Pastor raimund pretzer bids farewell in gartenroth
On sunday, the harvest festival was also celebrated in the protestant parish church in gartenroth. The previous saturday, the gartenroth horticultural association, together with its neighbors from danndorf, had festively adorned the church with all kinds of offerings.
However, the service, which exceptionally took place in the afternoon from 2 p.M., was connected with quite a lot of melancholy: the pastor of gartenroth, raimund pretzer, said goodbye to the church congregation of gartenroth, because from now on he will work full time as a religion teacher at the caspar-vischer-gymnasium in kulmbach.
He remains in the parish house
Privately he continues to live in the parsonage in gartenroth and thus remains a part of the community and village.
The service and the subsequent celebration in the sports center were attended not only by christians from the church community, but also by guests from politics and the church.
In his sermon, pastor pretzer looked back on his ten years of service in gartenroth. He had his inaugural sermon on the 4. October 2009 held in gartenroth, which was also the harvest sunday. He recounted from his time out of college. After that he started his service as pastor with the words "the main thing is that there is no chaos" have been dismissed.
The sermon text dealt primarily with the themes of longing in the heart and trust in god as well as god’s trust in humanity.
Pretzer also looked to the future of the small community and the challenges it faces. He also referred to his inaugural sermon ten years ago. The term "living house" is important here been.
After the sermon, pastor christian schmidt from kirchleus took the floor for a moment. Schmidt takes over from pretzer for the time being. So he is the first contact person for the church community of gartenroth, but still has kirchleus as his main church community.
Father schmidt explained how this situation came about and how surprisingly quickly everything happened. But the clergyman also referred to the daily motto from the 1st verse. September, which dealt with gratitude.
"Uncertain future"
Schmidt also stated, however, that the future of the community of gartenroth is uncertain. Then he relieved pastor raimund pretzer from duty and blessed him.
Pretzer then continued with the service. There followed a number of greetings and congratulations with gifts. Topics included the attributes of a pastor and the distance of young people from god and the church. There was even an anecdote about pretzer’s opinion as a religion teacher. The church board said some prayers for the future.
Grateful look back
After the service, after a song by the danndorf singing club, of which pastor pretzer is a member, the ceremony continued at the sportheim in gartenroth with greetings and congratulations to pretzer. The speakers discussed the intercounty congregation and compared the worship service and religious education. The church board looked back on the ten years together with pastor pretzer. Topics were the tree removals at the church and the parsonage, the finds that were made (baptismal angels and church archives), the "rough intercounty community, church outings, festivals, the cemetery, and much more.
Lastly, pastor pretzer spoke words of thanks. He thanked the team of sacristans, the organists, the cemetery gardeners and the administration (here criticism was also levelled at the cemetery users), the children’s service team, the dean, the church board, which functioned very well, and the "soul of the congregation", secretary of the parish birgit schmiegel, who was thanked for her work.
Pretzer also mentioned how comfortable he felt as a citizen of the village of gartenroth, and that he was accepted here as a person and private individual. Finally, he looked to a hopeful future before opening the buffet with coffee and cake.
