Love Leiden

Personal history

Simon & Ruth Dixon have both been committed Christians since their childhoods. We have been members at Ivy Manchester since around 1989, and still consider this to be our spiritual home community. During our 14 years at Ivy Manchester we were cell group leaders for over 8 years. This taught us much about pastoral care, leadership skills, as well as giving us freedom to experiment with alternative forms of worship and teaching. Furthermore, Ruth was an administrator in the church office for around 6 years, followed a pastoral care course and eventually became a cell group co-ordinator responsible for three cell groups. Simon was a regular worship leader and worship band team leader for around 6 years. We both followed a leadership training course.

Simon worked for 10 years as an industrial R&D chemist in the Manchester area. During this career he learned many valuable skills such as project planning, research methods, public speaking, building relationships with external contacts, as well as following a further leadership course. For three years he was involved in managing a pioneering project, looking at spreading the field of application for his company’s products.

At our request in 2004, Ivy Manchester sent us to Moorlands College in Dorset, UK to follow a three year bachelor degree in Applied Theology with a view to moving on to The Netherlands thereafter in a missionary capacity. Ruth specialised in Pastoral studies and Simon in Cross-cultural studies, taking special interests in church planting and critiquing the so-named ‘emerging church movement’. Simon was able to follow a further intense practical leadership skills course. Simon also did four practical placements: two working with international students and leading evangelistic Bible study meetings; one working with a recent church plant in Tower Hamlets, London for 5 weeks; and a 5 week block placement in The Hague, Netherlands working with another recent church plant in an area of social deprivation. Both of these block placements were linked to the UK church planting mission agency Urban Expression.

Personal gifts: Ruth is a natural pastor and is passionate about caring for people. She is a talented organiser and administrator. Simon considers himself to be a jack of all trades, an all-rounder. He is gifted and experienced in team leadership and pioneering new endeavours. Although we consider ourselves to be missionaries, neither of us would say that we have strong gifting in evangelism, making the building of a team an absolute necessity.

We were married at Ivy Manchester in 1993. Samuel was born in 1998 and Luke in 2000. Luke is a robust character, optimistic and intelligent. He attends a protestant school very close to our house. Samuel is more of a fragile character and has recently been diagnosed as having a very low IQ. He starts at a special needs school in Leiden in January 2009. He is also strongly suspected for ADHD and will be tested for this later in 2009. Despite his low IQ, Samuel has three areas where he excels: social interactivity, language ability, and technical reading skills (i.e. not comprehension). These three areas allow him to go through life in a relatively normal fashion without betraying his underlying intelligence problems. This bodes well for his adult life.

Our history with Holland goes back to 1985 when Simon came on a family cycling holiday here for two weeks. When he was applying for university courses he found that his preferred course had a one year work placement opportunity there. Eventually, Simon managed to do this placement and spend 15 months working in Amsterdam for an American company in 1992-3. During this time Simon picked up a reasonable amount of Dutch language and spent time regularly doing evangelistic work in Amsterdam’s red light area.

Meanwhile, Ruth had long planned at some point to take a year out and had read Floyd McClung’s book “Living on the Devil’s Doorstep” about working in Amsterdam’s red light district. This eventually led to her spending 12 months working with Youth with a Mission (YWAM) in the Netherlands, during the time that Simon was also here (we were at this point engaged to be married). As we returned back to Manchester we believed that God would have us move back to Holland one day.

During Simon’s career as an industrial chemist he had many opportunities to travel to Holland on business and this allowed him to keep up his passion for the country and practice his language skills, even to the extent that when we moved back in 2004 he was able to move straight into a Level 3 course. We have also chosen to spend many family holidays in Holland during our time living in Manchester.

Current situation

We moved to Leiden in September 2007, almost immediately after finishing at Moorlands College. Initially we lived for three months with another Christian family in the city centre until we found our current home in the Merenwijk area of Leiden.

We live in a four bedroom terraced house, rented from a corporate owner, which offers us superb value for money. Built in the 1970s, the Merenwijk is a very diverse area with some medium-high value housing, some moderate value (such as ours), as well as a large area of low-value housing and low-rise apartment blocks. In the centre of the Merenwijk there is a green area with a children’s farm and a covered shopping area.

