Mülheim Association of Free Church Evangelical Congregations
| Mülheim Association of Free Church Evangelical Congregations (MV) |
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| legal form | registered association |
| founding | 1909 (the first Mülheim conference took place in 1909) |
| Seat | Bremen |
| Chair | Ekkehart Vetter (President) |
| Members | 44 parishes, 4662 members |
| Website | www.muelheimer-verband.de |
The Mülheim Association of Free Church Evangelical Congregations (MV) is a free church with an evangelical-charismatic character . Membership in the municipalities of the MV is voluntary. A prerequisite for this is a lived relationship of faith with Jesus Christ and usually the baptism of faith .
Self-image and theological beliefs
The association sees itself as an evangelical free church based on evangelical - charismatic piety or theology and, as a free church umbrella organization, offers legally independent local congregations and other bodies a network of relationships and a service community. In addition, cooperation with other churches, free churches, church associations and organizations on a national and international level is promoted. The association maintains relationships with partner churches in Indonesia (Gereja Gerakan Pentakosta) and Zambia (Christian Community Church).
In the understanding of the MV, the church of Jesus is the community of people who are connected to one another through their common faith in Jesus Christ . As free-church congregations, the municipalities of the MV emphasize the voluntary nature of membership practice and independence from the state. Through the baptism of faith and the Lord's Supper , the salvation offer of Jesus can be holistically experienced. The Bible is the basis for the faith and life of the individual believer as well as the community.
The Bible as the Word of God is inspired by God's Spirit, is reliable and has the highest authority in all questions of faith and conduct of life. The MV is committed to the basic theological convictions that are formulated in the three great creeds of Christianity ( Apostolicum , Nicäno-Konstantinopolitanum , Athanasianum ). In the development of his theology, the MV oriented to the Reformation basic insights: scripture alone , grace alone , faith alone , Christ alone . He shares the theological insights and practical consequences as formulated in the faith basis of the German Evangelical Alliance and in the Lausanne commitment of 1974.
Organization and main tasks
The association is organized as a registered association and is managed by a board of directors, which is accountable to the general assembly, which as the assembly of delegates of all members represents the highest decision-making body of the association. Pastor Ekkehart Vetter , Mülheim an der Ruhr, is currently the first chairman of the association and thus also president of the general meeting .
The association has 44 municipalities with a total of 4662 members (excluding children and regularly participating non-members (as of December 2018)). Most of the members of the Mülheim Association are registered associations based on their legal status. The members are independent in their regulations, facilities and resolutions within the association. The Paulus-Gemeinde Bremen , which belongs to the Mülheimer Verband , was granted the status of a public corporation (KdöR) in November 2015 . The MV is the organizer of the youth festival MOVE , the youth employee conference MIA and the employee conference ECHT! .
The leadership of each local church is usually exercised by an appointed church leadership group (group of elders ). The ordained pastors or church leaders exercise their service in this leadership group as primus inter pares . The salaries and the community life are financed through donations from the community members.
In addition to the association, there is a GmbH founded in 1913 . In accordance with its original task as an aid organization for the MV and the communities connected to it, it takes on important support tasks, such as B. Publishing, magazine, events, retirement pastors care and property management.
history
The association is the oldest Pentecostal church association in Germany. From 1938 to 1998 he called himself "Christian Community Association Mülheim ad Ruhr (CGV)". Before that there was no official name, only the designation "German Pentecostal Movement" or "the Mülheimers" as the place of the 1905 revival.
It has its historical roots in a revival that began in Mülheim an der Ruhr in 1905 and continued in other regions of Germany. In Germany, triggered by the revival movement in Wales and under the influence of the sanctification movement since the emergence of the Keswick movement , there had already been strong expectations in Germany for a revival and a new Pentecost. The leading men of the German community movement were shaped by these expectations. Influential were z. B. the Mülheim pastors Ernst Modersohn and Martin Girkon , the evangelist and founder of the German tent mission Jakob Vetter and Jonathan Paul . The revival that broke out in Mülheim and the surrounding area in 1905 was therefore seen as a parallel to the events in Wales, but was also interpreted as a new Pentecost.
