York Town News
Cape Neddick Baptist Church welcomes new minister, new family
By Virginia L. Woodwell
The Reverend Carsten Lotz, new minister at the Cape Neddick Baptist Church, is pictured here with his wife, Melanie, and 18-month-old son, Philipp. Not pictured is baby Titus Lotz, born in York on Friday, Nov. 24.
Courtesy photo
CAPE NEDDICK - As Christians everywhere prepare to celebrate the birth of their religion and the renewal of their faith this season, members of the Cape Neddick Baptist Church are welcoming an enthusiastic new pastor and his young family to their midst.
He is the Reverend Carsten Lotz, M.Div.
Lotz, who is 29, and his wife, Melanie, settled into the church's parish house, next to the church on River Road, earlier this fall with their son 18-month-old son Philipp. Shortly thereafter, they greeted a second son, Titus, who was born on Friday, Nov. 24.
The local church is a first pastorate for the young minister, but to it he brings an exceptionally cosmopolitan background.
The son of American missionary parents who were serving Eastern European, Communist-block countries in the late 1970s, Carsten was born in Switzerland, where he lived for his first three years. The name "Carsten" is a Platte Deutsch variation on "Christian," and it was the middle name of Lotz's great-grandfather, who emigrated to this country from Bremen, Germany.
The family then returned to the United States to make Washington, D.C., home, but Lotz's father, Denton Lotz, subsequently was named General Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, which works to give a common voice to some 30 Baptist denominations worldwide, and in that capacity he traveled (and still travels) the world.
Hence, in the summertime when he was a child and not in school, Carsten got to accompany his father, and so has traveled himself, he said appreciatively, "to every country in the world."
Additionally, what he called "a big part of my spiritual pilgrimage" is the fact that an aunt, Anne Graham Lotz, is the daughter of world-famous evangelical preacher Billy Graham.
Back at home and on his own, Carsten earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the Baptist-affiliated University of Samford, in Birmingham, Ala., and, the next year, following a practice traditional in his German heritage, took a "year for God." Working not for money but for room and board, he helped run an after-school program for at-risk youth outside of Berlin, in what had been East Germany.
In Germany, then, he would meet the woman who would become his wife. Melanie, a German native, was a graphic designer who had quit that work when she'd felt a religious calling. The two met at a theological seminary both were attending; they would become engaged and married after Carsten returned to Germany following a semester's graduate work at Gordon Conwell Seminary in Beverly, Mass. Carsten completed his Master of Divinity degree there when the couple moved to the states.
In Cape Neddick now, he smiles broadly and characteristically easily at his wife when he says of his new job, "We both feel we're doing this together."
The Lotzes have actually already lived in this area for a time. Lotz served as a ministry associate at Portsmouth's Middle Street Baptist Church for 2½ years while he was working on his graduate degree, completed just last May, and the couple moved to Portsmouth to be near that job.
And that job played a role in his getting the current job, for, at just about the same time that the American Baptist Church was circulating a profile of him to churches seeking pastors, a member from the Cape Neddick Baptist Church brought back news of his presence in Portsmouth. Other members went to hear him preach there, he came to preach in Cape Neddick and agreement was reached.
His new parish, Carsten said, was seeking a young minister, while he was seeking a church "evangelical in nature," as he put it, located on the East Coast, preferably in New England.
He explained that by "evangelical in nature" he meant that church members would have shown, historically, "a commitment to scripture," and have emphasized both the "personal conversion experience" and a subsequent change in behavior marked by what he termed "regeneration by the holy spirit."
His mission he describes as "articulating the faith for a society that has forgotten it or lost the message." Christianity, he says, "gets stuck in a rut, traditionally," so that each generation must reinterpret it; to view it with "fresh focus," he said, "is the task of every Christian," and demands a quest for relevance.
He quoted a favorite theologian, Karl Barth, as saying, "When you preach, you should have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other."
For all the seriousness of this mission, the Lotzes appear to take themselves lightly, and to laugh readily. Their European backgrounds, he said, have taught them that "just as few people go to church here as do in Europe," and when speaking of his own experience thus far as what he calls "a rookie," he said, "I thought it would take a long time to settle in as a pastor, but in crises, there's no time to twiddle your thumbs. You just get into it."
For him, two early challenges were a funeral in each of his fifth and six weeks on the job.
The Lotzes envision creating, perhaps in the coming year, a contemporary service for young families, to be held in their house rather than in the church, to be shorter than conventional services, to include guitar music and video clips, and to address questions that are universal - like why there can be so much evil in the world if God is good - but that especially trouble couples bringing up young children.
"We want people to know that we will be relevant," Melanie said.
Meanwhile, both Lotzes express themselves as pleased to be situated in New England, and in a small, older church in a small community. City-bred, they like the slower pace of life in this area, the richness and age of New England culture - comforting parallels to Europe, they said - and the fact that, in a church like Cape Neddick Baptist, with only 73 members, and a history going back to 1829, "Everybody in the church knows each other. "
Setting an example for them, they said, are several parishioners now in their 90s. Not only are they interesting, Carsten said, for the stories they tell of some very different times, but they're admirable for the way they have lived their lives.
"We're totally amazed by their faith," Melanie said.
Asked for a summary of how matters have gone thus far, Carsten cradled his new son, grinned anew, and said, simply, "It's been great. We love it."
