The future of the church: spirit of optimism in Cochem-Zell!

The future of the church: spirit of optimism in Cochem-Zell!

On March 23, 2025, a synodal assembly took place in Briedern, which dealt intensively with the future of work in the Catholic parishes of the pastoral area Cochem-Zell. This meeting was led by a management team consisting of Christoph Nörling, Georg von der Marwitz, Bernward Große Sandermann and Auxiliary Bishop Jörg Michael Peters. The mood among the participants was characterized by departure and the striving for a common path. A special focus was placed on child and family work, which should play a central role in the coming months. The aim of the assembly is to set important impulses for the parishes and the places of the church, such as . .

As part of the discussions, the founding of the pastoral area Cochem-Zell on January 1, 2023 was also discussed. This room is made up of the mosellic ries and Zeller-Hamm, as well as the parish communities of Blankenrath and Cochem. The main tasks of the pastoral space include the networking and cooperation of parishes as well as main and volunteers in the pastoral. In addition, a level of action and cooperation is established in order to bring together the parishes and parish communities and to promote new places of the church. This information was published on the website of the pastoral area Cochem-Zell, which can be found at Pastoraler-raum-cochem-zell.de

goals and challenges

A central goal of founding the pastoral space is to design a pastoral cooperation and to coordinate the different services and charisms in the room. This requires an adaptation of the established church structures to the changed needs of the believers. In view of the declining interest in institutional Christianity in Europe and the associated challenges that are also discussed by experts such as Thomas Schlag, it is important to develop new approaches. In his post on katholisch.de that the role of churches in the social community is becoming increasingly important and that established churches have to adapt to the changed expectations.

The decline in membership in classic Christianity is contrasting to the global stability and importance of Christianity. In particular, more liberal currents seem to go back, while evangelical movements such as the International Christian Fellowship (ICF) are attracted to attractiveness in certain regions. These developments make it clear that close networking and striving for clear and understandable messages are of great importance even in the pastoral area of ​​Cochem-Zell. The challenges that arise from internal discussions about bureaucracy and hierarchies show that a change of perspective is necessary.