the international Church leaders will be meeting here for conferences. For today the Chief Apostle has convened a conference of the District Apostle Meeting Africa (DAMA), which focuses on topics that are important for the Church in Africa. If all can come, there will be 17 District Apostles and eleven District Apostle Helpers. Hosting the event is District Apostle Rainer Storck. The International Finance Committee will meet on Monday.
On Saturday afternoon, the international guests will be given a tour of the exhibition grounds in Düsseldorf, where the International Youth Convention will take place at the end of May 2019.
A green city
There have been New Apostolic congregations in Essen since 1896. The church district was founded in March 1904. Chief Apostle Johann Gottfried Bischoff celebrated his last divine service in Essen on 17 April 1960. Subsequent Chief Apostles too visited the city on the Ruhr River. Essen has been named the 2017 European Green Capital. The title is awarded annually by the European Commission to a city that has been particularly successful in combining environmental protection and economic growth and create an excellent quality of life for its inhabitants, the jury said.
The successful transformation in the last decades from an industrial and coal-mining city to a Green City is amazing. The city is known for its famous Folkwang Museum and Villa Hügel—a nineteenth century mansion owned by the Krupp family, a family of industrialists. And then there is the Zeche Zollverein, a former coalmine complex, which has been developed into an architectural and industrial monument, and declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Essen is situated in a densely populated region. The city itself has a population of 600,000. Nine million people live within a 50 kilometre radius.
Photo: Frank Schuldt