Sometimes Ulrike Bruinings hangs a church on her car as she travels through the Protestant diaspora in the Upper Black Forest.
Should I go to church service? Yes, anyway. Above all, pastors who run mobile churches can easily talk to people. And what else could be more connected?
out: Between the wooded hills of the High Black Forest lies a meadow. A stream flows through it. The water flows into a blue-painted basin. It is for Kneipp, but the children of the nearby playground prefer to run around in it. There is also a kiosk, a mini-golf course and a bakery. Sometimes, when it gets hot, the people of Falkau, whose houses are scattered on the hill, come here together to bake. Now, there is something else standing in the meadow. A shepherd’s cart and a bell tower protrude from the top. It is the Shepherd’s Wagon Church. Since she came to Falkau, this large village has become a kind of center. A parish – for a short time.
Inside: Everything inside and outside the shepherd’s wagon is functional. A few cupboards, a sink, a portable altar with a cross, a guest book. There is also a keyboard and sheep-shaped stools. On the drawbar is a box with 20 beer benches stacked on it. They serve as chairs during church services. A solar power system is installed on the roof next to the bell tower. The Shepherd’s Wagon Church is illuminated in the dark. Even the license plate is conceptual. FR-JO-1014, a reference to John 10:14: “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me.”
The question of justice: “You want to visit me at home, but this is not my home. It is Jesus’ home,” says Ulrike Bruinings. She wants to know if it still fits the concept. Yes, it’s a difficult question. She does not live in the church, but she protects the church. And their sheep? They are scattered by the winds of the four directions. Bruinings follows them and she goes through the Black Forest with the shepherd’s wagon church. This week Falkau was previously in Feldberg, but will soon be in Breitnau. If the mountain does not come to the prophet, the prophet must go to the mountain.
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dissolution: Bruinings, a Protestant pastor with a Dutch twist (her father is actually Dutch), looks after four communities in the High Black Forest: Titisee, Breitnau, Hinterzarten and Feldberg. Several villages. A “huge catchment area” with 1,200 members. 300 more if you count those with second homes. In reality, fewer and fewer. Doubts about faith, resignation. When the Falkau Protestant Community Centre had to be sold in 2021 due to financial and pastoral insufficiency, the idea of using some of the proceeds to buy a Shepherd’s Wagon church arose. “We wanted to give something back to the people who took something from us,” says Bruinings. The cost of the church on wheels is €46,000, including MOT. Construction time from planning to completion: two years.
Diaspora: Bruinings had heard of such mobile churches. There are also ones in Eckernförde and Franconia, which are used especially as contact points for tourists. The fact that the Black Forest is now also a place for locals has to do with the diaspora. The Protestants in the predominantly Catholic Upper Black Forest are mostly married people, immigrants, or people who came here for work. Like Ulrike Bruinings and her wife.
Youth Activities: Bruinings grew up in Windenreute, near Emmendingen, north of Freiburg. In a town like this, there weren’t as many distractions as there were in the 1980s. At least there was a children’s service and a priest to keep the kids involved and make them feel important. “The same songs all the time,” they sang, and the organ played. “That was our job.” And after the adult service, the kids were allowed to stand at the exit. “Hello, here we are.” Later, a group of boys came by and said, “That’s really cool,” and she led the youth group. She was also a youth representative at the EKD convention. Today, youth work suits her just as much as the Shepherd’s Wagon Church suits her, because she’s an outdoors person. Dog sports, hiking, skiing—she loves it.
parents: It was a community program that kept the Bruinings close to the church. It didn’t come from their parents. Her father, Mr. Dutch, a divorced tradesman who had a child who “made my grandmother skeptical all her life,” had him baptized at his wedding to show his goodwill. “The story was always the same, that he had a pitcher of water poured on his head at the wedding,” she said. Her mother, a farmer and catechist who later became a foreign-language secretary, fled with her to nearby Breslau when the war ended. The family eventually arrived in Westphalia, five to a room. “But she didn’t mourn it passionately, but rather referred to it as an injustice that Germany had been held responsible for in the World War.”
family: Veterinary medicine was an option, but Ulrike Bruinings studied theology. “Even though theology wasn’t popular in the lesbian circus, it was clear early on that she liked women.” Her two sisters also married women. “If you believe in the theory that there is a gay gene, you can find it in our family.” At family celebrations, her father sometimes felt a little lost as the only man, Bruinings says. She once had a partner with whom she had a son. He liked the fact that there was another person like him.
employee: Born in 1974, Bruining was young enough to experience early in her career the acceptance of homosexuality in Protestantism. She had already served as a substitute pastor and worked as a parish priest in Karlsruhe for nine years before landing on her dream job as a youth pastor in Oberkirchenrat. There she was in charge of children and youth work. She could have moved up the hierarchy. To a bishop? “Maybe the time is not ripe yet for a lesbian bishop. That doesn’t mean she wants that job.” “Absolutely not,” she says.
trust: She never doubted her faith, Bruinings says. But she has questioned her own piety. “As a teenager, I was a strong political advocate for justice,” she says. “If someone is very pious, it’s too tight for me.” If you can squeeze that corset into the message of Jesus, it’s definitely the wrong message. “Faith is not a duty, it’s an invitation.” At funerals, she talks a lot about what happens next. “Is life the only dance we dance, or is it just an intro?” She can let go of the idea that we don’t know.
vehicle: Five years ago, when the parish priest position in Hinterzarten was advertised, Bruinings spontaneously showed the job to his wife. She was very happy. “I’ll go right away. It’s a highlight in terms of the landscape.” Now it unites the parishioners of the High Black Forest. She thinks a lot. The Shepherd’s Wagon Church is a vehicle for their ideas. Baptisms in Feldberg, camping ministry, youth camps with campfires and “campfires,” the church is always in the works. Last year she trained as a volunteer mountain rescuer and is also an emergency chaplain. In fact, she used to be very ambitious. “But I’ve moved away from that. I want to be happy and do what I’m good at.”
policy: Does she now have to deal with so many right-wing people? “Well, it’s like Badisch Bullerbü,” Bruinings said, adding that she has spoken to pastors in the east who no longer dare to travel to the countryside with their disabled relatives. In the Black Forest, things are different. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t people here who vote for the AfD.”