4 - 1997

The future of the church

Wind of change

The church discovers new financial sources through sponsoring

by Oda-Gebbine Holze-Stäblein

Among other things, the 1990s brought techno music into churches in big German cities. Opening the church for the new gives the opportunity to tap new sources of funding in the public and industry. But not every sponsor is welcome, and the churches in Germany lack experience with this type of fund_raising. _ Oda_Gebbine Holze_Stäblein is a Protestant theologian and pastor of the central church in the city of Hannover, the Evangeligal_Lutheran Marktkirche.

Just get out there and find new sponsors for church projects: a fascinating idea. All the world is talking about sponsoring. But apart from the fact that it isn’t that easy, there are also moral obstacles. Mammon is suspect, and according to the Sermon on the Mount, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon".

It seems reprehensible to make concessions, to compromise on one’s convictions, or to embark on dubious co_operations for the sake of money.

Indeed, this is a problem. In an English city with a famous _ and expensive _ cathedral, a scandal occurred years ago, when the programme guide of a church concert read "sponsored by . . . Sellafield". Church concerts financed by the nuclear power industry? One would rather stay poor but clean!

"Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness" _ the early Christian congregation wasn’t so keen on this piece of advice out of the Lord’s mouth. A look at the parable of the unjust steward (Luke 16, 1_8) shows that Jesus doesn’t perform a moral laundering on the steward who used his master’s property to win friends for himself. He obviously respects his ingenuity in handling imminent personal disaster and in finding allies. Although he already has one foot in debtors’ prison, the steward doesn’t give in. And Jesus obviously admires his fighting spirit, "And the lord commended the unjust steward" (Luke 16, 8).

Being creative in money matters is an exhausting task, especially if you used to have seemingly everlasting sources of money at your disposal. It’ll give us quite a headache, because we re just not used to identifying new sources. And we’ll have to make offers that appeal to wider circles than just the inner church_circles, instead of targeting only those on whom we could rely so far to "buy" our "products".

We can’t count on fast success, as the Marktkirche in Hannover just found out. On the occasion of the ravers’ parade, which turned Hannover’s city centre into a loud techno disco for hours on 23 August, the parish council offered the Marktkirche to tired ravers as a place to relax, as a "breathing space", with a quiet musical programme featuring electronic music and extracts from Martin Luther King’s famous "I have a dream" speech.

And there’s another problem: People who donate money, will want to have a say in decisions before long. "If you eat my bread, you have to sing my song, at least a few lines." Those who take action by slyly trying to win friends with the mammon of unrighteous_ ness, could easily find themselves in the role of those who are taken by the action of others.

We looked for sponsors for this not exactly cheap venture _ and received only one offer of a rather modest sum. I couldn’t quite repress my envy when I saw one lorry after the other pass by at the parade _ all of them plastered with company logos. Even a church that tries to outstep its ecclesiastic bounds, is not automatically interesting to the sponsor. The whiff of the traditional clings to us more than we realise.

And there’s another problem: People who donate money, will want to have a say in decisions before long. "If you eat my bread, you have to sing my song, at least a few lines." Those who take action by slyly trying to win friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, could easily find themselves in the role of those who are taken by the action of others.

Of course, people will argue about techno in the church and lots of other things. They are already doing so, even where techno hasn’t made an appearance yet _ or similar things that don’t quite fit in with church traditions. And those against mostly calculate and inquire how much all that will cost.

Did anyone ever ask about the whopping deficits the church suffers every year with exquisite church music performances that are not orientated on the tastes of the general public? I am all for justice and thus for both types of offerings. But the road there will be harder than we thought in our first euphoria.

We’ll have to make unpleasant compromises, too. And there’ll be limits we’ll have to respect. "Sponsored by AKW Stade" (the Nuclear Power Station near Hamburg) or "sponsored by Kraus_Maffei"? Not even I can imagine nuclear power plants and arms makers as sponsors. We shouldn’t snatch up every offer we can.

Conclusion: Creativity and perceptiveness, persistence and a sense of reality are what we need _ and sometimes we’ll have to dress warmly against the storm and the cold. But this is not a plea to sit tight and hope that the storm will blow over and that we’ll be able to continue as usual, all shiny and freshly washed by the rain. In fact, "as usual" never really existed. The sentence that impressed me most these days is from Tony Blair. Long before his election victory he would enter his office every morning and ask, "What do we have to do today in order to win three years from now?" Such a programme would breathe the wind of change into our church. Unless, we don’t really want to win.

Reprint from "Das Sonntagsblatt", no. 38, 19 September 1997, slightly abridged and translated for publication in this magazine.