Gottesdienst at St. Mary's Church in Zehlendorf

Last Sunday, as well as today, I attended St. Mary's Lutheran Church in Berlin-Zehlendorf (SELK). Pastor Dr. Gottfried Martens is the pastor of that congregation, and I have gotten to meet him twice now. He is very energetic and speaks good English.* Here is the English website, if you want to check it out: http://www.lutherisch.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=93&Itemid=48. God has blessed St. Mary's with many Persians who are newly interested in Christianity. The ecumenical movement in the EKD (the state church in Germany) has actually hindered missional activities there, because they value peace and discussions with Muslims over the salvation of unbelievers. It's great that Pastor Martens has remained faithful and confessional, and it's great to see such a church grow. Here's a Christianity Today article about this growing movement in Germany: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/july-august/the-other-iranian-revolution.html. Interestingly, there was a baptism today of one such man from Tehran.

After the services, both this and last week, there were meals. Last week's had the theme of Russian food, mostly cooked by one of the members, while this week we had traditional German food- lots of potato salads and variously cooked meat. All was very delicious. I also met Jacob Corzine, who is an American student studying for his Doctorate diploma at Humbolt University. He had studied at Oberursel a number of years ago.

So if you ever come through Berlin on a Sunday, I highly encourage you to stop by St. Mary's and introduce yourself to Pastor Martens. The church is very welcoming to visitors, and it has been a great blessing to worship with the people there.

 

*For you grammar nuts out there who might point out above my use of "good" versus "well," yes, it is Pastor Martens' English knowledge that is good. If I wanted to say that his speaking was of a good quality, I'd say "He speaks English well." He does indeed speak English well, but he also knows English well. For those of you who don't care, I don't blame you. Don't read on. For those of you who don't know what's going on, it's an joke among those (of us) interested in English grammar that he who say "I speak English good" is self-defeating, because he who says such a sentence does not indeed speak English well.** I would actually contend that if his English can be understood, it has been spoken well, but if he makes grammatical mistakes, it is his knowledge or implementation of such knowledge that is deficient.

**My diatribe on grammar has not ended. I use the general "he" instead of the politically correct "s/he," "they," or "whoever," because none of these choice would be grammatically correct. I don't intend to exclude women, because "he" doesn't. "She" is a marker of the particular, intended to elevate the woman from the general "he" when it is used. Thus when an author wants to point to a general person of unknown sex, either man or woman, he (see what I did there?) should use "he"; only when the sex is known should one be more specific with "he" or "she." And yes, the two uses, but not meanings, of "he" are the same. See in the above paragraph; I switch from talking about Pastor Martens in particular to the general speaker of English. There is a difference! One is particular and one is general.

I could go on about the position of the final apostrophe after periods and commas, but not after exclamation points, colons, semicolons, and question marks; or about the use of semicolons after a list, but perhaps you could look those up on your own.

 

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