Crux (Youth Pastoral Center)
The CRUX ( lat .; Cross) is the youth pastoral center of the Catholic Church in the southern part of Cologne . In addition to the St. Johann Baptist Church, CRUX also includes the CRUX café. The church is also known as the Church with the Leaning Tower : In the summer of 2004, the tower leaned as a result of the construction of the underground on the north-south light rail , and reports of the Leaning Tower of Cologne were reported beyond the city limits . The tilting of the church tower accelerated the deliberations on the new conception of the church as a center of youth.
The CRUX is sponsored by the Catholic Youth Agency Cologne gGmbH.
history
The roots of the project of a youth pastoral center around the Church of St. Johann Baptist go back to the time when the Catholic youth welfare office was still located in the Ludwig-Wolker-Haus and the city youth masses took place in St. Maria im Kapitol . The idea came together when the church tower tilted in September 2004 as a result of the underground construction and renovation work became necessary. The positive experiences during the World Youth Day 2005 support the wish of those responsible in the Archdiocese of Cologne to strengthen the youth pastoral care and to create youth pastoral centers. In 2006 Dominik Meiering became city youth minister; he was significantly involved in the creation of CRUX and has decisively shaped its philosophy as a place of home, meeting and community for young people. Since 2007, Sisters of the Gospel Community have been volunteering at CRUX. You had previously worked in the KHG Bonn . After a long period of renovation, the St. Johann Baptist Church was inaugurated as the CRUX St. Johann Baptist Church on June 28, 2009 by Auxiliary Bishop Manfred Melzer . On April 12, 2010 the CRUX-Café was opened with. Since August 15, 2015 Tobias Schwaderlapp has been city and district youth pastor for Cologne and the Rhein-Erft district and thus head of CRUX, after Dominik Meiering was appointed vicar general of the Archdiocese of Cologne in February 2015 .
Premises
The CRUX youth pastoral center has a church, café and meeting rooms under one roof. In the main part of the building is the CRUX Church of St. Johann Baptist. The CRUX café is located in the tower and the adjacent part. The architecture itself makes the philosophy of CRUX visible: Faith and life belong together. The church and café are furnished to suit young people. In addition, there is the CRUX hall as a meeting room as well as the papal salon for meetings in smaller groups.
church
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(→ St. Johann Baptist (Cologne) )
The CRUX-Church St. Johann Baptist is the spiritual center of the CRUX. The furnishings are kept simple so that young people can design the interior themselves. Old and new are deliberately combined: In addition to medieval statues and the valuable baptismal font, there are converted musician's boxes that serve as seating.
Coffee shop
The 70 m² CRUX café consists of a counter area and a café lounge. The café is futuristically furnished with UFO lamps and extravagant sofas and has a large window front facing the street. It is open three days a week and offers various types of coffee, soft drinks and small snacks. On Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., over 30 teenagers and young adults volunteer at the counter.
Events
In addition to spiritual offers, there are events in which leisure, fun and activities are offered. Since the summer of 2011, a six-month program has been published twice a year that gives an overview of the events.
Spiritual-religious events
The spiritual center of life at CRUX is the city youth mass, which is celebrated on Sundays at 6:00 p.m. (except on the first Sunday of the month) in the CRUX church. In addition, there is an evening mass with the ministers of the Gospel on Thursdays at 6:30 p.m., and on Tuesday mornings there is a morning prayer at 6:30 a.m. followed by breakfast or early shifts at 7:00 a.m. during Advent and Lent . Rora masses are also celebrated in Advent . The CRUX is connected to Taizé . That is why there is a monthly Taizé prayer in St. Agnes , two Taizé trips annually as well as the Great Night of Lights on the first Sunday in November and a “Day like in Taizé” in spring.
Faith course
The events at CRUX also include the faith course, where young people meet to talk about their faith together. The course takes place twice a year, on Mondays over a period of ten weeks. The evenings have a recurring structure. After starting with a snack, an impulse is offered on the respective topic. Afterwards, the participants meet in small groups to deepen and exchange ideas.
Social and cultural events
The social and cultural offers include interactive exhibitions, parties in the café, concerts and musicals, choir and band projects from New Spiritual Music to African beats and rhythms. There are also training courses, dance courses, a first aid course, guitar and Spanish courses .
aims
The CRUX should be a place of encounter, a place where the church can be felt as a community. Adolescents and young adults between the ages of 15 and 27 should be addressed regardless of their proximity or distance to the church.
The CRUX, whose motto “Believe. Catholic. Life. ”, Tries to make the church and community tangible and to bring the church together with the lifestyle of young people. The questions, worries and longings of the young people should be perceived and they should be offered a home with a “clear Catholic profile”. Adolescents and young adults should have the opportunity to share their faith with one another or to get involved in the church. Problems of youth such as youth poverty, high school diploma after twelve years , unemployment should be recognized and appropriate pastoral care should be offered. The CRUX should not be a substitute for the home parishes.
The CRUX relies on the cooperation with company groups and school classes from the surrounding schools, as well as on contact with young people with a migration background in order to enter into an intercultural or interreligious dialogue with them. In addition, the youth work in the city dean of Cologne is to be networked and coordinated via the CRUX.
Similar projects
- Jule in Leverkusen
- the embassy in Düsseldorf
- Campanile in Bonn
Individual evidence
- ↑ crux-koeln.de, welcome! City youth fair for the introduction of the new city youth pastor ( memento of the original from August 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on August 28, 2015
- ↑ domradio.de , Tobias Schwaderlapp new BDKJ President for Cologne. "Jugend ist die Gegenwart" (June 3, 2015) , accessed on August 28, 2015
- ↑ Concept for the youth pastoral center at St. Johann Baptist in Cologne (PDF; 323 kB)
Web links
- CRUX homepage (accessed December 30, 2016)
- Video about youth churches from 2009 on kathisch.de (accessed December 30, 2016)
Coordinates: 50 ° 55 ′ 44.4 " N , 6 ° 57 ′ 28" E