Former food scientist has a taste for ministry

After exchanging a high-level food science career for a new future in the Church of Scotland, Rev Dr Thorsten Koenig has been ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament at Kilmacolm Parish Church.

Thorsten, who took up the post of assistant minister in December, will remain with the Clyde Presbytery congregation until he moves to a charge of his own.

Clyde Presbytery moderator Rev Dr Christine Goldie led the service, Rev Stuart Steell of Renfrew Trinity Church preached the sermon and Clyde Presbytery clerk Rev Robbie Hamilton narrated the circumstances leading to the decision to ordain Thorsten as a minister and welcome him as an assistant minister at Kilmacolm Parish Church.

Originally from Germany, Thorsten had an early taste of church after leaving high school when he worked at the headquarters of one of Germany's regional churches as part of his mandatory civilian service, but the experience left him with the certainty that he would never become a minister in such a clergy driven church.

Instead, he embarked on a 25-year career in the food industry, not only founding his own start-up company, but leading innovation and heading up research teams in global companies and joining the board of the European Institute of Technology for Food.

While living in the Netherlands, Thorsten and his wife Astrid joined the English Reformed Church in Amsterdam, which is part of the Church of Scotland International Presbytery, where Thorsten went on to spend over a decade as an elder and later treasurer.

That Scottish connection was cemented when Astrid was offered a consultancy post at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow and the couple moved to a country Thorsten had only visited once before, as a commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 2019.

For Thorsten, who had long considered becoming a minister, the move presented the perfect opportunity to begin his training journey.

"I thought: ‘OK God, you were patient with me for 30 years, now I surrender,'" he said.

From the city to the islands

He deliberately chose his placements to get as wide an experience of the Church of Scotland as possible, from traditional parish churches such as Houston & Killellan and Kilbarchan to a less formal café church in the heart of the city centre at St George's Tron, serving in a priority area in Govan.

He also experienced what it was like to lead a service on one of the smaller Orkney Islands with 90 per cent of the population in attendance – some 30 people in total.

Alongside getting to know the Church in Scotland, the couple have maintained their passion for world mission and are regular visitors to Mulanje Mission Hospital in Malawi. Thorsten is also the co-founder and chairman of the hospital's charity trust here in Scotland.

All these experiences informed his understanding of the challenges of the Church today, but also strengthened his commitment to serve God's people.

"I come from a non-church and non-faith family," he said.

"I grew up in the Lutheran tradition, joined some very evangelical circles for a time, experienced a congregation in Amsterdam where denominations were of no importance, saw some different ways of being Church in Scotland."

"I hope in all what I do and what we do together we do not hinder God too much in the fulfilments of his good plan."