Discover The Church

We are Redeemer International Church Delft and we exist to help people discover Jesus and follow him faithfully together through the chaos, confusion and contradictions of our world in 21st Century. 

We 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 and currently by Dean Wilding.  We have become a community of people from all over the world who aim to love God and all people and want to show everyone everywhere that the message of Jesus is still as exciting, relevant and life-changing today as it always has been.

Our Vision

What is a “vision”?

Our vision tells us what we want to be in the future.  It is a picture of the type of community and the type of people we want to become.  It is what we would want to find if we jumped into a time-machine and came out and looked at Redeemer in five or ten years’ time.

Our Vision Statement

To be a community that Jesus is using to transform Delft, its surroundings and the world.

This is a big God-size vision, if it was up to us we would have no chance of seeing this come to be, but we believe in a God who has called us to have faith that nothing is impossible for him (Luke 18:27).

To be a community
The word used for “church” in the original Greek in the New Testament means something closer to an assembly; i.e. a gathering of people.  The life we see portrayed in the New Testament is a group of people who know and love each other (Acts 2:42-47).  We believe that God brings people together into spiritual families to accomplish his purposes in us and through us.

Jesus is using
Jesus is the one building his church (Matthew 16:18) and the Bible teaches that unless God is in something it is pointless to even try (Psalm 127:1).  We want to be used by Jesus to build his kingdom and not the kingdom of Redeemer Delft!

Transform Delft
The message that we have is life-changing for those that accept it and if more people in Delft come to be saved by Jesus through our church community then Delft will be transformed – it cannot not be!  The Good News is that powerful (Romans 1:16).

Surroundings and the world
It does not stop with Delft.  We have people from all over the world in Delft and in our church.  We are a transient community: people come, they meet with God and then they go again.  You could view this as a bad thing, but we want to embrace it as a gift of God.  This was God’s design for the Church from the beginning that it would move out from where it is (Acts 1:8).

What does this look like in practice?

We believe that we will see this vision become more and more a reality if we seek to become people who are SAVED:

  • Spirit-filled

    We are people filled with the Holy Spirit and who walk in God’s power.

  • Authentic

    We are people who are open and honest about our lives.

  • Valued

    We are people who know God’s love and grace for us and one another.

  • Evangelistic

    We are people who share the Good News about Jesus.

  • Devoted

    We are people who are committed to Jesus and each other.

Our Mission

What is a “mission”?

Our mission tells us what we need to do now in order to see Our Vision become a reality.  It is a statement of our goals and objectives, the practical way in which we will become the community that God is using to radically transform Delft, its surroundings and the world.

Our Mission Statement

To make Jesus famous through building a dynamic community who live out his teaching and share the Good News about him.

To make Jesus famous
The Bible is so clear on this; all things ultimately exist for the glory of God. As a church we do not exist for our own fame, or so that people would look at us and be impressed. No organisation, group, or individual can ever be worth ‘glorifying’ in the same way as God is. Our deepest longing is that as a result of coming into contact with us as a church, people would encounter God, worship and love him.

Building a dynamic community
The church is not an organisation, a building or a group of leaders, it is a community of people gathering to meet with Jesus and to serve him.  Jesus is building a community and it is this community that is going to make him famous in Delft by applying his teachings and sharing the Good News about him.

Live out his teaching
The Gospel of Jesus is the teaching of Jesus. It is the grand narrative of the Bible. It is the heart of God for people from eternity past to eternity future. The Gospel never grows old, and we never move past it – just deeper into it.  The Gospel has to be lived because it is all-encompassing for the Christian. The Gospel has implications for every area of life, and therefore we live in such a way as individuals and as a community that shows the message of Jesus.

Share the Good News
The Gospel of Jesus has to be shared in words because words are powerful! We love the Word of God. We want to be a church where the message of Jesus is clearly heard as it is preached about and talked about.

What does this look like in practice?

  • We Preach the Gospel

    Presentation of the Good News about Jesus in an engaging, easy-to-follow way on Sundays, on the streets, and in smaller groups (e.g. Alpha).

  • We Lay Foundations

    Giving people a firm basis for their life of following Jesus.  Teaching about baptism in water and the Spirit, repentance, faith, worship, prayer, etc.

  • We Encourage Community

    Embracing our transience and aiming to create opportunities for people to form strong connections.

  • We Raise Leaders

    Identification of potential leaders and training them to be confident and faithful in the ministry to which God has called them (e.g. New Ground Academy).

  • We Send People

    Equipping and encouraging people to go on to follow the call of Jesus wherever he calls them to go in their lives.

Our Beliefs

Central Beliefs

Redeemer International Church Delft holds to the historic Orthodox Christian faith as found in the Bible and summarised in the ‘Ecumenical Creeds’ of the Church (statements of belief developed by the early church, which all Christian denominations agree on):

The Trinity

We believe that there is one God who has eternally existed in a community of three: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All are to be worshiped and all are equally God. None of them came into existence at a point in time. They are not identical to one another (the Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit and the Son is not the Father or the Spirit, etc.) but they are one in will and essence.

God the Father

Created all things (both visible and invisible realities) out of nothing, according to his will, through the Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit. He is faithful to every promise and out of all that he created he intends for humanity, in particular, to live in relationship with Himself. Therefore, in an act of great mercy and love, he sent his Son into the world.

God the Son

He Came: Moved by love and in obedience to his Father, the Son came into the world as a man, but without the loss of his divinity. He was conceived by the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, and was born as Jesus of Nazareth through the virgin Mary. He was tempted in every way that we are and yet lived a sinless life. He came to reveal God to us and to rescue us from our rebellion and rejection of God (sin) and it’s consequences.

