Wie zijn we? We zijn een bonte mix van mensen van verschillende leeftijden, achtergronden, nationaliteiten, maar die allemaal volgelingen van Jezus willen zijn. Dat woord "volgeling" heeft voor ons een bijzondere waarde omdat ieder van ons Jezus wil navolgen in zijn of haar leven. We willen dat ieder van ons verandert naar het beeld van Jezus; dat is ons grootste doel... We willen een kerk zijn die een familie is die zich uitstrekt om meer en meer op Jezus te lijken en zo willen we eer brengen aan onze Vader.
We komen daarom niet alleen op zondag samen, maar vaak in kleine groepen om te spreken met elkaar over onze navolging en elkaar uit te dagen om te groeien in ons christelijk leven.
De kerk in Bilzen bestaat volgens ons trouwens uit vele verschillende groeperingen die samen het lichaam van Jezus uitmaken. Wij zijn er slechts een onderdeel van. We geloven dat God zelf weet wie allemaal deel uit maakt van Zijn kerk, in welk van deze groeperingen (of denominaties) je je ook bevindt. De kerk van Jezus in Bilzen is dus breder dan alleen deze groep! Wanneer we dus spreken over "onze kerk" bedoelen we "dit onderdeel van de kerk in Bilzen."
We geloven in God, de Vader, die een plan had met deze wereld nog voordat deze geschapen werd.
We believe in God, the Son, who is the Image of God and is God himself. He died to pay for our sins and to reconcile us to the Father.
We believe that He has been exalted to the highest place at the right hand of the Father and that He will come again for us to be with Him forever.
We believe in God, the Holy Spirit, the Comforter whom God has given us to live in us and to give us power to be Their witnesses. We believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are also for the church today and that the church should also be full of the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
We believe that the church is the family of God growing in the image of Jesus and in numbers, and that the church lives to bring glory to God. The church is not a building or an organization, but consists of all born-again Christians. The church is led by the Holy Spirit, always built on the foundation of Jesus himself and keeps itself within the boundaries of the Word of Jesus. The local church is overseen by elders, assisted by deacons.
We believe that the purpose for every believer is to be conformed to the image of Christ. We believe that God works primarily through other believers in personal lives (Matt 28:18-20, Titus 2).
That is why we strive to ensure that every follower of Jesus receives personal help in growing into the image of Jesus.
We enjoy gatherings and long to be with all followers of Jesus. There, we enjoy the praise with many, the teaching and testimonies of what God has done.
We want God to receive all the glory in everything we do (Rom. 16:16)
The story of this church started in 2005 with the visit of a young couple from Leuven in Porto Alegre, Brazil. With the desire for a renewal of their personal lives and of the church in Belgium, they were invited to visit a church that itself emerged from a renewal movement from the 1960s-70s in South America. Many traditional denominations (Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Mennonites) were renewed there by the Holy Spirit and began to experience a new power in their testimony. The need for conversion was preached and experienced more clearly. In addition, there was also a desire for a new form of church functioning. The emphasis was no longer on the meetings alone, but also on the formation of all new converts through personal discipleship.
That desire and fire was brought to Belgium. From 2005 to 2011, a group emerged that shared the same desire: to live as disciples of Jesus who want to be like their Lord and who pass this on to others. Three families came together in the first few years to further shape this “new” focus on following Jesus in daily life with the help of Brazil and a church from Sweden that had started a few years earlier with the same vision.
In 2011, all 3 families that had started as a church in Leuven moved to Bilzen and found many people there who together embraced this “new” way of being church and “new” focus on discipleship. The first people who wanted to walk this road were friends and family. But soon the church expanded to include a whole group from all kinds of places and nationalities.
After the blessing of the first elders in 2013 and 2016, the church has had a leadership of both elders and deacons since 2022, who together lead the congregation, which now consists of approximately a hundred members, half of whom are under 18 years of age. We are grateful to the Lord for what we have received and want to faithfully pass this on to the next generation and to everyone the Lord brings our way. Welcome to get to know us better!
The leadership of Vaste Grond, church in Bilzen