Publisher's Synopsis
The new discovery of fellowship challenges the Church. While meetinghouses are closing and diaconal communities are getting smaller, new neighborhood networks and caring communities are emerging. What do you have to learn? Something new to discover? In the course of the corona pandemic, as in other transformation processes, social ruptures, growing loneliness and a strong longing for community are evident. Shrinking rural areas and new concepts of neighborhood development challenge the church and diakonia to re-understand themselves as actors in civil society. The book explores the changes in the family, the world of work and the neighborhood, draws attention to challenges for the aging society and introduces new community projects Neighborhoods, social enterprises and communities. New forms of living and neighborhood networks need complementary social services. Caring communities need care structures. The church is in demand in all fields - as a community in the neighborhood, as an institution vis-á-vis the state and local authority, and as a diaconal company with a growing need in care and educational institutions. As a "community of sisters and brothers" it is historically and theologically linked to the theme of "community". Which traditions are helpful, which are a hindrance? And what role do the committed as well as the "affected" play?
