Center for Mission and Ecumenism - Northern Church Worldwide

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Center for Mission and Ecumenism - Northern Church Worldwide
(ZMÖ)
legal form Old legal association
founding April 10, 1877 in Breklum
founder Christian Jensen
Seat Breklum
Office Hamburg
precursor North Elbian Center for World Mission and Church World Service ( North Elbian Mission Center; NMZ)
purpose Missionary work of the North Church
method Accompany the exchange of experts and projects with partner churches as well as convey impulses from the ecumenical movement to the local communities
Action space Northern Church and Worldwide
Managing directors Matthias Kahnert
people Christian Wollmann (Director), Stefan Block (Chief Executive Officer), Brigitta Maria Seidel (Deputy Chief Executive Officer)
Employees 48
Volunteers 102
Website nordkirche-weltweit.de

The Center for Mission and Ecumenism - Northern Church Worldwide (formerly: North Elbian Center for World Mission and Church World Service (in short: North Elbian Missions Center ; abbr .: NMZ)) is a public corporation that belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany . The facility is headquartered in the North Frisian community of Breklum in the building of the former mission institution (Kirchenstrasse 4). The office is in Hamburg-Othmarschen (Agathe Lasch-Weg 16).

history

In 1876, pastor Christian Jensen founded the Schleswig-Holstein Evangelical Lutheran Mission Society in Breklum, North Frisia. The Society's first missionaries went to India and the United States , followed by Tanzania , China, and Papua New Guinea . The work of the Breklumer Mission has been associated with a high degree of social responsibility since it was founded. Schools, hospitals and orphanages emerged from what was then the North Elbe Mission Center.

Missionary work largely came to a standstill during the two world wars. In 1945 the project was re-established as part of the Breklum Catechetical Office and continued from 1948 under the name Breklum Seminar for Missionary and Church Service . At the end of the 1960s, pure missionary work no longer seemed appropriate, so social and diaconal work came more and more to the fore.

In 1971 the mission society became an independent work of the North Elbian Church and was named North Elbian Center for World Mission and Church World Service - short form: North Elbian Missions Center (NMZ). After the North Elbian Church merged into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North Germany ("North Church"), it was renamed the Center for Mission and Ecumenism - North Church Worldwide.

Since then the center has conveyed the experiences and impulses from the international community of churches, especially from its partner churches. The center represents a dialogical understanding of mission and is committed to contributing to reconciliation , justice and the integrity of creation through its work .

activities

As an international institution, the center maintains worldwide contacts with churches, ecumenical institutions and non-governmental organizations in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific region. The center provides information about countries and projects, promotes youth exchanges and is the point of contact for missions, interreligious dialogue, ecumenism and development issues. It supports projects that promote the independence and independence of the partners. This includes encounters with other traditions and cultures, ecumenical partnerships, renewal of church life, advocacy for the poor and taking sides for socially marginalized groups .

literature

in order of appearance

  • Irmgard Hansen: The open door. From reports from the Breklum China Mission . Jensen, Breklum 1949.
  • Otto Waack and colleagues: Indian Church and India Mission. The history of the Jeypore Church and the Breklum Mission (1914–1939) (= Erlanger Monographs from Mission and Ecumenism, Volume 21). Verlag der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Mission, Erlangen 1996, ISBN 3-87214-321-2 .
  • 125 years of Breklumer Mission - 30 years of NMZ. A commemorative publication. North Elbe Center for World Mission and Church World Service (NMZ), Breklum 2001.
  • Joachim Wietzke: The breadth of the gospel. A regional study of the history of theology on the missionary movement in Schleswig-Holstein. From the Reformation to the end of the First World War (= Studies on the History of Mission and Ecumenism in the Area of ​​the Northern Church, Vol. 1). Matthiesen, Husum 2018, ISBN 978-3-7868-5411-1 .
  • Martin Krieger: The sources for the Breklumer Mission in the Koraput district (1882-1990s) . In: MIDA Archival Reflexicon (2019), ISSN 2628-5029, 1–7.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Imprint. In: nordkirche-weltweit.de. Retrieved July 27, 2020 .
  2. ^ Christian Jensen Kolleg: Our story.
  3. Imprint of the center.
  4. Martin Krieger: The sources for the Breklumer Mission in the Koraput district (1882-1990s) . In: MIDA Archival Reflexicon . 2019, p. 1–2 ( projekt-mida.de ).
  5. ^ Statutes of the Center. ( Memento from March 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 69 kB)