TV ARD Tagesschau

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She has an appointment with Philipp Weishaupt, from the Berlin heavy metal band Sanity. A Christian band is rather unusual in the genre. They have set the Book of Revelation to music, Weishaupt says proudly, and would like to round off the biker service with it.
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Tagesthemen reported on this topic on July 18, 2022 at 10:20 p.m.

A pastor wants to get people excited about the church again. Her concept: to meet people in their everyday lives, to be close to them - with sermons at airfields and intercessions on beer mats.

Pastor Simone Lippmann-Marsch looks at the old airfield in Borkheide in the Potsdam-Mittelmark district. She is planning a biker service and wants to know if this location is suitable. Her long black hair blows in the wind, the many tattoos on her arm are visible from afar. In addition to the piercings on her face, she also has one in her tongue - you can see that often, the pastor laughs a lot and warmly. There is an old Ilyushin and other vintage aircraft on the airfield - an unusual location for a church service, so it fits, Lippmann-Marsch thinks. She specifically tries to reach out to people who are not exactly the classic churchgoers, but who have a desire for religiosity, who long for spirituality.

"Church walls are pretty thick," she says, and for some they seem insurmountable - especially in the East. "I know how I felt," she says. "So, socialized in the East, I grew up without any church at all. I would never have thought of going into a church because I didn't know what that had to do with me." She is a passionate motorcyclist, and there are a lot of people among bikers for whom faith is important - but who would never think of going to church at ten o'clock on Sunday. "What do we do then?" Meet the potential believers where they are.

She has arranged to meet Philipp Weishaupt, from the Berlin heavy metal band Sanity. A Christian band is rather unusual in the genre. They have set the Book of Revelation to music, Weishaupt says proudly, and would like to round off the biker service with it. [abridged]