The church building, I am guessing, was built in the seventies. There were about 70 people in attendance. At a guess I would say the average age was around 60. There were only a couple of kids and there were some college age kids but many of the congregants were, literally, getting around in wheel-chairs or with walkers. The slogan on the front reads: "together with you for God and each other."
The preacher spoke very clearly and gesticulated a lot which made it a lot easier to understand what he was saying. I think I probably understood about 75% of the sermon. (The guy who read the announcements was not so clear. Even with reading along in the bulletin I understood very little of what he was saying.)
This church (I do not know if it is denominational decision or not) uses the Nieuwe Bijbel (NBV). However, they use the 1960s version of the NBV, not the 2004 edition that the Pelgrimvaderskerk uses. I am sure that English translations are just as bad but, honestly, it gets so confusing! I don't know how these two editions differ although the spelling and language (to my untutored eye) seemed more old-fashioned in the one from this week, and closer to the Statenvertaling Bijbel, than to the 2004 NBV. One very good thing about this church is that they provided pew Bibles so I was able to follow along very nicely. But in any case, it seemed like a fine sermon and I understood almost all of it!
Since it was communion Sunday (the first Sunday thing must be a worldwide phenomenon) the sermon was related to the Lord's Supper with texts from Isaiah 55:1-5 and John 6:48-58. The title of the sermon was "Horen, Eten, and Genieten" or "Hear, Eat, and Enjoy," based on the Isaiah 55:2b--"Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." The pastor presented these three ideas as three steps of ascending intensity--hearing comes from the outside, eating you take into yourself, and enjoyment is what you express as a result. If you will forgive me as I cavil at a small point (I am just delighted that I was able to understand enough to complain), in discussing the first point "hearing" the pastor pointed out that what was meant by the language was not simply the physical action of hearing but something much more involved (as in the Mark 8 sense). Taken in that light I am not sure that the step from "hearing" to "eating" was as large a distinction as he wished it to be a little later on.
The hymns were very nice--they were old style tunes and very familiar. Also the organist was quite good. She played for accompaniment well, so that it assisted the singing instead of drowning it out.
Communion procedures were not what I am accustomed to however. I do not know if having everyone go to the front of the church to take communion is a European thing, a Dutch thing, a new thing, or just something they do everywhere where I haven't been to church, but of the three churches I have been in for a Communion service since I arrived, all of them had people go to the front. At this church, in addition, they had a long row of tables set up at the front and then everyone had to go to the front and sit at the table. Then they passed out the communion (with communal wine cups) and then everyone sang hymns with the hymn books that were laid out at the table for that purpose.
My favorite thing about this church though, is where it is located. It is far south of me (and not very convenient to get to). It is in kind of a semi-suburban area and the road from the bus stop to the church is between a 3 or 4 acre empty lot on one side and what appears to be a community garden of some kind on the other. There are horses being kept in the interior of the block or lot and, from the smell, I would say that there are either also cows being kept there or they ship in some fertilizer (it was a nice, homey smell). It was a fun walk though. There were all of these little garden plots, kept up to a greater or lesser degree, with all kinds of different vegetables and plants and things. The fencing along the road and between the plots was mostly jury-rigged affairs with bits of this and bits of that strung together with barbed wire and propped up with sticks. It would have made Grandpa proud.
It was a really pleasant walk though--it had been pouring rain all night, with terrific thunderstorms going on into the morning but it cleared up just in time to be a nice, clean, washed-up feeling Sunday.
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