The United Reformed Church has produced two easily downloadable booklets to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. The booklets, available in both English and German, were a collaboration between the United Reformed Church and the Evangelische Kirche der Pfalz (Protestant churches of the Palatinate region of Germany).

One hundred years after the First World War: Looking back, looking forward and its companion booklet, Accompanying worship material on the theme, offer a rich resource of reflections, stories, poems and hymns designed to help churches, small groups and individuals mark the approaching centenary of the end of the First World War.

This British-German collaboration seeks to highlight and celebrate the friendship and reconciliation between the people of two nations that were once at war. The two Churches have had a much valued and fruitful partnership for more than sixty years, and the beginnings of the relationship are outlined in the booklets.

The relationship began, says the Revd Philip Brooks, the URC’s Secretary for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, with a ‘practical act of reconciliation involving ordinary people in local churches … It broke new ground for people to sacrificially support their immediate former enemies’.

The booklets also contain the poignant story of Pfarrer Martin Henninger, minister of the Lutherkirche in Frankenthal and convener of the Friends of the URC of the Evangelische Kirche der Pfalz, and the Revd David Pickering, Moderator of the United Reformed Church National Synod of Scotland, who made a pilgrimage to the Somme in May 2018 to honour their grandfathers, who both served in – and survived – the First World War.

The resources can be download here. Hard copies are available to buy through the URC Online Store.