About us
EMMANUEL BAPTIST CHURCH - a unique church in the south of Limburg.
Not everyone knows that behind the almost unnoticed facade on the Kouvenderstraat 135 in Hoensbroek, Emmanuel Baptist Church (EBC for short) is located. Our English-speaking church has been around for almost 45 years!
HISTORY
EBC started in 1976 based on the needs of the American-stationed in the region and to a lesser extent Canadian and British soldiers and their families for an English-speaking Protestant church.
In the early days, the meetings took place in a room of the International School in Brunssum, after which the old reformed church in the Pieterstraat (Kerkrade) was used.
When the number of members increased, the former garage in Kouvenderstraat was purchased in 1985.
NOWADAYS
Because the number of military personnel in the region has declined rapidly in recent decades, EBC has slowly been transformed from a congregation with a clear American signature to a church with a more general international character. Business people, students, but also refugees find in our church a place - often temporarily - to feel at home. With sometimes twenty different nationalities and different cultural and religious backgrounds, EBC forms a fascinating community.
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What we believe
We believe in one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Holy Trinity) – co-eternal, co-existent, co-equal and co-operative. – 1 John 5:7-8
We believe that the Bible is inspired by God and basis for our beliefs, and the standard against which all Christian belief and behavior is measured. – 2 Timothy 3:16-17
We believe that human beings are incapable of saving themselves and stand in need of God´s gracious love and that Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully human, has, through His death and resurrection, done everything necessary for us to have a personal one-to-one relationship with God; we begin to experience the benefits of this when we repent from and confess our sin, and commit our lives under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, our only Savior. – 1 John 4:10-16; Romans 8:10-11; John 14:6
We believe that church is an assembly of believing disciples responsible to discern the mind of Christ for that body of Christ – in the light of Scripture, with the leading of the Holy Spirit and under the Lordship of Christ. – Ephesians 1:22-23; Acts 2: 42-47
We believe church membership is only for those who can testify personally of God’s saving grace. – Ephesians 2:8
We believe that Christian baptism is immersion in water as an act of obedience and faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. – Mark 16:16
We believe the Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby believers, through the partaking of bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer, and anticipate His second coming. – 1 Corinthians 11:23-29
We believe that church is to model a better way of life according to the principles of the Kingdom of God. Because a Christian disciple’s first and highest loyalty is to God, so also each church, while respecting those secular laws not in conflict with the commands of God, should be free from state control. – Romans 13:1-7; Matthew 22:15-2
We believe that we, in response to the Great Commission, are sent out and given the task of making disciples – disciplined followers of Jesus Christ – from among all ethnic groups (nations). – Matt. 28:19-20
We believe in the priesthood of the believer. – 1 Peter 2:9
our Staff:
David Harsdorf
Pastor
Christian Lubascher
Deacon
Laurence Dols
Deacon