The Lord is a shoving Leopard!

Peter Gillies is a member of the Taskforce for an Anglican Church in Amersfoort, better known as TACA.  He will be providing updates on the progress with new church plant in Amersfoort.  This is his contribution for November.


The Rev William Archibald Spooner, Warden of New College Oxford, was especially likely to make this sort of malapropism (the title above should read: “The Lord is a loving Shepherd”).  And so it is with TACA (Taskforce Anglican Church Amersfoort) and our efforts with our new priest, Grant Crowe, to get all and everything in the right place at the right time for the right purpose!

After much brave effort, we can happily report some real progress: For a start, we have a name (which has the approval of the Chaplaincy Church Council and Bishop Robert).  It is: All Saints Anglican Church Amersfoort.  This name has been met with enthusiasm and we hope that you like it, too.  Perhaps you will like it enough to come and visit!  (

A place of worship – ah, yes.  The rather large issue of finding a suitable a building is so fond of us that it has hung around for quite some time.  However, we are just rounding off negotiations for a new home; indeed we have great confidence that this time we will meet with success.  Pray for us. [Since the first publication of this article, the church has now found a home!  Heilige Geestkerk, Mozartweg 54, 3816 LT Amersfoort]

Better still: Grant Crowe, his wife Jolanda, and their two lovely kids (Callum and Thirza) have found a home in Amersfoort!  This is super news; no priest can properly concentrate on his duties if his family doesn’t have a good nest and they’ve been able to find a very nice “rijtjeshuis” in Schothorst, Amersfoort.

So, we have a name, a church building, and a home for the priest… How about a start date?  We propose starting with an informal hour of prayer for the new church on 13 December 2015 from 15:30-16:30.  Feel free to join us; the address of the church building will be announced very, very soon.

The first actual communion service will be on 20 December 2015, followed by Carols & Lessons on Monday the 21st at 20:00.   The 24th – Christmas Eve – will feature a Midnight Mass beginning at 23:00 and Christmas morning will be celebrated with an All-age worship at 9:30.

Grant will come and preach at HTU in the first two weeks of December in Utrecht so we can all get to know him a bit better.  From then on, All Saints Amersfoort will have all Sunday morning services begin at 9:30 with a time of prayer for the church starting at 9:00 for those who wish to participate.

Churchill once said, “This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.”  Well, if you would like to ‘dare and endure’ with greeting, coffee making, reading, praying, etc. would you please let Lodewijk Westerbeek van Eerten know?  Actually, any TACA member will do.  If you just want to come to the new church without signing up for hazard duty, please let us know that as well; it will help us in our planning.

To kick all this off, on 1 November during the 11:00 service in Utrecht at HTU, there will be a special Intercession Prayer with distinct focus on the church plant in Amersfoort and the re-plant in Utrecht.  We hope for the whole church’s prayers to be lifted to the Lord and provide the wind at our back that will ensure All Saints will be pleasing in the sight of the Lord and a place of hope, faith, and love for all who enter.


Our website is still under construction, but the homepage is now up:

www.allsaintsamersfoort.nl