September 5, 2025

All Saints Gazette: Taking Inventory

We’re back!How awesome is that!
This week at All Saints:
Sunday, 17:30: Eucharist with meal afterward @ Vrijburg (or join on Zoom)
Monday to Friday, 9am: Morning Prayer Online, Zoom
For links to online events, see church calendar

We had a little preview service in Kampen this Sunday, both to offer or worship to God and (I’m sure you know the story by now) to keep law enforcement from being able to enter and apprehend the Babayants family, who is taking sanctuary in the church there. The 24/7 worship, with churches from all over the country taking shifts, has been going on since 21 November last year. Thanks to Hans and Duetta for driving and to Sophie for the pasta (which, without any planning on our part, dovetailed nicely with a major theme of the sermon).

This week, our regular twice-a-month Eucharist at Vrijburg starts up again at 17:30. The things that are always awesome will still be awesome! And the things that have been growing edges will also be awesome in whatever way God has appointed!

Over the summer, when I was finding parts of our travels exhausting and often didn’t have access to my usual practices for saying centered, aware of God’s presence, and not getting overstimulated, I found myself saying versions of this prayer a lot. I think it’s mostly of my own devising, but I do see the influence of a certain collect.

Give us your peace God, and every other good thing you desire for us. What we cannot produce ourselves because of our sins and the frailty of our nature, grant that we may receive as your free gift, through the merits of Jesus, and as the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

As with my mental composure at the end of a long day of childcare and other work, so with the worship and witness of our church. What we offer God, in our lives and in our worship, is not ourselves and our own merit, but Jesus and his. Of course God’s work of creation and redemption— God’s very self—is worthy of the best that we have in every respect. But we have nothing that is not given to us by God, and we can (must!) trust that whatever we need to worthily make an offering to God on Sunday and everyday has been given to us by God. If there is anything that God has not yet given us, then we don’t need it yet.

And the big “yes, and…” that goes along that last part: God has given us more than we are aware of. Come on Sunday, and let’s find it together.

ANBI and Tax-Deductible Offerings

News from last week, but in case you missed it: All Saints has ANBI status now, meaning that your 2025 and future gifts to our church are tax deductible under Dutch law. For proper tax advice, you’ll need to consult a tax professional (especially if you pay taxes in multiple countries—I feel your pain). But very roughly: when you make your Dutch tax declaration, you can list your offerings to All Saints under “gifts to ANBI organizations” along with our RSIN number, which is 866257366. The gift is then deducted from your taxable income. There is a minimum threshold, which is lower for recurring gifts than for one-time donations, so all the more reasons to pledge. A means of doing that will be coming soon.

Officially Joining All Saints/General Community Meeting

Before we debate whether God exists, let’s talk about about the ways in which All Saints does (and doesn’t).

• Two years ago, we were an informal regular gathering with no legal existence.

• Then we existed as an Episcopal mission but not as a Dutch organization.

• Now we’re a Dutch organization with ANBI status but—from a legal and canonical perspective—no members.

So to us and to God, All Saints is real and each of us are part of it. But we now need to take the final steps under Dutch law and Episcopal canons to actually allow you to join! You can then do things like vote at our annual meetings where we make decisions about the vision and framework of our life together. How does that happen?

Chicken and egg kind of thing, really. We’re going to announce a meeting soon (we’ll ask folks on Sunday what a good time would be). You come to this meeting, declare you intent to join, vote on the statues that we have prepared, and then fill out a form to join as per those statues. If you’re already baptized, that’s it!

“But wait,” I imagine someone saying! “What about me? I’m not baptized!”
Well, we can baptize you! We need to talk about what it means, what you’d be getting yourself into, and whether this is really what you want (we won’t decide for you). If you decide it is what you want, we’ll set it up! There are certain days that are considered particularly suitable for baptism, so we’ll see if one of those makes sense. But in principle, we can do it any time. So to make a joke about the most serious thing you’ll ever do:

If you think you and Jesus want to stay together, come talk to us and we’ll set up the party!

Pledge Drive!

When you join, you will be invited to make an annual financial pledge. Pledging really helps us.

When we know about how much money to expect, we know whether we can afford things like moving to worship every week, subscribe to bookkeeping apps, invest in advertising, rent a booth at events, contribute as a church to important causes… You get the idea.

We anticipate that we will continue needing to rely on the wider church for a significant portion of our funding, at least in the foreseeable. We have received (and will hopefully continue to receive) support from Convocation and the Episcopal Church-Planing Office, and we are always on the lookout for other grants we can apply for. It is a joy to be part of this wider community and to receive their support, just as it is a joy for them to offer it. And when we ask for support, having a strong base of members and friends who pledge their support is one of the biggest things that shows them that we have commitment and energy and that they should keeping devoting resources to us. To be clear, especially at this point in our life, the fact that people pledge means more than how much they pledge. So please pray about what you can pledge, and be on the lookout for the invitation.

Convention and Festival of Gathering

This year’s Convocation Convention is on the 16 October in Wiesbaden, with the Festival of Gathering to follow on the 17th and 18th. We are entitled to two lay delegates to Convention, and you can attend in person or online. If you go to the Convention, you can stay for the Festival. You can also go to the Festival without being a Convention delegate.

So who wants to go? We will try to come up with support for travel and registration for our delegates, so please reach out to us if you’re interested. We will probably also have a festival attendee sponsored, so let us know. This is a way to see what the bigger community that makes All Saints possible is like and contribute something back to it.

You can learn more about the Festival here! This year’s theme is Becoming Good Stewards of God’s Creation.

But don’t wait with the giving!

I’ll end as I started: God has given us what we need. We hope there will be continued support from the wider church. But while we’re waiting on that, we believe that God has sent us exactly the right people with the gifts and resources to do whatever God calls us to do. And we’l lkeep this up as long as we have the resources, and hopefully also build it up. That said, I confess I’m a bit nervous about the bottom line. If you haven’t yet made giving to All Saints part of your spirituality, please take a close look at whether God is calling you to start. If you already have, thank you! If you can, could you see if you can increase a bit (or more than a bit)? If you can’t make a regular commitment yet, we’re still grateful for what you give when you can. And we will always be grateful for what you have already done, and God will continue to honor it.

Use the QR code or this link, or make a transfer through your banking app (the latter saves us a few cents). Please consider making your offering recurring, and pray about what you are called to pledge when we have our winter pledge drive.

Bank details
All Saints Amsterdam
IBAN NL32 TRIO 0320 8657 62
BIC TRIONL2U

We’ll try to find a good video next week. But that’s all for today! Want to talk to a priest? We want to talk to you too!

Website: https://allsaintsamsterdam.church
Mpho: mpho@allsaintsamsterdam.church
Kyle: kyle@allsaintsamsterdam.church
General: info@allsaintsamsterdam.church
Instagram: @allsaintsamsterdam.church