Have you ever felt proud of something you had no part in?

Report from “Umkehr zum Herrn”s 29th Anniversary Weekend

By Martin A. Steinbereithner

 

This past weekend I had the privilege of joining the Viennese community “Return to the Lord” for their yearly community weekend. The setting was superb: they always rent a large seminar hotel in the mountains on the outskirts of Vienna and populate it with around 120 adults and as many children. Between copious Austrian meals, sauna and swimming pool and postcard-surroundings it would be hard even for the least spiritual of persons not to melt.

It has been a good four years since I was with the community for any length of time, and the change since then is very noticeable. Umkehr zum Herrn is led by a sizeable leadership team which impresses both by its balanced composition and its strength of relationships. Different ones of them were responsible for various parts of the two days, and their respective gifts and experience were visibly at work.

  The community also has a strong and growing group of young people, including a highly active 15-22 year olds group called WILCO. This group has grown both in integration with the community and in its ability to draw young people from outside the community. This became tangible during the so called “covenant celebration” when people join or renew their community commitments, since a number of the new members were WILCO members. So this community is manifestly growing, both from the inside and the outside.

Umkehr zum Herrn has long been an ecumenical community, both in composition and in involvement. A number of initiatives haven been launched by individual members and have in turn impacted the life and composition of “Umkehr zum Herrn”. Most notable amongst them are is ecumenical platform bringing together leaders from just about all the churches of Austria: it was from this circle that the guest speakers also came. Another initiative is a blossoming work with Messianic Jews in which a number of community members play key roles, and which has deepened the love and concern of the whole community for Israel and for what God is doing with this part of his people. And one could mention others: supporting needy families in Bosnia , working in Uganda , Christian counselling, worship initiatives and so forth. What is striking for the outsider is the degree to which these different ministries have a home and are integrated into the life of the body, rather than serving as a distraction or source of tension.

Apart from the celebration of their community covenant Umkehr also use this yearly weekend as the launch of their yearly theme. This year intimacy with God and the life of faith were the topics presented by the three Protestant speakers Angela & Wolfgang Pöschel and Don Prokop These topics will continue to shape the teaching message for the next 12 months, largely based on the Gospel of John. But what struck me just as forcefully as those main sessions was the care that was taken to provide solid input for younger brothers and sisters as well: three different teams or ministries were invited to run the programme for all the age brackets from 4-20. “We invest into the future”, one of the leaders explained, “and we do not want the younger ones to feel that this is only a key weekend for us. They have just as much right to guest speakers as we do!”

I could not help but be reminded of the incident in Acts 11 when Barnabas goes to visit the church in Antioch . “When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad” it says is verse 23. Similarly I have been glad to see the grace of God in “Umkehr zum Herrn”s life, and just like Barnabas I want to encourage them to remain faithful to the call God has given them. Thank you for letting me be with you for three days!


"Umkehr zum Herrn" - "Return to the Lord" Vienna: www.uzh.at/english