Our Story

Redeemer International Church – Delft

Redeemer International Church in Delft was started in January 2017 when a group of people left Redeemer International Church in The Hague to start a new church in the heart of Delft.  This team was led original by Chris Taylor from The Hague church and subsequently by Dean Wilding.  

The vision of Redeemer The Hague was always to be involved in starting new churches in the Netherlands and beyond.  Over the course of the first few years in Redeemer The Hague they noticed that there was a good number of people coming through to Redeemer The Hague to participate in the life of the church from Delft only a few kilometers away.  It started to grow on their hearts that God was calling them to start a new international church in Delft.

During the course of 2016, the leadership in Redeemer The Hague started to gather together a group of people who would be the core of this new church in Delft.  Their original intention was that Redeemer Delft would be a “site” of Redeemer The Hague, that means it would have kept the same leadership and operational processes.  It would be one church, with one vision, in two locations.

By the autumn of 2016, a core of people started to meet weekly to pray for this new church in Delft. Chris Taylor led the team. The key roles and leaders we identified were: Meeting organizer:  Christopher Appel; Worship: Christopher and Attila Fabian; Kids work: Marjon Haffner and Suzanne de Jong; Welcome team: Marianne Kruger; Catering: Lorette Appel; Prayer: Steven Haffner and Paul de Jong; Life Groups: Christopher; Promotion: Marianne; Technical support: Attila; Admin: Csilla Fabian; Finances: Jan Kruger.

In January 2017, we held our first public service in a ballet studio at the top of the old Vrije Academie van de Kunst (VAK) building on Westvest.  54 people showed up on this first morning, some of whom, we still have no idea how they found out!

As 2017 continued, Redeemer Delft doubled in size, and the leadership team was complemented by: Dean & Tamar Wilding, Pete & Elsbeth George, Floyd & Man Lau, Rico van Onselen and Wessel & Rhodé Zaagman.

Meanwhile, it became clear to us that Redeemer Delft was not going to be a site of the church in The Hague, it had a different character and feel to Redeemer The Hague, as children tend to be different to their parents!  The decision was made that Redeemer Delft would become its own church.  From this moment on, we stepped into a long and sometimes painful, yet nevertheless exciting journey with God to becoming our own self-governing church with our own leadership (elders) and operations.

In May 2018, the first piece in this puzzle was placed when Dean Wilding took over leadership from Chris Taylor and Chris returned to The Hague.  Over the course of the next six months the process of selecting elders who would go on to lead the church began.  This process was completed in November 2018 when elders were appointed and we stopped being a ‘church plant’ and became a church.

In this period we have seen God do great things: the church has grown, he has brought wonderful people to build the church with us and he has brought new people to join the family of faith.  It has been a joy to work with God in these things and we do not know exactly what plans God has for us, but we are excited with what the future holds as we work out who God is calling us to be in Delft.