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Once again a meeting of the evangelical Melanchthon community in Fellbach near Stuttgart: the community chairman, the church caretaker, the caretaker and the pastor.
The caretaker tells about this company that he has found.
There is a two-organ market there.
And then it all happens very quickly.
An organ expert comes by.
In mid-January, Pastor Julian Scharpf, 34, wrote on Twitter: “Do you know a congregation that is looking for an organ?
Because we are going to close a church in Fellbach, we are offering ours through the Ladach company. "
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The Melanchthon Church is to be demolished soon.
The building is dilapidated, the renovation would be too expensive, and the community has shrunk.
The last service is planned for Easter.
And then a large kindergarten is to be built on the site in the middle of the economic miracle housing estate.
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In the last week of January it snows in Fellbach.
The Melanchthon Church is located in Philosophenweg right next to Albert-Schweitzer-Straße.
Everything is quiet and slow this morning.
All you can hear is the scraping of the neighbors' snow shovels.
It is eight o'clock when Julian Scharpf steps in front of the church, which will soon no longer exist.
Pastor Scharpf: "What makes me strong is the knowledge that the services here were not in vain"
Source: Frederik Schwilden / WELT
He's standing there in a black down jacket from The North Face.
This is an American outdoor company that is currently at the height of its coolness thanks to a collaboration with Gucci.
A black turtleneck sweater under his jacket, with black skinny jeans and white sneakers from the French company Veja.
Julian Scharpf looks at the snowstorm through his large round glasses.
And for a moment you think: this is an independent musician or a fashion blogger.
But that really is the parish priest.
If a belief that is thousands of years old is to last for the next thousand years, then the Church must also move with the times.
The Melanchton Church in Fellbach will be demolished this year
Source: Frederik Schwilden / WELT
Source: Frederik Schwilden / WELT
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Pastor Scharpf heard a lot of rap in his youth.
His parents, both pastors, divorced.
He grew up with his single mother.
He tells about Jay-Z, from the Wu-Tang Clan.
"The fact that rappers talk freely about their beliefs and wear gold chains with crosses was a coolness factor that also helped me," he says.
Faith and religion are actually the most uncoolest thing when you are young and want to make out.
But rapping is of course something different.
God also needs street credibility in order to stay with people.
"Got to know people through funerals"
The Melanchthon Church has always been a church of the people.
After the Second World War, the Luther Church in Fellbach became too small.
Economic miracles, baby boomers, the triumphant advance of the pedestrian zones and new housing estates made sure of that.
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The Fellbachers, who no longer fit into the Luther Church, celebrated in the event hall of the nearby sports center, while the carnival decorations were still hanging on the ceiling.
“Back then, people from the neighborhood ran around with the collecting can to get money for building the church.
And now they are witnessing the demolition, ”says Pastor Scharpf.
The church building was long before its time.
"I came here with Corona," he says.
That was in April last year.
Arriving at the church was not easy.
“I got to know people through funerals,” he says.
He conducts funeral talks through Facetime.
We go into the church.
A wooden tent roof, many lines that meet.
Concrete.
Glass.
A bit like the Tempodrom in Berlin, an event hall where bands like the Smashing Pumpkins perform in front of thousands.
Normally 400 people fit into the Melanchthon Church.
Because of the Corona rules, it can be a maximum of 90.
Entrance and exit of the church
Source: Frederik Schwilden / WELT
50 came to Julian Scharpf's service on Sunday morning at 10:45 a.m.
His sermon was about the flight of Mrs. Ruth from Moab, a story from the Old Testament.
At the end Ruth says to her mother-in-law: “Where you are going, I want to go too;
where you stay, I stay there too.
Your people are my people and your God is my God. ”Scharpf quoted a rabbi after the story.
"Adam, the first person, was lucky, he still had no mother-in-law," said the rabbi.
And now that he shows us the church, Scharpf says: “That was one of the first gags that ignited.
Before that, I delivered an extremely large number of blown guns.
Then I stand up there and look into the audience, and then nothing comes. "
On the left the current Corona form for the contact details, on the right a reservation slip from the 1960s
Source: Frederik Schwilden / WELT
The word “audience”, which he later writes on WhatsApp, is almost a bit inappropriate in retrospect.
Church, it wasn't a show for him, he wasn't a solo entertainer.
But wasn't Jesus the first pop star?
And isn't an organ like this the fattest instrument in the whole world that fills a church with sound?
An instrument that penetrates everything.
An instrument on which one plays "Praise the Death Conqueror", a song that says: "Let the harp of thanks sound until the heart trembles with joy! / Let us sing mightily to him who died and lives forever."
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So there's nothing wrong with speaking of an audience?
A good church service is always a show, isn't it?
We sit on the chairs in front of the altar.
Julian Scharpf says: “I try to also view faith rationally.
Too much enthusiasm is dangerous. ”The last service here is celebrated at Easter.
After that, Scharpf will preach in two other Fellbach churches.
Organ to sell for 19,500 euros
On the altar is the flower arrangement, which was done by the same family for 50 years.
At the top of the tower hangs the bell that was donated by a winemaker after the death of his wife, and the daughters were also at church on the weekend.
Bells, flower pots, church chairs - all of this has to go somewhere now.
The altar cross comes to a new congregation.
From the community for the community: the floral decorations on the altar
Source: Frederik Schwilden / WELT
The altar is likely to be torn down, the cross is moving
Source: Frederik Schwilden / WELT
But there is still no new place for the organ, the Weigle 17 / II + P. Pipe organ that was put online and built in 1970.
Price excluding VAT and transport: 19,500 euros.
Scharpf tells about interested parties from Hungary and Poland.
There is already contact with an evangelical diaspora community, but “nothing is certain yet”.
Then a local community contacted me because they only had a purely electric organ.
The organ pipes up close
Source: Frederik Schwilden / WELT
A regional church bell expert also came - really, that's a real German word.
A man came who has been listening to the ringing of bells for 30 years and knows from memory what every bell sounds in every church in the area.
Winding up a church is a job.
You take an inventory.
Think about what goes where.
The benches are firmly anchored in the ground, too expensive to tear out and sell.
A stonemason looked at the altar.
At first they thought it was marble.
Then it was slate.
And getting the altar out with a crane would be too expensive.
So the altar will probably be torn down too.
In a way, of course, it sounds sad.
But it goes on.
The gospel choir Joy & Light will continue to sing, now it's back in the Luther Church, just like before the economic miracle.
Amplifier and vocal system of the gospel choir
Source: Frederik Schwilden / WELT
“What makes me strong,” says Julian Scharpf, “is knowing that the services here were not for free.
People celebrated baptisms, confirmations and weddings here.
Just because the place is going away doesn't mean these memories go away. "
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And when the new kindergarten opens here at the latest, the nostalgia is where it belongs - in the past.
And then the children are the promise of a better future.
Today: no psalm.
And soon not at all
Source: Frederik Schwilden / WELT
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Source: Welt am Sonntag