20/02/2025
Could you tell us a bit about yourselves and your context?
Christine: I'm Christine. I was born in East Germany, and I'm married to an Englishman, we live in Freiburg in southwest Germany, near the Swiss French border. And I've got four kids, aged 8 to 14.
As a stay-at-home mum I taught myself some digital skills which then led in to helping with the church website. I’ve been doing that since then and I’m now the communications officer for our chaplaincy, managing the website, social media, email newsletter, etc. I’m also a second-year ordinand training for ministry here. Our church is sort of a mix of people from all continents, some expats, a lot of them came here initially just for a year or two - but that was decades ago and they're still here. We have quite a few international students, a couple of German families who just like the community and Germans are always very keen to speak English. So we get some people that want to do church in English. We have around 70 on the electoral roll and maybe 40 who attend in-person on a Sunday.
The official task of the chaplaincy is to provide spiritual care for English-speaking people in Freiburg, no matter what denomination they are from. We did actually recently do a survey and found out that only about 10 per cent of people at our church are actually ‘cradle Anglicans’. So it's a huge mix of different Christian denominations and we’re providing a home away from home, if you will, for people where they can worship together but also find community, friendships and a home, no matter how long they're staying.
Vinod: And I’m Vinod, the chaplain of Freiburg and also the Area Dean of Germany in the Archdeaconry of Germany and Northern Europe. For those who don’t know, a chaplaincy here is basically a parish. But the area covered is very large and because they are all over Germany, we only have about 12 chaplaincies. It's basically a church with a much larger parish area, but with much, much fewer people. As Christine said, we cater to the English-speaking community in Freiburg.
Christine (left) and Vinod (right)
What is ‘Midweek Meditations’ and how did that come about?
Christine: So it basically started, as many things did, during the first lockdown in 2020. Our then chaplain sent out a short meditation, a short text out every Wednesday to the congregation, reflecting on what's going on and giving encouragement to people at home in between the Zoom services that we had on Sundays. After he moved to a different church, we thought it would be a shame to let this tradition die. So, I took it upon myself to keep it going and recruited quite a few people from the church. And now we've got a rota going and people contribute small or sometimes longer texts each Wednesday.
We have probably about 12 people now on the writing team and people are allowed to write whatever they want to about their lives, about God, about current politics or anything else. Recently we had one lady writing about her dog, and how God looks after her, just like she looks after the dog!
We also have people that share from their professional expertise. For example, we've got a couple of people that are in global health, and people who work in education talking about travel or art. Some people do a little exegesis on a Bible passage – it's really interesting to hear from different voices and not just the clergy. It means we can enjoy a huge variety of inspiration and subjects and also to get to know people a bit better.
And it is a talking point sometimes in small groups: people will talk about what was shared on the Wednesday – it's creating a communal sense. We've also had a couple of kids sharing things – something that we've done at Children's Church that they’ve then shared on the blog. It’s a chance to get a peek into people’s thinking and life and faith.
Vinod: As Christine said, you know, it's very important to hear our lay voices. I usually do the first meditation of the month and the rest of it is all lay-led. Different people write from different perspectives. When our men's breakfast or women's breakfast meet, homegroups, young adults group etc. – often the Wednesday meditations are being discussed.
And another good thing it is that Christine has kept the weekly meditations regular and consistent – she always keeps a backup blog. So even if the person writing has a delay or something comes up we’re covered. We've kept it uninterrupted all these weeks after the pandemic and have now and have now published nearly 200 meditations now.
Are there any particular challenges you find with the blog?
Christine: A few people that started at the beginning have dropped out since. Obviously, that's very understandable. But it's been hard to recruit new people to write because some are only here for a short while or are very busy. I do find also that most contributors are academics that already write a lot. It's really lovely to hear from them because they write really well and they have huge expertise and interesting things to share. But I'd like to see some more diversity – especially now that we have a lot of new international students. Also, for new people, it's a bit daunting for them when we say, oh, write something for us and we'll publish it. At the beginning there was this enthusiasm – ‘let's just try it’ and everybody jumped in. Now it’s a bit harder.
Have there been any personal highlights?
