Being Church in the 21st Century

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Being Church in the 21st Century
Church of the Nazarene Vlaardingen, the
Netherlands Paul van der Laan
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• Vlaardingen
• 72.000 inhabitants

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The Netherlands

• 34.000 square kilometres
• 16.6 million inhabitants
• 83 Dutch
• 17 Other origin
• 9 non western origin
• 31 Roman Catholic
• 20 Other Christian denominations
• 6 Islamic
• 43 non religious

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The Netherlands

• Post modern
• In favour of spirituality
• Anti Christianity

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Church of the Nazarene Vlaardingen

• 13 Churches of the Nazarene
• 40 years Church of the Nazarene in the
  Netherlands
• 25 years Vlaardingen Church Pastor

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Church of the Nazarene Vlaardingen

• Community
• 1632 souls
• 815 members
• 436 children
• 35 younger than 25 years

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Mission

• Twofold
• Leading non-believers to Christ
• Leading believers towards Christ likeness
• Leading people to their divine goal

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Being Church in the 21st Century

• No significant changes in community
• 50 from the world
• 50 from other Christian denominations

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Being Church in the 21st Century

• Significant changes in local church from church
  as a village towards church as a town
• Organizational
• Paid professionals
• Board
• Shift in responsibilities
• Pastoral traditional position of the pastor
• Building
• Major change small groups (house church)

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Being Church in the 21st Century

• Does your local church reflect your immediate
  community?
• Regional church
• Not reflecting the ethnic situation

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Being Church in the 21st Century

• Greatest need in your community
• Pastoral care and attention
• Applied christianity
• Greatest challenge
• How to apply the grace of God in daily life
• How to communicate the gospel in todays language

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Being Church in the 21st Century

• Local and global aspects of our mission
• NMI NCM working globally
• Local NCM projects missions to your neighbour
• Relation evangelism
• Cooperation with professionals

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Being Church in the 21st Century

• How whould you describe /define the Vlaardingen
  church to be the church (locally, nationally,
  globally)
• Lead people to their divine goal
• True Christianity versus religious Christianity
• Daily lives versus vertical beliefs
• Religion-free church
• Promoting Wesleyan thoughts

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Being Church in the 21st Century

• Experiences
• anticipate the consequences of your visions
• Concerns
• How to reach people
• How to facilitate a growing community
• Dreams hopes
• Growth in number as well as in depth
• Revival in the Netherlands
• Church serving multi-purpose functions
• Encouraging to see how lives are changed
• Gods grace is not limited by the boundaries of
  denominations or cultures

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Being Church in the 21st Century

• Contextualization
• Applied Christianity
• Authentic
• Together
• Not in the form
• Strong caring relations
• Outside the religious box