Katholische Junge Gemeinde

Katholische junge Gemeinde
Abbreviation KjG
Formation June 17, 1970 (1970-06-17)
Type German non-profit youth organization
Purpose association of young Catholics and Catholic local groups
Headquarters Düsseldorf,  Germany
Membership
80.000 members in 24 diocesan organizations
Presidents
 Anne Schirmer
Marc Eickelkamp
Praeses
 Eva-Maria Düring
Secretary-General
 Peter Dübbert
Website www.kjg.de

The "Katholische junge Gemeinde" (short: "KjG") is one of the big German Catholic youth organizations. KjG has a democratic structure and local groups in all over Germany (mainly in Catholic parishes) with in total about 80.000 members. The KjG is a member of the Catholic umbrella of youth organizations Fimcap and the German umbrella of Catholic youth organizations BDKJ.

History

See also: Overview of the history of KjG on the homepage of KjG (on German)[1]

KjG and contemporary worship music

KjG had a significant influence on the development of contemporary worship music (German: Neues Geistliches Lied, NGL) in Germany.[4]

Patron and Motto

The patron of KjG is Thomas More (1477–1535). The motto of KjG is "I never thought of consenting to a matter, if it would defy my morals." This quote is attributed to Thomas More.[5]

Emblem

The emblem of KjG is called "Seelenbohrer". Literally translated from German this means "soul thriller". It was designed in 1967 by Alfred Klever, a designer based in the vicinity of Cologne, in the course of a course on screen printing in Altenberg. It should represent the motto of the joint Pentecostal meeting of KJG and KFG, the predecessor organizations of KjG, in Münster in 1968: "Zur Antwort bereit!" (German for: "Prepared for the answer!").[6] On this national meeting the meaning of the emblem was explained as follows: "The dot in the center represents Christ, the Good News and the life. The bar moving around the dot symbolizes the humans who, inspired by the center, try to tackle problems and find and give answers. The arrow represents dynamic. Acting based on the solid ground of the Gospel means at the same time to move on and to pursue goals." Another (self-)ironic interpretation of the emblem is that it represents "beating around the bush, closely missing the goal and than move away quickly".[7]

Thomas More - patron of KjG

Structure

Local level

The 80,000 members are organized in various local groups spread all over Germany. Most local groups are based at a parish. However, local groups can be also located at over places like e.g. schools. Each local group usually has a team of voluntary group leaders which prepare activities like e.g. weekly meetings or camps for children, adolescents and/or young adults. Furthermore, each local group has a board of two or more chairpeople (usually as many female as male chairpeople) coordinating the local group. The chairpeople are elected by the regular assembly of all members of the local group. Usually, all members regardless of their age are eligible to vote (some local groups however require a minimum age of 13 and a maximum age of 27).[8]

Diocesan organizations

Diocesan organizations of KjG
KjG Aachen[9]
KjG Augsburg[10]
KjG Bamberg[11]
KjG Berlin[12]
KjG Eichstätt[13]
KjG Essen[14]
KjG Freiburg[15]
KjG Fulda[16]
KjG Hamburg[17]
KjG Hildesheim[18]
KjG Köln[19]
KjG Limburg[20]
KjG Magdeburg[21]
KjG Mainz[22]
KjG München & Freising[23]
KjG Münster[24]
KjG Osnabrück[25]
KjG Passau[26]
KjG Paderborn[27]
KjG Regensburg[28]
KjG Rottenburg-Stuttgart[29]
KjG Speyer[30]
KjG Trier[31]
KjG Würzburg[32]

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/26/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.