He Died and Rose: He died on the cross in our place, removing all barriers to our relationship with the Father. Three days later, he rose bodily from the grave, as a demonstration of his power over sin and death, and as proof of his identity as the eternal Son of God. For 40 days after his resurrection, he remained on the earth and appeared to over 500 people, teaching them and eating with them. After this time he retuned to heaven, where he now rules at the ‘right hand of the Father’, and through him all who love him have access to the Father.

He Will Come Again: At an unknown time in the future, Jesus will return physically, to establish his everlasting kingdom. At this time all the dead will be physically raised, and along with the living will be judged by him, according to how they have responded to his life and teachings.

God the Holy Spirit

Was sent by God the Father and the Son into the world in order to: make us aware of our need of a saviour, lead us to trust in Jesus’ life and work and to empower the believer to live a new life in obedience to God. He spoke through the Old Testament Prophets and inspired the writers of the New Testament, and he enables us to understand what God has revealed about himself.

The Church

The Church is a spiritual community, made up of all those (living and dead) who have turned from their sin and trusted in Jesus alone for their salvation, all of whom have been given new life by the Holy Spirit and are united to Jesus as ‘one body’. The Church is founded on the truths found in the Bible (the Apostles’ teaching) and is not identical to one denomination, institution, or gathering of people.

The Good News of Jesus Christ

To sum up the main message of the Bible, called the Good News or the Gospel, in one small section is not easy but we can get some help with a tool called The Four (find other languages here):

God loves you.

God created you for a loving, intimate and personal relationship with Him.  He loves you unconditionally as you are right now.

You are separated from God.

You do not experience God’s love because you ignore God and just do your own thing.  The Bible calls this sin.  It is the sickness of every human soul and the source of everything that is wrong in the world.

Jesus died for you. 

He came to heal you from sin.  He paid the penalty for your sin, he broke its power over you and will remove its presence from you – allowing you experience God’s love now and forever.

Will you choose to follow Jesus? 

This life-long journey of freedom, transformation and change begins by talking to God and asking for forgiveness for living our lives without Him.

Core Convictions

Along with these central beliefs we have other core convictions, which shape our specific practices of church and the Christian life:

Evangelical

We believe that the Bible, including the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament, is the written word of God. The Scriptures are the authoritative guide for all Christian life, practice and beliefs (for the Church and the individual). The truthfulness of every statement of belief is dependent on whether or not it is in line with the teachings of Scripture. All believers are encouraged to study the Scriptures and apply them to their lives in obedience to God, who speaks through them with life-giving power.

Reformed

As a church we stand within a particular Protestant tradition that emphasises the supremacy of God over all things in creation and in relation to salvation. We believe that all things exist for God’s purposes and his glory, that he is the rightful ruler and judge of all things and that he is the thing of most value and worth in the universe.

Charismatic

We believe that the Holy Spirit supernaturally gives abilities to believers, some of which seem “ordinary” (e.g. administration, hospitality), while others seem more extraordinary (e.g. healing, prophecy). We believe that all of the ‘gifts of the Spirit’ found in the Bible are still available for all who believe in Jesus and that these gifts should be encouraged and practiced in the individual’s life and within the Christian community for the building up and encouragement of all believers. We also believe that the ‘Baptism of the Spirit’ is available for all believers and should be accompanied by further fillings of the Spirit throughout the believer’s life.

Missional

We believe that God has given all believers a mission, which is to ‘Glorify God through living and sharing the Gospel (the good news about Jesus)’. Therefore, all of a Christian’s life should be lived in line with this purpose, and church life should be organised and practiced in such a way as to achieve this mission.

Our Values

What are “values”?

Our values tells us what is important to us as we go about Our Mission.  They can be seen as the “how” to the “what” of the mission.

Our Values

We have 5G’s and these sum up our values as a church community:

Gather
The Bible tells us that we should not give up meeting up together to encourage and build each other up. Jesus promised that he would be with us even if only two or three disciples are in the same place. Jesus wants us to meet together because following him was meant to be done as a community, as a team, as a family. We really value our time together on Sundays and during the week. We want everyone in our community to embrace and love meeting with each other as much as we do.

Look it up: Hebrews 10:24-25, 1 Corinthians 14Acts 2

Grow
The picture of the church in the Bible is one where people are growing in their depth of knowledge and love of God. People growing to be more like Jesus. We also see a picture of a church that people are being added into by God. We value growth in our community and we want everyone who joins us to be passionate about seeing growth in their own lives and also in the community itself. We think it is really important that the church is growing wider, bigger, deeper, stronger and bringing more and more glory to Jesus.

Look it up: Ephesians 4:1-16 & 2 Peter 1:3-11

Give
The Bible shows a church that is radically transformed in their attitudes by receiving the gift of salvation in Jesus. We see a people who are generous with all that they have been given by God. We value generosity and giving in our community as a sign that we are committed to building the church with Jesus. We want to see the city transformed because we were willing to give of our time, our energy and our money to God’s purposes.

Look it up: 1 Peter 4:10, Romans 122 Corinthians 8-9

Go
In the Bible, the church we see is on the move, it is not static, it is not stationary, it is going somewhere: it is a movement. We believe that God is at work and on the go and he is always asking the question: who can we send now? He is looking for people who are willing to go and be his messengers and his hands and his feet. It is amazing that God wants to work through us, when frankly, he doesn’t need us. We value the attitude that says: Here I am, send me.

Look it up: Matthew 28:16-20, Acts 1:7-8, & Acts 13:1-3

Grace
The last value we have is the most important, it is grace, without grace everything will fall apart. It is the glue that keeps the church together and it is the reason why the church exists. All of the preceding values rest on them being applied with grace and not as requirements or laws.

Look it up: Acts 4:33 & 2 Peter 3:18