Camping Church
Camping Church is the name of an offer by the Protestant and Catholic Church for campers. An open program for campers is offered at the campsite . The term camping church, also referred to by Protestant Christians as the church on the way , is not clearly defined. What the individual camping churches understand by this is also very heterogeneous. The spectrum ranges from occasional church services on the campsite, which the local parish offers, to a varied daily program during the holiday season. This is why volunteer " teamers " live and work on the campsite. A large camping church like the one in the Oberrhein Leisure Center ( Baden-Württemberg ) offers a program around 90 days a year with around 60 volunteers, which in the main season includes over 40 events per week. Many of the camping churches use the two symbols of the camping church. One is a cross made of red mosaic stones, the other shows a stylized boat in front of a caravan and a tent.
program
Possible religious program items are church services , morning and evening prayers and also meditations. Examples of the non-religious program are childcare with common singing, games and handicrafts, children's parties, lantern parades and campfires, games, handicrafts and sport for young people and handicrafts, sport, film evenings, skat evenings and music evenings for adults. It is noticeable that the same names are often used for some items on the program, despite the significantly different contents. Very often, for example, there is a children's lesson and a sandman in the children's program. At least in the 1970s, due to the high proportion of Dutch tourists on campsites on the Biggesee in the Sauerland , these took place as “Kinderuurtje” in Dutch.
aims
The church ventures with this pastoral care of tourism out of the safe walls of their firmly established order into the close and glass world of a campsite. Here the church has and seeks direct contact with people. Because she has a part in the daily routine, the joys and worries of people who are dependent on each other for a limited time, she is part of a "temporary church".
history
.jpg)
In the 1960s, many parishes and church committees discussed whether the church should react to the empty houses of God during the holiday season and accompany holidaymakers on their vacation. For this reason, at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, the first camping churches were opened in German holiday areas such as B. Eifel , Lüneburg Heath , Biggesee, North Sea and Lake Constance founded.
Camping church in the Archdiocese of Freiburg
The Archdiocese of Freiburg organizes and finances two camping churches. Since the two work closely together, they have a similar scope in terms of program and content. A camping church, it is one of the largest in Germany, works in the leisure center Oberrhein ( 48 ° 47 ' N , 8 ° 2' E ) in Stollhofen (Rheinmünster) , located between Bühl and Baden-Baden on the Rhine, and offers campers one of the most extensive programs. 40,000 to 50,000 campers visit the facility each season. Around 60 volunteers work to ensure that a program can be offered on the approx. 90 days of deployment.
The second offers its program on Lake Constance in the camping village Horn ( 47 ° 41 ′ N , 9 ° 0 ′ E ) in Horn . A program is offered there for five weeks during the summer holidays in Baden-Württemberg.
program
The Sunday worship service, morning impulses and evening prayers are religious offers. By far the largest part of the program is not religious. For children from 3 to 13 years of age, the children's hour with singing, games and handicrafts is offered on weekdays and the sandman in the evening, again with some hands-on songs and a bedtime story. Young people and adults can come to the craft meeting several times a week. Several techniques are offered in parallel. Morning exercise is offered three times a week and volleyball almost every afternoon for the same target group. On Saturday there is either a big children's party in the afternoon or a lantern parade with a campfire in the evening after the sandman. Evening events include youth rock, family film evenings, night hikes or a skat evening. Books and games are not only available for rent on rainy days.
team
The composition of the team is very heterogeneous. The following professional groups worked with us in 2008: high school graduates, educators, IT operators, nurses, teachers, physicists, schoolchildren, social workers and pedagogues, students, technicians and theologians (the male form was used for the sake of simplicity, although most of the employees are female ). Most of them come to the camping church as part of an internship and many stay with the facility for many years, some even for decades. It is precisely this mixture of experienced teamers and the fresh wind of the beginners that distinguishes the team.
History in the Diocese of Freiburg
In 1970, camping pastoral care was established on two campsites on Lake Constance, in Hagnau and Allensbach , together with the Protestant church. For the Catholic side, a Pallottine Father , rector of the Catholic advanced high school and boarding school in Hersberg, organized a team consisting of several students. One of these students has since organized the camping church in the Archdiocese of Freiburg. In 1977 the first negotiations for a camping church in the Oberrhein leisure center, Stollhofen (Rheinmünster) , were conducted. In 1978 a team was on the pitch for the first time and was there for the campers for five weeks. Since then, the range and operating time has been steadily expanded to the present day. The operation on Lake Constance was managed by the local communities on various campsites until 1989. In 1990 the Archdiocese only ran a program at Camping Willam. The two camping churches in the archdiocese have been working very closely together since this year. In 1997, due to the general conditions, the assignment was relocated from Camping Willam (Allensbach) to Campingdorf Horn and has been an established institution there ever since.
literature
- Südkurier from March 25, 1970 Article: Campsite pastoral care initially in Hagnau and Allensbach.
- Konradsblatt dated July 11, 1976 Article: Exemplary camping pastoral care on Lake Constance.
- Konradsblatt 1978 article: An unobtrusive offer to the campers.
- Deutschlandradio Kultur on August 30, 2008 at 4:30 p.m. Contribution: Sandman, clown and pastor.
- Badisches Tagblatt dated September 5, 2008, article: Finding God between the quarry pond and the mobile home.