From March 16th to 18th the „denk-mal“ congress took place in Marburg, Germany. The training event for ministry with children and juniors was organized by the German CE in cooperation with the Gnadau Fellowship Movement (www.gnadauer.de) and attended by almost 500 participants.

Major topics were “faith@family” and social-missionary work.  The congress encouraged for the ministry with children which is often taken for granted and showed appreciation to those involved in it.

It was a great event and we hope that it will be repeated in two years.

Impressions from the 8th 'SOS' Counselling Seminar in Kassel, Germany 

300 people sat with me listening to Johannes Warth, absorbing every single word of this 'encourager by profession'. Very soon relaxed and happy faces could be seen around. From time to time people burst out laughing. The speaker really raised our spirits. How true what he discovered  on a T-shirt: ‘When God created me he wanted to show off!” Yes, when God creating mankind ”it was very good.” Even so a lot of people feel unloved and suffer from inferiority complexes.

This year’s SOS Conference on January 21st and 22nd had the motto: “Let nobody lose heart“. In ministry with children and youth we encounter a lot of discouragement. One third of German students suffer from depression and stress. We meet children and youth suffering from drug problems, self-harming behavior, mobbing, and relationship problems. It’s great when they encounter encouragement, and their quiet cry for help is heard and attended to.

The almost fully booked conference showed how big a demand for competent training is out there. Through evaluation sheets and conversations the participants told us how useful the seminars and how competent the speakers are.

Somehow I found myself in a workshop on 'doubt'. But maybe it was not just by chance. The workshop was booked out very fast. Some people came for themselves, others came because the theme was interesting for their work with youth. I learned that an authentic faith includes doubt. Talking to others I sense the relief that one can discuss this problem without being looked at as a heretic.

One thought from the Sunday sermon on Rev. 1, 1-18 by Rudolf Westerheide, Theological Director of the German CE, stuck with me: “The influence of Jesus on our ministry is more powerful than our failure. Do not fear failure. God has the last word.

SOS was an encouragement for encourager. In 2013 there will be the 9th SOS conference.                                            Jörg Maushake, German CE

In 2012 the German National CE Union will  again conduct several training programmes for youth ministry:

January 21-22   SOS Congress in Kassel on counceling and ethics
More information: www.ec-jugend.de/SOS

March 16-18  denk mal Congress in Marburg for ministry with children and juniors
More information: www.gnadauer.de

From March 11th to 14th the German Youth Federation for Christian Endeavour conducted its council meeting in Woltersdorf near Berlin. The council is the parliament of the German with 65 representatives of the various state unions and departments and meets twice per year.

In his annual report the director of the German CE, Rev. Rudolf Westerheide, focused on the spiritual situation in the German CE and the role of singing in CE groups. He gave an overview of various forms of songs and appealed to establish a corpus of musically appropriate (sing able) and theologically sound songs for various occasions in the CE groups and the church.

Another focus of the meeting was the topic of CE membership. In Germany CE members have to be actively involved in youth ministry and most of them are in the age group between 14 and 30 years. In spite of good attendance in the CE groups the membership is rather low. The council decided to start a campaign to promote CE membership. To encourage the commitment of young kids the status of “CE Juniors” will be introduced for the age group up to 14 years. There will also be a new status of “CE supporters” for adults who can support the youth ministry as coaches, through practical help, in prayer or financially.

The participants also commemorated the reunification of the German CE 20 years ago, when Christian youth groups from the formerly socialist “German Democratic Republic” were able to rejoin the CE movement.

The German Christian radio station ERF has a youth program on the internet called “Crosschannel”. Every first Tuesday in the month the German CE has a Radio Show running called EC(CE) Talk & Music.

On the 2nd February 2010 we`ll have a special CE birthday party on air and you can join it live from everywhere on earth. This radio program will run from at 7p.m. till  9 p.m. (German time, GMT-1).

You can just listen to the program in English or you can even send e-Mail-Greetings  to the studio. So be our guest when we celebrate the 129th birthday on the internet www.crosschannel.de.