The Isar is not the Jordan, but it is definitely suitable for the biblical setting. The scene on July 1st will then be that of a woman standing barefoot in the river, in a robe with a wet hem, bending down over and over to draw water into a jug. A large congregation will be there. Next Saturday around noon, 20 people will be baptized near the Muffatwerk on the Isar.
The Evangelical Church in Bavaria has also recognized for itself how much it can do for the public if Christian rituals are celebrated in public. Under the motto “just get married”, for example, the church opened its doors in ten Bavarian cities in March for people who wanted to get a wedding blessing. Without pre-registration, let alone membership in the evangelical church, all those who had already been married in a civil registry office could step in front of the altar every 15 minutes. The response was great.
The project “Many reasons, one blessing: your baptism” builds on this success. Parishes organize public festive baptisms for families. The date for this sacrament is deliberately placed in the summertime around June 24: It is the day on which John the Baptist was born according to the Christian calendar. So the man who baptized Jesus in the Jordan.
“A chance to make the church visible.”
“We want to show the public what we do,” says the protestant dean of Munich, Bernhard Liess. “This is an opportunity to make the church visible, and we must allow rituals, that is, what constitutes our faith, to take place where life takes place.” Then it becomes clear “that what is happening in the church is not something unworldly and strange,” says the city dean.
The Munich inner-city Protestant communities discovered the Isar as a place for baptism many years ago. For the current campaign, St. John, St. Luke, St. Mark, the Church of the Holy Cross and the Church of the Redeemer are coming together next Saturday. 20 people to be baptized and their families meet in the beer garden at the Muffatwerk, before the sacrament of baptism is donated “uncomplicated”, as they say, on the Isar and then the celebrations continue in the beer garden.
This Saturday, June 24th, the pastoral team of the Neuaubing Adventist Church will meet with the families of ten baptized people on the banks of the Lusssee in the west of the city. In addition to the bathers, people in holiday outfits with small children by the hand, pants rolled up, will wade into the water. The parishes of Oberhaching, Taufkirchen and Unterhaching, which are also part of the city deanery, will climb into the Hachinger Bach and Haar, Riem and Trudering into the Riemer See on July 22nd. A few examples out of many.
The inviting, summery atmosphere is one thing, believes City Dean Liess. The simple handling without the threshold that believers usually have to take for their children so that they become Christians and members of the Protestant Church through baptism is another. Sometimes the demands on the christening as a family celebration are so “insanely high” that young parents with newborn children who have to combine work and everyday life simply cannot manage the organization, says Liess. “To say we’ll organize it for you, with a beer garden afterwards and a get-together for as many people as possible – and you really only have to come and have your child baptized, that’s the idea.” So the church as a service provider.
Will more people turn to the church again as a result of the publicly celebrated service? In any case, the demand for baptism dates is high for the upcoming campaign, says Liess. After the sacrament was donated much less frequently in 2020 and 2021 due to the corona, the number of annual baptisms in the city deanery in 2022 was 1728, the same as in 2019, when there were 1725 baptized. In 2022, 9,107 people in the city deanery left the evangelical church.