Do something brave

Who are we? 
What currently defines the Evangelical Methodist Church in Austria?

Following a time of spiritual reflection led by Maria Sonnleithner, the steering group began by taking stock of the current situation. In doing so, we realised once again just how much positive work is already taking place within our church. Evi Theiler (EmK Graz) highlighted music as one example: sharing, celebrating and thereby proclaiming our faith through appropriate songs is an essential part of our community of journey and learning, and it nourishes our joy.

Evi Theiler, together with Daniel Mohr (ESUMC Vienna / English-speaking congregation in Vienna), had been elected to the steering team by the Annual Conference this year. The steering team is tasked with listening to all areas of our Christian community of journey and learning, reflecting on what it hears, and providing guidance to our church network.

Having already begun its work online in its new composition, the entire team met for the first time on 9 and 10 October for a retreat in Graz.

Building on our initial assessment, we then discussed what is lacking in our society, before moving on to a third step of developing a vision to guide our church in the coming years. Drawing closely on the vision of our global church, we formulated this vision as follows:

One thing became very clear during our discussions: even though we have already seen some aspects of our vision come to fruition in our church, we believe that the time will soon be here (once again) to take a bold step and try something new. We already have some initial ideas. However, neither the wording of the vision nor the specific next steps are set in stone.

Please feel free to share your thoughts with us by 3 November 2026, so that we can incorporate them into our future work.