Pelgrimvaderskerk in Rotterdam--Delfshaven (14 augustus 2011)

An elder from Grace OPC in Lansing, MI, the church that I attended while I was in Mt. Pleasant, is from the Netherlands and he offered to find out about good, Reformed churches in the Rotterdam area.  He put me in touch with a minister in the Christian Reformed Church (Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerk) which is a pretty conservative denomination here in the Netherlands.  Dr. van Pelt pastors a church a ways outside of Rotterdam but he suggested two CGK congregations in Rotterdam, whose pastors he knew, and the Pelgrimvaderskerk, which is a part of the Protestant Church of the Netherlands (Protestantse Kerk in Nederland) which he says has a reputation for having good, solid preachers although it is a more "dynamic" and youthful church.

Since the Pelgrimvaderskerk was way easier to get to than either of the other churches--it is only about 8 minutes walk from the Delfshaven metro stop--I decided to try it out, since it has been pouring rain.

The church has roots in the Puritan's works on their way to America, hence its name--Pelgrimvaderskerk--the Pilgrim Father's Church.  Although most of the Puritans lived in Leiden (which is another place I figure I ought to go see) they actually disembarked from Delfshaven on their way to the New World.  The church is an historic landmark and you can go in and tour it during the week.  It was really pretty inside and I think that I will plan on stopping in again sometime, to tour the inside for fun.  Bits of the church are four- or five-hundred years old but it was rebuilt and added onto a couple of hundred years ago.


This is a view from across the canal.

This was the first view of the church that I had, as I was walking down Vuurplat and crossing the bridge over the canal.

This is a view from the other side.  The church bells ring a lot.  They ring when you ought to start heading for church, when church is about to start, and when church is over.  They church bells are also really old.  I don't know what the big antenna/flag pole is for, though.

The congregation was quite large.  I would guess that there were around 400 people.  It was a fairly youngish group, with the median age being 35-40, at a guess.  There were also quite a few children.  There was a lot of singing--five hymns, two psalms, and a children's hymn--with an organ, and, as you can imagine with that many people singing (and it seemed like everyone sang pretty heartily) it was pretty impressive sounding.

Everything was in Dutch, of course, but I was able to follow a fair bit of it.  I just had to listen really hard.  They had a little children's message at the beginning and the pastor spoke more slowly and clearly during that section so it was a lot easier to follow what he was talking about.  Plus, at one point, he said "Wie zijn op vakantie geweest?" (Who has gone on vacation?)  Which I understood very clearly because we were just talking about past-perfect tenses for the last couple of days in class and because we had a section on "vacations" on our second day in class.  So I felt very with it, and like I knew what was going on.  (This fit in with the sermon because it was about how Jesus never takes vacations.  The children's hymn was "Ik be veilig in Jezus armen"--"I am safe in Jesus' arms" but the words are kind of different from the Fanny Crosby song.  You can hear the song in Dutch here--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqHKXaLOG64.  It is probably not the greatest song ever but it is kind of pretty and it was easy to sing along to.)

Also, the church was very crowded and when I got in there weren't very many seats left.  So I had to go down one of the side aisles and ask a lady "Is deze plaats vrij?" ("Is this seat free?")  She said it was and so I got my seat and then, after the service was over, she started talking to me in Dutch.  I had no idea what she was saying and so I had to say that I spoke very little Dutch (so I said "Sorry, Ik spreek beetje Dutch"--which kind of sounds like "I speak very little German" but really doesn't mean anything (I should have said "Ik spreek beetje Nederlands") so then the illusion was shattered pretty dramatically) but, for an hour or so, that lady thought that I knew how to speak Dutch!

I didn't follow all of the sermon.  I guess that I caught about 35-40% of the words, which meant that I probably understood about 20% of what was going on but there were chunks of it which I understood pretty well.  I was sitting behind a giant pillar so I couldn't see the board which showed the Bible readings so I had to figure out where to turn just by listening and I was able to find the correct place every time!  So score one for me =-)

The service started with an announcement that a woman in the congregation had died and the pastor quoted from Psalms 103 and also (I think) from Proverbs 31.  I understood most of this bit.

The Bible readings for the sermon were from Psalm 136-- "want Zijn goedertierenheid is in der eeuwigheid"--("For his mercy endureth forever") which was pretty easy to follow and John 1:1-5 which was also pretty easy to follow (I was using my English Bible because I still don't have a Dutch Bible but this church uses combination Bible/hymanl/Psalters which they have available at the front door (I didn't see them 'til the way out) and so I will probably use those for church until I can find one of my own).

The first part of the sermon was about Jesus' priesthood and how the the Levitical priests were looking forward to the incarnation, always remembering God's everlasting mercy and resting on that, as they offered sacrifices in the temple.  After the first 8 or 10 minutes though, I got kind of lost and then it was really hard to pick up the thread again.  But what I did hear sounded pretty good.

They had coffee afterwards but there were an awful lot of people and I didn't think that I was up to any more Dutch, so I just slipped out.  Other people were leaving right away though, too, so I wasn't the only one.

Also,  as I mentioned, I ended up sitting in one of the side aisles of the church, in folding chairs which were set up kind of under the semi-flying-buttresses.  As people were leaving they were folding up their chairs and leaning them against the wall and so I did so as well.  Now, during the service I had noticed that there were patterns of some kind on the floor, and, after all the chairs had been moved, I looked down and saw something that said "Hier ligt . . ."   That was when I realized that they were the grave markings for grave stones which were flush with the sanctuary floor.  I don't know who I was sitting on but I will have to check when I go back for a tour.