Simon has spent 9 months part-time at language school and has now graduated with a reasonably high language level (Level 5, semi-fluent). He is currently working part-time for a Dutch multinational chemical company (Akzo Nobel). This is serving several purposes: Simon is able to use and improve his Dutch; it provides a degree of regularity to life; and it provides around one third of our living expenses. Although the work itself is of administrative nature and relatively simple, Simon is in familiar working surroundings in a chemical company and enjoying the work.

Ruth has now been following the Dutch naturalisation course since May 2008, which is mainly language and cultural learning. This takes up over half of her time, but is paid for by the city council. She will probably continue with formal language acquisition until at least 2010. The rest of her working hours (and some more!) are spent on keeping family life running smoothly.

Mission context – Leiden

Firstly, why Leiden? Is it because we visited once on holiday and thought it was a beautiful town? Actually, we did once visit briefly whilst on holiday and it was a miserable wet Monday morning and the town was dead (all shops close on Monday mornings here), so it made no lasting impression! Some time in 2006 Simon was praying about where in Holland we should be aiming for. The first name that came into Simon’s mind was Leiden and it felt right somehow, at least as a working hypothesis. As he read and learned more about the city’s past God seemed to speak to Simon through the details. Finally, during Simon’s placement in The Hague (which is only about 20km away) Simon made a couple of trips here to have a look around and met up with an evangelist who works in the city. This meeting made a big impression, largely due to the warmth of the welcome and the enthusiasm shown for anyone who would like to move here for church planting. The man also explained how God had been calling people to move to the city to begin new initiatives. Including more smaller details, Simon felt sure that God was calling us too to move here.

Leiden is a large town near the west coast of Holland, situated roughly half way between The Hague and Schiphol Airport. The city itself has around 117,000 inhabitants, but the conurbation which includes conjoined towns and villages is around 250,000. It is one of The Netherlands’ principal university towns, having the oldest university in Holland.

Leiden is nicknamed the ‘Key City’ after the coat of arms bearing the keys of St. Peter. Historically Leiden has been a key city in terms of theology. There have been several prominent theologians based in Leiden, most notably Arminius, who championed an alternative reformed theology to Calvin’s. Even though Arminius’ theology has spread widely in the western world, it was rejected by his fellow citizens in 1619 and the city has been a bastion of Calvinistic theology ever since. Leiden formed a refuge for the Pilgrim Fathers, ousted from England by James I, and they sailed for America from Leiden in The Mayflower in 1620.

Leiden’s rich theological past is long behind, the church here now is relatively weak and numbers are steadily shrinking, with at least one church closing per year for the last few years. Although there are still 20 churches active in Leiden, most are either small, elderly, non-Dutch speaking, very traditional, or have acknowledged that they do not see Leiden as a mission field. As far as I am aware, there are currently no Dutch-speaking mission focused evangelical churches actively reaching out to the city’s inhabitants. Almost all of the evangelical Christians living in Leiden are involved in churches outside of the city. There are certainly no churches here that are primarily looking to respond to a post-Christendom, post-modern generation. Furthermore, due to the large immigrant population here, it is a safe assumption that there are currently more Muslims in Leiden than committed Christians. For these reasons we can conclude that Leiden is now a genuine mission field once again. It is our dream that Leiden will once again become a ‘key city’ for the land of The Netherlands.

Our aim is to avoid the cultural divide between the existing forms of church in Leiden and the rest of society. We plan not to start another church that does things that a typical Leiden resident would find strange, but rather foster a culture that reflects the local culture, as long as that does not clash with, or dilute biblical principles. In other words a bespoke 21^st Century Dutch church for 21^st Century Dutch people.

What are we doing that a Dutch person could not be doing? Is this the right question? A better question would be “What are we doing that Dutch people have shown no signs of doing for a long time?”. There have only been two churches planted in Leiden in the last 30+ years, the English speaking international church, and another missional church which is still in the early stages of being planted. This new church plant, with a core team of around 50 adults, primarily consists of disenfranchised local Christians and is yet to launch public services. We will continue to foster a good working relationship with the leaders of this church.

