The Vineyard Church! Bob Dylan! Sugar land!

Vineyard church in amsterdam

After mentioning going to church in my previous post, I thought I talk about it in some more depth. As far as I know, there are only a couple contemporary church services taught in English that are in Amsterdam. I attended Crossroads, one of those churches, once, but wasn't too motivated to return. A couple of weeks later, a friend mentioned the Vineyard Church to me. The vineyard is a movement that started in the US, and this church was recently planted by people in ohio. The website says this about their founding:

"Sent out by Vineyard Columbus (Ohio, USA), seven adults and four children moved to Amsterdam in 2008 and early 2009, in order to assist in the forming of a new community of Jesus-followers in the city. They united with an already existing group of about 15 people, made up mostly of Dutch folks, in the hopes of establishing this community together."

My friend knew the founders of the church from his home in cincinnatti, so when coming here he had been planning on attending. I had heard about the vineyard, but didn't know much about it. In case, you the reader, didn't either, here is the wikipedia article on them: Association of Vineyard Churches. I can also highlight the significant (and by significant, I mean rather strange) points from the article:

• They are "neo-evangelical" - important because the term neo-evangelical sounds cool.
• It was founded through a combination of Bible studies held by Larry Norman and Chuck Girard, both of whom were pioneers in the CCM (christian contemporary) genre. Ugh, CCM.
• Bob Dylan attended some of these bible studies.
• The headquarters of the movement are in a city called Sugar Land, which I think, its safe to assume, is one of Candy Land's sister cities.
• It is described as the middle ground between evangelicalism and pentecostalism.

The service is held in what used to be a coffee shop, and instead of having rows of pews or chairs all facing the front, the chairs are more grouped around tables or scattered throughout. The sermon and announcements are given in either Dutch or English, and then translated into the other language. Most of the worship music is done in english, which works fine since almost all of the Dutch in Amsterdam have great English. One of the people who is completing an internship at the church mentioned that it is 70% Dutch, and 30% other nationalities, so I've gotten to meet a lot of people from other cultures that way. It has a really informal and tight community feel - I felt really welcomed the first time I came, and actually have gotten to know people. In the past at some churches I've attended, I've gone to the service for a while without actually getting to know anyone, but it makes a huge difference when you build relationships with the people at church. I'm going to miss it when I leave.

A couple of shots from right after church has ended: