Following Jesus together
We believe the local church is God’s main instrument in this time.
That is why church is more to us than a service, a programme or an organisation. Jesus does not only call us to follow him personally, but into a shared life with him and with one another.
We want to grow towards Jesus together, carry one another and use our gifts for the good of others. At the same time, we never want to be a church that only revolves around itself: we want to serve, take responsibility and invite people to follow Jesus.
We are built up so that we ourselves can become a blessing.
How we meet
Our public Sunday services take place every two weeks.
In the weeks in between we hold a service as a church family, which we call our community gathering. There we celebrate communion together, have more time to share, pray for one another and work on spiritual topics together.
During the week we also share church life – for example in house groups, prayer meetings and outreaches together.
If you would like to know what this looks like or how you can get connected, just talk to us.
Upcoming services & events →Marks of a church
In the New Testament we see a lot of freedom in how church can look in practice. At the same time, there are foundations for us that are not up for negotiation.
Gathering together
We want to meet regularly as a church, listen to God’s Word together, pray and worship God. For us this also means being filled with the Holy Spirit again and again and serving one another with psalms, praise and spiritual songs.
Remaining in the apostles’ teaching
The apostolic teaching is our foundation and standard. That is why we want to keep testing our thinking, our teaching, our experiences and our traditions against the Bible.
Praying together
We want to seek God together and live in dependence on him.
Celebrating communion
In communion we remember Jesus together – what he has done for us, and that through him we are connected to one another.
Making disciples and baptising
Jesus sends us to people. We want to tell others about him, invite them to follow him and walk with them on that path.
Being sent
We let ourselves be sent to bring hope and love to people – to the sick, orphans, widows, outcasts and everyone who is open to Jesus. This includes opening our homes and letting his love become visible and tangible.
Committed responsibility for one another
We want to carry, encourage and serve one another – and we may also correct one another.
Shared leadership
We deliberately want to share spiritual responsibility among several shoulders. That is why shared leadership by a team of elders is an important mark of a healthy church for us.
Much may look different. These foundations we want to keep together.
Church is family. And family is committed.
Spiritual family does not necessarily require living close to one another. But closeness helps us to notice each other in our busy everyday lives, to be there for one another and to support each other in practical ways. That is why many of us deliberately live near one another.
For us, church does not begin with the first song of the Sunday service and does not end with the last. Our shared life with Jesus – and with it our worship – runs through the whole week.
In this we experience what it means to be able to rely on one another. That does not mean everything is always easy. Differences, tensions and even hurts are part of real relationships. All the more beautiful it is to experience forgiveness, to keep reaching out to one another and to see our character grow in exactly these moments.
For us, community means being close to one another, carrying one another and growing in maturity together.
Everyone carries responsibility
A church is carried by all its members – not only in tasks, but also in developing it further and carrying it together.
The same is true of our services. The weight of church and worship should not rest on a few shoulders, because everyone has something to contribute. Everyone should recognise why they are part of the church and take responsibility for it.
The New Testament describes the church as a body: everyone belongs and everyone is needed – but not everyone can carry the same load in every season of life.
- A young marriage or a family with small children needs room to build a stable home.
- Anyone who is ill, exhausted or frail may allow themselves to be carried.
- A single person is no less valuable to the church than a married couple or a family.
- And anyone who has only just decided to follow Jesus may be taken by the hand, learn and grow step by step.
Different seasons of life do not mean different devotion to Jesus.
Devotion is possible in every season of life – it simply finds different practical expressions.
The church is carried by everyone – and sometimes that also means allowing yourself to be carried.
Word and Spirit
For us, the Bible and the Spirit belong together.
The Bible is our standard. We want to test teaching, experiences and spiritual impressions against it.
At the same time, we expect the Holy Spirit to be at work today and the gifts he gives his church. Some work quite naturally in everyday life, others show God’s supernatural action in a special way.
Serving · Teaching · Encouraging
Healing · Prophecy · Tongues
Different gifts. The same Spirit. To build up the church.
That is why we deliberately make room to pray for one another, to ask for healing, to share prophetic impressions and to test them together. People should be able to discover their gifts, learn and grow in them.
It helps us especially that we know each other well. In relationships that have grown over time we can weigh impressions better, give honest feedback and correct one another without it immediately creating distance or hurt. This creates a safe space where you can take a step of faith, make mistakes and learn together.
This responsibility does not lie only with the leadership but with the whole church: we may encourage, test and build up one another.
Not everyone has the same gifts, and no single gift is a measure of spiritual maturity.
Gifts are meant to serve. Character is meant to grow. Jesus is meant to be seen.
Our Jewish roots
We are not a Jewish congregation and do not want to become one. But we know that our faith is inseparably connected with Israel.
The God we know through Jesus is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We believe that God’s election of Israel has not been revoked and that his faithfulness to his covenant remains. As people from the nations we have been included through Jesus by grace – not in Israel’s place.
We do not only want to hold this conviction theologically, but to live it out in practice. We pray for the Jewish people. We organise and support outreaches where we meet Jewish people, serve them in love and support them in practical ways.
In our everyday church life, too, we are aware of the Jewish roots of our faith. In liturgical family services around the great biblical feasts we remember together how God has acted with his people and ask what we can learn from it for our life with Jesus.
More about Israel and our Jewish roots →
