Holland is in the red 
Translated from “Nederland in de rode cijfers” from Joel News

According to ‘The European Spiritual Estimate’ (ESE), a research effort by the European Missions Research Group (emRG) that evaluated Europe as a mission field, there is an estimated one missions minded (actively and structurally witnessing) church for every 27,749 Europeans.  In China there is one such church for every 1,766 residents, and in India one for eery 2,413 residents.  Worldwide Europe has become one of the greatest challenges for missions today.  

Contrary to expectations, the Netherlands falls below the European average with only one missions minded church for every 40,000 residents.  That means that in Holland there is a total of only 400 missionary minded churches.  Thus, of the approximately 4,000 churches in the Netherlands only 1 in 10 is missions minded.

Marc van der Woude, publisher of Joel News and one of the participants in the ESE, clarifies:  “By ‘missions minded’ we do not mean a church that has some sort of evangelistic effort now and then.  We mean groups that structurally and intentionally, with the support/involvement of most of the members, make Jesus known in their communities.  The missions mindset is, you could say, in the DNA of such churches, it is a lifestyle, a passion, much more than activist.” 


The implication of the ESE is that only missions minded churches are, in reality, contributing to the re-evangelisation of Europe.  For 9 out of 10 churches in Holland it appears that a re-evaluation would be fitting.