Christine: We've had a couple of like guest writers; for example, there was somebody from a church in England. He wrote something in that church newsletter about a trip to Freiburg. So that was a nice little link with another church in the UK.
One person shared a few months ago about a miracle experience she had when she was visiting South America which was, I thought, quite touching. Then we've got one person who is always very outspoken about current politics and climate change, and he always makes very strong points. And I do really appreciate that because it is a space where people can say what they think - within limits, obviously, but we haven't had a situation where we had to you know ban or edit any articles.
Vinod: For me each one, each one is interesting and exciting. Sometimes the writers do have a conversation with me, asking me whether I agree with what they’ve written. And then if I say I don't agree, then it's an interesting discussion!
About 200 people get the posts by email. We also share them on Facebook and they get reshared many times. I also sometimes share posts on our WhatsApp groups.
How do you determine what's OK and what's not OK to publish? What's the editing process?
Christine: At the moment people send their posts to me and I read them through and normally I just publish them as is. We have had a conversation about how we approach publishing a variety of opinions on the blog and we have a disclaimer at the bottom of the page saying that posts reflect individual opinions. What I've tried also is to make sure that we always have one featured image that that is copyright safe that we get from a website that offer free images – or we use people's own images. I had to be clear with people about this because some people just found pictures from the internet and said ‘use this one’! And I said no, because we need to make sure we choose pictures that are free to use.
What would you suggest to another church to get started with something like this?
Vinod: I would personally say you need a person like Christine to really take it on and manage it all. Primarily we really need one such person to carry it through because if it is different people's jobs, it never works.
I would also say you need to try to get a diverse range of contributions, people in the writing team from different backgrounds, all age groups represented. Those things don’t happen naturally, you have to take initiative to make it happen and work with people to get things published.
It’s also important that you have a vibrant website that you keep up to date.
Christine: Being German, I'm organised! I have a rota going and I make it well in advance. So people know when it's their turn to publish. I tell people I want it by Monday lunchtime so I can get it ready for Wednesday. You want someone who is going to connect with people and keep up with them, chasing when needed, to run the blog.
I think also in terms of contributors, the more the merrier at the beginning really, There was no pressure, and as long as you tell people even 150 words is fine, it’s not too daunting for them. Some people have written 2,000 words though!
We've got one person on our rota who is always very happy to submit two months in advance, which is brilliant. And if somebody misses their turn, then I can sort of swap them around or something. And obviously the more widely you can publish (e.g. to a newsletter or bulletin) it the better it is at recognising the time and effort people are putting in. Think about printing as well, e.g. for people in your congregation who might not use computers – whatever gets it into the hands as many people as possible.
What kind of tools do you use and would recommend?
Christine: Once or twice I have used AI image generation for when I wanted a very specific image. I wasn't 100 per cent happy with it, but I haven't played around this with an awful lot. I use Canva for church graphics. I always make posters to go on PowerPoint for the notices as well. For the Wednesday meditations, the featured image is normally a picture from Unsplash.
The blog is on WordPress and then I share it on Facebook and share it on the email newsletter.
Is there anything that you'd like to do next to build on what you’ve developed? Different mediums for example?
Christine: We’ve done a few series with a particular focus, for example we did a photography contest a couple of years ago, and then for the past year every week I shared one of the photos with a reflection from the person who took the photo. At the moment, I'm also running a weekly series on the newsletter and online which is called ‘The A-Z of Anglican worship’, which I did as part of my ordination training in the worship module to introduce all the people from the different denominational backgrounds to what Anglicanism is all about.
We’ve explored a bit with using video as well as text, we know that video generally works well and gets lots of engagement, but it does require someone to produce it and make it sustainable. I've also been thinking since it would be nice to maybe at some point do a little book or something with a selection of the midweek meditations.
Is there any more advice you’d like to share?
Christine: Why not give it a go and to get some adventurous people together, maybe even some of the youth, even some of the kids in your church? They could even record something, which could be transcribed and cleaned up a little bit. Doing something like this is a great way to know each other better as a congregation and be brave - seeing as posts can be shared anonymously.
Thank you to Christine and Vinod for sharing with us. You can find the Midweek Meditations online here. If you’ve got a digital story from your church you’d like to share with us, you can fill in our case study form here. You can also email us at [email protected].