As a direct result of the awakening in 1905, the Mülheim Community was founded in Mülheim, which a few years later became the founding congregation of the Pentecostal movement in Germany and from 1909 hosted the major Mülheim conferences. Today this parish is called "Christ Parish Mülheim".
Shortly after the revival in Mülheim, the Pentecostal movement, which began in 1906 with the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, also came to Europe and Germany and influenced the revival. Within the community movement, however, there was very soon a different assessment of the developing Holy Spirit movement. The initial hope that the new Holy Spirit experiences would give the established churches a reform impulse was therefore not fulfilled. In the Berlin Declaration of 1909, 56 leading men from the Gnadauer Verband and the Evangelical Alliance and various free churches condemned the Pentecostal manifestations as "not from above, but from below" and Jonathan Paul's doctrine of the "pure heart" as unscriptural.
Individuals and communities who adhered to the Pentecost revival were subsequently forced out of the community movement and the Evangelical Alliance. Those affected merged in 1913 under Jonathan Paul to form Christliche Kolportage-Gesellschaft mbH . From 1938 to 1998 the official name was Christian Community Association Mülheim a. d. Ruhr (CGV) . The name made clear the proximity to the community movement. The organizational form as GmbH was chosen because the founders did not believe in a final separation from the community movement and therefore did not seek corporate rights.
In the following decades, the Mülheim community association developed into a moderate Pentecostal movement. While in the first decades the congregations of the association saw themselves more as communities with a close connection to their regional church roots, they developed more and more into congregations of a free church type, locally at very different speeds. In February 1998 this process finally resulted in the adoption of a new self-image and a new name: Mülheim Association of Free Church Evangelical Congregations .
The MV was also the editor of a translation of the New Testament . The Mülheim edition of the NT appeared for the first time in 1914. The last and ninth edition so far appeared in 1988. A separate song book, the "Whitsun Jubilation", was first published in 1909. The 8th edition with more than 700 songs appeared in 1975.
In 2009, 100 years after the Berlin Declaration was passed, the Mülheim Association and the Evangelical Gnadau Community Association passed a joint declaration on the Berlin Declaration of 1909. It reads: “We see a serious response in the 'Berlin Declaration' as well as in the Mülheim reply spiritual struggle to avert damage to the church of Jesus in critical times. However, these historical documents are of no significance for the current cooperation between the Gnadauer and Mülheimer Verband. We know that the Spirit of Jesus Christ is at work in the other movement. "
In April 2013, the association gave itself a new legal form as a registered association at its delegates' conference in Bremen.
Ecumenism
The Mülheim Association maintains relationships with other churches at various levels. Since 1970 there has been a guest membership in the Working Group of Christian Churches in Germany (ACK), since 2009 the Mülheimer Verband has been a full member of the ACK. In 1981 the MV became a guest member and in 1991, as the first free church with Pentecostal roots, a full member of the Association of Evangelical Free Churches (VEF).
The former membership of the Forum Free Church Pentecostal Churches (FFP) was terminated in 2002 by the Mülheim Association, once in order not to promote a parallel structure to the Association of Evangelical Free Churches, but also because the association does not see itself as a classical Pentecostal church in terms of teaching.
The congregations of the Mülheim Association are closely linked to the German Evangelical Alliance (DEA). MV-President Ekkehart Vetter has been a member of the main board of the DEA since 2004, was second chairman from 2012 and has been first chairman of this nationwide network of Protestant Christians since January 2017.
