New ways of pastoral care: Tiny Churches
For some time now, Offenburg has had a Tiny Church – a small, portable church. But the Free Evangelical Congregation is not the only one to bring their faith to the people.
Making the church visible and tangible by bringing it directly into people's lives: this is the goal of Tiny Churches. These small, portable churches serve as a flexible and innovative way to bring faith to people, offering space for prayer, meditation and small services. This enables them to respond flexibly to the needs of the communities and reach new target groups.
Church as a replacement for the parish hall
One example is the ecumenical tiny house project in the Lyoner Viertel in Frankfurt am Main, a rapidly growing residential and office area. ‘There are no meeting places like parish houses in the neighbourhood, hardly any playgrounds and only a few restaurants in the peripheral areas,’ explains George Kurumthottikal, project officer at the Catholic parish of St. Jakobus in the centre of Frankfurt.
A wooden tiny house, recognisable as a church by its shape with a pointed roof and a cross-shaped window, is intended to change this and become a place of encounter. ‘So far, we have mainly had a culture of coming to church in the village or in the city, where the churches are very present as properties. We are now going out into a neighbourhood,’ says Kurumthottikal. This means that the project could play a pioneering role for other new development areas.
Church and café
The question of whether the €85,000 tiny house is a church or a church presence in the neighbourhood is deliberately left open. The project is not limited to an offer from the Catholic Jakobus or the Protestant Paul-Gerhart community. The Tiny House is complemented by a mobile café. ‘The primary aim here is not to create an opportunity for discussion about faith, but first of all to offer a coffee. Everything else will then follow,’ Kurumthottikal is convinced.
This text appeared in the Smaller Living magazine (issue 2024/2025). The author is editor Johannes Laible. Interested parties can find the entire article and the whole issue HERE. It contains further examples of Tiny Churches.
