The Reformed Congregation in Oosterhesselen transfers its monumental church building at the end of 2025 to the Drentse Landschap Foundation. The members of the municipality agreed on 21 May with the proposal of the church council.
The Oude Drentse Kerken Foundation (part of the Drenthe Landschap) will be responsible for the major maintenance of the building after the transfer. The daily management and exploitation are transferred to a local foundation to be established.
The church council had been considering the future of the church for some time. Returning church attendance and difficulty in continuing to organize administration and management forced action. Even after the transfer, the church remains a place before meeting: the Sunday celebrations will continue, whereby the ecclesiastical congregation will use the building as a tenant. From January 1, 2026, the reformed municipalities of Oosterhesselen and Dalen merge.
For the Drenthe landscape, the church in Oosterhesselen is the seventh church in Drenthe that it gets owned. Although the Drenthe landscape takes on ownership and major maintenance, daily responsibility remains in the hands of the village community. Things such as rental, cleaning and small jobs are organized locally.