Friedrich Fries (publisher)

Friedrich Fries (born December 18, 1856 in Mauden , † September 23, 1926 in Hamm ) was an evangelist and preacher of the Association of Free Evangelical Congregations and the founder and editor of the SCM Bundes-Verlag .

Life

• In October 1887 he founded the company "Fries und Co." in Witten with a share capital of 6.80 marks, which operated as the "Buchhandlung der Stadtmission" and was supposed to serve the missionary dissemination of publications and the legal safeguarding of a meeting house for the small Christian community there. This is the beginning of today's SCM Bundes-Verlag .
• In 1890 he brought out the evangelistic distribution sheet “Der Märkische Evangelist”.
• In 1892 he began with a sheet for so-called "youth clubs" with the name "Timotheus".
• In 1893 the first edition of the weekly magazine "Der Gärtner" came out as a "Journal for Free Evangelical Congregations and Communities". It has developed into a modern monthly magazine with the name “Christsein Today”.
• In 1893 the first book calendar was published with the title "The Good Ambassador", which was followed in 1902 by the "Witten tear-off calendar".
• In 1894 Fries brought out a Sunday school paper for children with the title: "Peace be with you".
• As early as 1888, under difficult circumstances, he had started a book production that is being continued by today's SCM Bundes-Verlag - albeit on a modest scale. This also included the publication of the “Geistliche Lieder”, a hymn book for congregations, in 1898.
• The beginning of a deaconess work in Wetter (Ruhr) in 1896, which was initially controversial, led to the existence of a very significant deaconry work, today in Solingen-Aufderhöhe.
• Fries helped found the real estate company “Gemeinwohl” in 1904, which legally secured the land and buildings of the municipalities, and was the first to draft the necessary statutes.
• The creation of an evangelization work in the Federation of Free Evangelical Churches (today “Inlandmission”) in 1904 goes back to his initiative, which he implemented together with Otto Schopf (1870–1913).
• Fries also led the way with the initially controversial establishment of the savings and credit bank of the Federal FeG by setting up the “Bausparkasse des Gemeinnützigen Bauverein Freier Evangelischer Gemeinde eGmbH in Hamm” in 1925.

His origins in the Westerwald, his learned profession as a blacksmith and, above all, his influence from the Siegerland revival movement had taught him practical, unconventional Christianity with no ifs or buts. It was here that Fries discovered his enthusiasm for singing, which led to the fact that he - still without knowledge of music - founded a choir and became its conductor. Singing together did not let him go, so that with increasing ability he became involved in the Christian Singing Association founded in 1879 and was active on the board of the West German Association.

Without any previous theological training, Fries had become a messenger in the Wuppertal-based Evangelical Brothers' Association, which sent him to Wesel as a city missionary. There he got to know a Free Evangelical Congregation and met leading personalities from whom he received a variety of suggestions. They prompted him to take his later initiatives. In 1884 he left the Brothers' Association and reported to the Neukirchen Mission for missionary work in Java. When the departure failed, he accepted the appointment as preacher of the free evangelical congregation in Witten in 1887 at the mediation of the Neukirchen mission inspector Julius Stursberg (1857-1909) and at the request of the Witten scholar and evangelist Friedrich Baedeker (1823-1906). With the initiatives mentioned, Fries made a decisive contribution to the identification and further development of the Free Evangelical Churches. He became a “pioneer for a new chapter in federal history” of the FeG (Karl Mosner). His friends sometimes called him “Brother Superlative” because of his passion for enthusiasm. As his successor in the pastor's service, Fries had brought Otto Schopf to Witten, who succeeded in giving "Fries' work a much richer content than the latter, a more intimate spirit, a larger dimension" (Bussemer).

Works

• with Carl Bender, Robert Kaiser: Opening ceremony of the “Bethanien” deaconess home in Wetter an der Ruhr. In: The gardener. 4/1896, Witten 1896, pp. 190-192.
• Something about property rights, with a particular focus on meeting houses. In: The gardener. 7/1899, pp. 363-364, 372-373, 388-389.

literature

• Konrad Bussemer : Friedrich Fries, a servant of the community from the people. Witten 1929.
• Karl Mosner: Friedrich Fries - a servant of the community of Jesus from the people and pioneer of the free evangelical communities. Witten 1948.
• Karl Glebe: On the hundredth birthday of Friedrich Fries. In: The gardener. 1956, pp. 1016f.
• Hartmut Weyel: anvil, pulpit and printing press. Friedrich Fries (1856-1926). In: Being a Christian Today. 12/2006, pp. 26-29.
• Hartmut Weyel: Friedrich Fries (1856–1926). Evangelist, bookseller and editor; in: H. Weyel: The future needs a past. Lively portraits from the history and prehistory of the Free Evangelical Congregations, Vol. II, GuTh 5.5 / 2, Witten 2010, pp. 87–99.