Goals and vision
In 2015, the general assembly adopted the so-called DNA of the Mülheim Association. This text was added to the MV self-image. It takes a position on the vocation, the vision, the culture of faith and the values of the believers.
statistics
For a long time, no precise statistical figures were available for the Mülheim Association. The number of members before 1945 is likely to have been around 30,000. After 1945 the loss of the strong member associations in the east had to be coped with. In addition, there was a strong contraction process in the Federal Republic in the first post-war decades. The statistical development of the number of members (people aged 14 and over) since 2006:
| year | 2006 | 2009 | 2012 | 2015 | 2018 |
| Members | 3425 | 3858 | 4374 | 4509 | 4662 |
Ethical positions
In its book "Making Ethical Decisions - Orientation in Stormy Times", the association takes a position on a wide variety of ethical issues (e.g. illegal work and social fraud; unfulfilled desire to have children; changed funeral culture; contraception).
When it comes to assessing homosexuality, he takes a theologically conservative position, but recognizes that churches represent different assessments depending on their hermeneutical pre-understanding. The association justifies its position with references to the fact that God intended marriage between men and women. Same-sex sexual intercourse is mentioned several times in the Old Testament and judged as "sinful behavior" as well as in the New Testament in Romans 1,26ff . It follows that homosexual partnerships cannot be equated with marriage.
People who feel gay are welcome and respected guests. Anyone who finds faith but does not practice this sexual inclination can be baptized . Membership and participation in the municipalities of the MV are open to such.
Publications
- Pfingstjubel (song booklet), published by Emil Humburg, Mülheim ad Ruhr, 1st edition 1909; 13th edition 2018 (sheet music edition with 707 songs), ISBN 978-3-923649-03-7 .
- Mülheim edition. The New Testament in the language of the present (Ed .: Jonathan Paul), Christliche Colportage GmbH, Mülheim ad Ruhr 2014; Missionsverlag of the Missionsverein, Mülheim ad Ruhr; The New Testament - Mülheim edition , Missionsverlag des Mülheimer Verband, Mülheim ad Ruhr, 9th edition, revised in 1988, ISBN 978-3-923649-01-3 .
- Ekkehart Vetter : Balance of the century - fascinated by the awakening and tried and tested in the thirst area. Missionsverlag of the Mülheimer Verband, Bremen 2009, ISBN 978-3-923649-30-3 .
Periodicals
- KONKRET community magazine . Frequency: 2–3 times a year.
See also
Web links
- Mülheimer Verband - website
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Report on the website of the German Evangelical Alliance: Mülheimer Verband: after 100 years a new umbrella organization , ead.de, article from April 22, 2013.
- ↑ Erich Geldbach: Free Churches - Heritage, Shape and Effect. Bensheimer Hefte 70th 2nd edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, p. 270 f.
- ↑ Erich Geldbach: Free Churches - Heritage, Shape and Effect. Bensheimer Hefte 70th 2nd edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, p. 272 f.
- ↑ Erich Geldbach: Free Churches - Heritage, Shape and Effect. Bensheimer Hefte 70th 2nd edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, pp. 273f .; From the history of the Mülheimer Verband on muehlheimer-verband.de (accessed: July 4, 2012); Ekkehart Vetter: Balance of the century - fascinated by the awakening and tried and tested in the thirst area. Missionsverlag of the Mülheim Association of Free Church Evangelical Congregations, Mülheim ad Ruhr 2009, p. 11.
- ↑ Ekkehart Vetter: Balance of the century - fascinated by the awakening and tried out by the thirst . Missionsverlag of the Mülheim Association of Free Church Evangelical Congregations, Mülheim ad Ruhr 2009, p. 193ff.
- ↑ Mülheimer Verband leaves Pentecost Forum , September 23, 2002, on livenet.de (accessed: July 4, 2012)
- ^ Orientation and vision of the Mülheim Association , accessed on September 22, 2019.
- ↑ Ekkehart Vetter: balance of the century . 1st edition. Missionsverlag of the Mülheimer Verband, Bremen 2009, p. 334 ff .
- ↑ Mülheimer Verband (ed.): Making ethical decisions - orientation in stormy times . 5th edition. Missionsverlag of the Mülheimer Verband, Bremen 2017, ISBN 978-3-923649-23-5 , p. 275 : "Quotation: We reject that this point of view, developed on the scriptural findings of the Holy Scriptures, is evaluated as" homophobic "."