Alexander Garth

Alexander Garth in 2008

Alexander Garth (* 1958 ) is a German Protestant theologian , pastor , founder of the Junge Kirche Berlin and non-fiction author .

Live and act

Alexander Garth grew up in Saxony . He trained as a nurse and worked among people with intellectual disabilities . He found faith in Herrnhut . After graduating from high school, he studied Protestant theology in Leipzig . In 1987 he was ordained as a vicariate and pastor in Saxony, before he was expatriated from the GDR . He then got involved in various church building and planting projects in Munich and Hamburg . From 1990 to 1999 he worked as a pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran City Church in Sonneberg , where he established a daughter congregation in a prefabricated housing estate and was the head of a kindergarten. Between 1999 and 2013 he was head of the Berlin City Mission . In 1999 he founded the Junge Kirche Berlin in Berlin-Hellersdorf as a pilot project of the Protestant Church and the city mission . 2013/14 worked on a Fresh expressions project of Vineyard Berlin, an ecumenically oriented charismatic renewal and church planting movement as an independent lay movement within the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia (EKBO). From 2014-2015 he worked as a consultant and initiator of new projects in the Evangelical Church and as a lecturer in practical theology at the Adelshofen Theological Seminary . Since January 2017 he has been pastor at the Lutherstadt Wittenberg church , whose pastorate IV of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany (EKM) he had represented from May 2016.

He is a speaker at conferences and youth meetings. As the author of several non-fiction books, he deals with the topics of religious doubt, atheism , mission , church planting (youth churches), spiritual church building and evangelism in secular postmodernism .

Private

Alexander Garth is married to his wife Damaris. The couple has a son and lives in Berlin-Neukölln and Wittenberg.

Publications

• Why I am no atheist , Gerth Medien, Asslar 2008, ISBN 978-3-86591-305-0 .
• The world is not enough: when people discover God , Gerth Medien, Asslar 2010, ISBN 978-3-86591-556-6 .
• Doubt has reasons, so does belief , SCM Hänssler, Holzgerlingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-7751-5601-1 .
• What for? Seeking the meaning of life , SCM Hänssler, Holzgerlingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-7751-5559-5 .
• Godless west? Opportunities for faith and the church in a de-Christianized world , Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2017, ISBN 978-3-374-05026-0 .

as a co-author

• with Werner Neuer : The EKD Mission Synod: balance sheet of the year 2000; the 24 German regional churches after the EKD Synod in Leipzig in November 1999; Results of a survey and practical considerations , Idea documentation, Wetzlar 2001.
• with Dirk Farr and Katja Cramer: God? 1zu1 - one: one - believing.finder , cap-books, Haiterbach-Beihingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-86773-143-0 .

Essays

• A mission congregation for the non-denominational. Some biblical-theological prerequisites for congregations reaching the non-denominational with the gospel. Presentation at the 2nd scientific conference of the network "Community and functional services" on February 13th and 14th, 2004 in Erfurt , Documentation No. 19, Evangelischer Pressedienst , Frankfurt 2004.
• What must happen for atheists to become Christians? , Praxis magazine 2/2004.
• Reaching non-denominational . In: Ulrich Läpple and Volker Roschke (eds.): The so-called non-denominational and the mission of the church , Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen 2007, ISBN 978-3-7887-2257-9 .
• I was absolutely delighted . In: Arnaud Liszka: Try to live in the truth. GDR Southeast - Nonadjustment and Opposition in Upper Lusatia. Interviews . Neisse Verlag, Dresden 2010, ISBN 978-3-940310-87-3 , pp. 141-146.
• Dealing with the "new" atheism . In: Tobias Faix , Martin Hofmann, Tobias Künkler: Why we are allowed to believe mature , SCM R. Brockhaus , Witten 2015, ISBN 978-3-417-26664-1 , pp. 55–70.

Web links

• Literature by and about Alexander Garth in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Alexander Garth  in the German Digital Library
• Alexander Garth: Homepage
• Vineyard Berlin - website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Buffalo and burn, faz.net, article by Josefine Janert from July 27, 2007 ( Memento from December 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Seeking God in the shopping temple: Helle Mitte now has a “shop church”. In: jot.wd The other from the Wuhletal: Citizens' newspaper for Marzahn-Hellersdorf , issue No. 11/2002 , page 6 , jotwede-online.de
3. ↑ Protestants discover mission in Germany , welt.de, article by Ralf Fischer from November 29, 2009.
4. ↑ Ruth Bachmann, Peter Baumgardt, Anita Brutler: Your music in God's ear ... A church service in the Vineyard Heidelberg. In: Metropolitan religions: Religious diversity in the Rhine-Neckar triangle. Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg , Institute for Religious Studies, archived from the original ; accessed on February 14, 2016 . 
5. ↑ Garth: Kurzvita , lza.de, accessed on December 23, 2015.
6. ↑ Theological statement: If the Bible is God's word ... , kath.net, article from January 11, 2016.
7. ↑ LZA lecturers , lza.de, accessed on December 23, 2015.
8. ↑ Pastor in the Wittenberg parish: Alexander Garth is the third member of the group , wittenbergersonntag.de, message from January 11, 2017.
9. ↑ Garth as a speaker on the topic of a community with charisma, allianzhaus.de, alliance conference in Bad Blankenburg / Thuringia in August 2009 ( Memento from December 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
10. ^ Garth: Speaker at the Whitsun youth meeting in Aidlingen , jugendtreffen-aidlingen.de, accessed on December 23, 2015.
11. ↑ How do you talk to atheists about faith? , idea , article from October 15, 2013.
12. ↑ There are no alternatives to doubt : Bernd Gülker in an interview with Alexander Garth