There is also an ad-hoc prayer group for people involved in pioneering projects in Leiden. It is very interesting to note that there are no native Leiden people involved in this group. There is a sense that the church of Leiden has gone a long time without reaching out to its own people. In the last three years God has drawn people from outside of the city to work here once again, roughly half Dutch nationals and half from the UK and USA. Is The Mayflower returning to Leiden from across the waters???

Our current focus is to investigate two areas: the Merenwijk, where we currently live; and the Mors, another area of relative deprivation. Both of these areas have a high percentage of under-privileged people and immigrants. The Merenwijk has 15,000 residents, 30% of whom are immigrants, and has one church. This church has a largely elderly congregation, is quite traditional and its leaders declare themselves to be still seeking for the truth. The Mors has 10,000 residents, 26% immigrant, and also currently has only one church. This church is an independent charismatic church that sees Africa and India as its main mission focus. It has a drugs rehab centre based here that covers the whole of Holland. We have been told by them that they do not currently see the Mors as a mission focus. The Dutch reformed church in the Mors closed recently and the building was demolished during 2008. The church in the process of being planted (mentioned above) is planning to rent building space in the Mors from February 2009 and will strongly focus their missional activities on this area.

Ministry methods & support model

First of all it must be said that our methods must naturally flow from who God has made us to be and by means of the gifts he has given us. This will mean an emphasis on our caring for people, for forming and implementing strategies, for team leading, for discipling people through spending time with people and modelling a worthy lifestyle. Hospitality will form the bedrock of our ministry, through making our home available for meetings, though providing and sharing meals together, through providing short-term and possibly long-term accommodation for those who need a place of safety.

The primary support model that we have chosen is that modelled by Paul – ‘tent-making’. Paul had a regular(ish) job that provided him with the majority of his income. He was also supported by gifts from churches. We have decided that we should have part-time jobs that root us in the culture here and provide a place in society, as well as provide us with a substantial fraction of our income. However, prior to moving to Holland we invested a large amount of time recruiting personal supporters too. These mainly come from family and friends in our previous churches. Additionally, we have a large prayer support network.

Currently approximately one third of our income comes from the budget of our sending church, Ivy Manchester, though this will steadily reduce in the future. We also have a reasonable income from our UK based savings – proceeds from the sale of our house in Manchester. Our total UK income has eroded by more than 40% since we moved to Holland due to exchange rate changes. Partly due to the uncertainty of exchange rates, and partly for reasons of principle, our aim is to eventually have the majority of our financial support coming from within the country we serve in, Holland.

We are very aware of the need to be connected with other like-minded Christians. The usual method of doing this is through Mission Agencies. Before we moved to Holland we explored the potential of working with European Christian Mission (ECM). This did not work out, primarily because we felt strongly called to Western Netherlands and ECM are currently only active in Limburg, in the South East of the Netherlands. We are currently not aware of any other church planting mission agencies active in Holland. Through his contacts with Urban Expression UK, Simon is currently an associate of this organisation and hopes to become at least an associate of the newly established Urban Expression NL when this becomes possible. Urban Expression NL was established in 2008 through Matthijs Vlaardingerbroek, Simon’s personal coach. We remain more than open to the possibility that we could work more formally with Urban Expression NL if God leads us in that direction.

Simon is also keen to increase his level of networking with other like-minded church planters in Holland. There is now a good number of missional church planting teams in Holland and building up relationships with other team leaders will be a good way of exchanging ideas and for mutual encouragement. Additionally, there is a church planting network organised by two church planters, one being Matthijs Vlaardingerbroek. This network organises occasional conferences and seminars.

Ministry mode

It is accurate to describe the post-modern generation in the Netherlands as an effectively unreached people group. Dutch society over the last 40 years has been increasingly atheistic and humanistic, church attendance has plummeted and many parents prefer to send their children to non-religious schools over faith-based ones. Yet, as in other western countries, there has been an increase in people looking for a sense of connecting with some form of spirituality. Indeed one of our next door neighbours is a Dutch national yet a practising Buddhist. The biblical model of reaching an unreached people group with the Gospel is through planting indigenous churches, as modelled by the apostle Paul.

