Bunschoten - Christelijk Gereformeerde Kerk
(Christian Reformed Chruch) |
City: the municipality of Bunschoten
is situated in the province of Utrecht. Bunschoten also includes
the villages of Spakenburg, Eemdijk and Zevenhuizen. In total,
this town is populated by 20,000 inhabitants. Bunschoten has
always been a village of farmers, while Spakenburg, situated
a little to the north, was a village of fishermen at the Zuiderzee
(South Sea). After the Enclosure Dam was built in 1932, the
Zuiderzee became the Lake ?ssel and after partial land reclamation
of the Lake IJssel, in order to gain new land, the village
now is sited at the Eemmeer. In Spakenburg there is still
a port.
Village life used to be very isolated and had many traditions,
which are now slowly disappearing. Typical for the villages
are the old national costumes, which previously were widely
supported, but now are worn only by a minority of mostly older
women. The villages also have a clear Protestant character,
obviously seen in the large number of churches existing within
such a small area. The different Christian groups have each
their own church.
|
Building: Reformed
church
The corner stone of this church was laid on Monday, 21th
December 1953. A large number of church members and interested
parties attended the ceremony. On July 23, 1954 the Church
began to be used. The building that normally seats 750, welcomed
1000 visitors that night. After singing Psalms, gratitude
was expressed to all those who had worked on decorating the
church. The vicar included in his prayer the thoughts: "Not
us o Lord, not us. All the honour and glory to Your name only,
for your loyalty and mercy . " It was on this occasion
that a beautiful sermon chair was gifted to the church.
When reading the history of the church building it strikes
us that at the dedication of the church building in 1910 DS.
De Bruyne read from 1 Kings 8: 29a, "That Your eyes are
open, by night and by day about this House, on this site,
of which thou hast said: my name will be there."
|
Object: in this church are two windows
in which God's name is written in Latin.
Band of images 2: the first window, the Bible text from
Proverbs 18: 10 "The name of Jehovae is a strong Tower."
In addition to 'Jehovae ' inside the sun above the Tower the
Tetragrammaton is placed.
Band of images 3: the second window shows the stone tablets
with the text of Psalm 19: 7 "The law of Iehovae is perfect."
Here God’s name is written in Latin: 'Iehovae '. Also
on the stone tablets we see at least once the tetragrammaton.
Band of images 4: in the church we find two beautiful
old Bibles, one was given on the occasion of the opening of
the church in 1954. The second Bible is a publication by the
Brothers Keur from the year 1702. In Genesis 2: 4, in the
footnote, it is explained that where LORD in capital letters
is written, in the original Hebrew it was written as "Jehovah".
With friendly thanks for the accompanying photos.
Website: www.cgkbunschoten.nl.
|
- top -
|
