The Protestant Church in Assen, like many other churches, is having a hard time. The congregation still has more than 4,000 members, but only three hundred to five hundred believers attend church services every Sunday. “You can’t keep five churches open for that anymore,” Schoep is realistic. How different it was ten to twenty years ago. “I have lived in Assen for sixteen years now and have been visiting the Resurrection Church in Marsdijk since then. During that period I have seen the number of churchgoers decline. Twenty years ago they still had double services there on Sunday mornings.”
That is why the idea of taking measures has been around for some time within the church. Initially, this would be in 2030, but corona caused the number of churchgoers to decline more quickly. Due to financial pressure, it has now been decided earlier to take measures and merge three church congregations into one.
“In recent years, a number of our pastors have retired or left. But we have no money to attract new pastors,” says the chairman of the General Church Council. With the sale of the two church buildings we hope to strengthen our financial position and thus also be able to attract new pastors. We now work with itinerant ministers. But to continue building it is desirable to have stability.”
In recent months, the Church Council has looked at the best place to continue in Assen. That became the Joseph Church. A difficult choice, says Schoep. “The Jozef Church is a slightly more expensive building and comparable in terms of functions to our other church buildings. But it is also about how you want to be present in the city.”
It is not yet clear what church services will look like in the future. The various Protestant communities in Assen experienced their faith in their own way. It is possible that there will be double services again from 2025. In any case, Schoep hopes that the merger of the church congregations will lead to a revival. “A new large congregation is good for vitality, but there is of course also a risk that the distance to the church will literally increase and that people will drop out as a result.”
In any case, the expectation is that the Assen Protestant Church can continue for another ten to fifteen years with the sale of the churches. What happens to the church buildings that are for sale depends on the purchasing party. The Board of Church Trustees will be considering this in the near future.