Why do we plan to plant churches? Simon had never thought of this until he was at Moorlands College. During his time there he felt God’s clear call to this ministry and subsequently chose to focus much of his reading and studying on this subject. He became steadily more passionate about the desperate need for church planting to become a normal part of church life again. He also read much about re-connecting with society – a society that has changed so much in the last two generations, in contrast to the church which has largely remained inward focused. He has been shaped by critically studying the Emerging Church movement in depth (the subject of his dissertation).

Whilst the initial goal for the next two years is to start a Dutch-speaking church, probably based in our own home, the eventual goal is to build up a network of small (probably house-based) faith communities.

For a better feel of how this all might look in the future, see the separate Core Values page.

Strategy

In consultation with others in a similar position we decided to spend the first 12-18 months in Holland focusing on language acquisition and settling the children into their respective schools. We are currently on track with this plan. Simon has recently completed his language course and achieved a good standard, and Samuel begins at a school for special educational needs in January 2009. We have found that a combination of language study, organising bureaucracy, part-time work and spending time on Samuel’s special needs has indeed taken most of our time for our first 14 months here.

Practical research project – January to June 2009

Working together with the elder responsible for mission and evangelism at our home church here, we will undertake a spiritual investigation of two key areas in Leiden: the Merenwijk (where we live) and the Mors. The aim of this investigation is to discover which district God is directing us to focus our missionary efforts in, and with which target group we should be working, e.g. Dutch nationals or immigrants. This investigation will include prayer walking, finding and engaging with key inhabitants (‘gate-keepers’), chatting to local residents and professionals, door-to-door questionnaires, and a literature survey. Our aim is to get an intimate feel for each area and be able to sense clearly which area God is directing us to work with.

This work has already begun.  Simon has been doing some door-to-door work in the Mors district and engaging with locals at the community centre and meeting with Christians known to live in the area.  Simon is investigating how he can get involved in the community centre in the Merenwijk, or in some other community based activity. With the new church plant mentioned earlier locating to the Mors area, we will be shortly reviewing whether the Mors continues to be the right area to work in.

Pulling together a team – whole of 2009

Simon has already started the process of pulling together a Dutch-speaking team through sharing the vision for indigenous church planting in Leiden. This is a key objective for 2009 and will be mainly focused within our current church here (Dutch Reformed Church), in consultation with the leadership, but also through networking with other potential church planters at regional and national events. Two potential team members have already been approached. Simon will draw up a list of values and expectations for potential team members to make clear what the commitment involves.

As soon as team members are on board then they will be encouraged to find activities that suit them to move the project forward. This will usually mean being actively involved in some kind of group within the district being worked in. This may also mean that the team member moves into accommodation in the area.

Drawing together a support team – whole of 2009

Whilst we receive good support from our sending church in the UK, we recognise the need to move the focus of our support by increasing the level of support locally. This will initially mean pulling together a prayer support team and then looking to raise more financial support from Dutch donors.

Personal development

Both Ruth and Simon currently have Christian personal coaches. Ruth has a native English speaking coach and is focusing on her personal development. Simon’s coach, Matthijs Vlaardingerbroek, based in The Hague, has been involved in church planting for around 10 years. Simon spent a 5 week placement from Moorlands College working with Matthijs and the team. At the moment Simon is focusing with Matthijs on defining and directing the church planting plans for the next months. Through these coaching relationships we have a formal method of remaining accountable whilst developing our gifts and focus. Simon also plans to further develop his leadership skills through a combination of reading, courses/conferences and engaging with his own coach.

Other potential ideas

Simon is discussing the idea of starting English conversation classes, either in our home or in a local community space. This could be enhanced by following an on-line course first. This could be a good way of building good relationships with local Dutch people and contributing to the local community. There would probably be a nominal fee charge for credibility but not really for serious profit.

A long term possibility is to establish a Christian business (e.g. a bakers or a charity shop) which could be community focused, Kingdom based and provide employment and training opportunities.