Mission EineWelt
Center for Partnership, Development and Mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria
Mission EineWelt (MEW) is an institution of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria (ELCB) with headquarters in Neuendettelsau (Middle Franconia). As early as 1846, Wilhelm Löhe founded a “preparatory institute” in Nuremberg, where pastors were trained for their ministry among Franconian settlers in North America. The missionary and diaspora seminary that later developed from this existed until 1985 and trained more than 800 pastors and missionaries in the course of its almost 140-year history. On April 15, 1853, the institution was moved to Neuendettelsau. Already in 1852 missionaries were sent to Eastern Europe and in 1875 to the emigrant communities in Australia. In 1886 Johann Flierl began missionary work in Papua New Guinea (then Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land), today the oldest partner church of the ELCB.
On April 1, 1972, the Missionswerk Bayern was founded as a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. The work of the Society for Domestic and Foreign Mission had become a task of the regional church. The Missionswerk took over the previous work in Papua New Guinea and that of the Leipzig and Berlin missions in Tanzania. On January 1, 2007, there was finally a merger of the Missionswerk, Kirchlicher Entwicklungsdienst and the Latin America work of the ELCB – Mission EineWelt came into being.
The partnership center has its own conference center, the exhibition “einBlick”, and a fair trade store. The Pazifik-Infostelle has its offices here and the Erlanger Verlag für Mission und Ökumene is supported by the center.
Today, MissionEineWelt maintains partnerships with 22 Lutheran churches in Asia, the Pacific region, Africa and Latin America. The partner churches are supported financially and cooperatively in terms of personnel, projects are supported in the long term, and the exchange of staff from the South is expanded. In addition, Mission EineWelt supports many congregations, deaneries and church institutions in Bavaria in their overseas partnership work, informs about and promotes its work in the regional church. Through campaigns and educational offers – often international – topics of worldwide cooperation are communicated.
In addition to the partnership cooperation with the churches overseas, which is organized through three national offices, close working relationships are maintained with German mission organizations and the Lutheran World Federation, as well as with many campaigns and initiatives in worldwide church and development work.
Mission EineWelt is connected with the EMW in many ways: Collaboration in the board of directors and the general assembly, in commissions and expert discussions, in campaigns, in the joint appearance at church congresses and in public relations projects.
Mission EineWelt
Hauptstr. 2
91564 Neuendettelsau
Tel.: +49 9874 9-0
Fax: +49 9874 9-330