About us

We are about learning who Jesus is and what it means to follow him.

We are about worship of God that is saturated with Scripture and connected with the broad and deep history of the Church.

We are about friendly and supportive pastoral support and discipleship, which comes alongside the youngest to the oldest, the newest to the most mature Christians. We meet one another wherever we are at, with a view to growing into the people God intends us to be.

We are about offering the whole of ourselves to God, for forgiveness, healing, restoration, and service. This includes our leisure and social lives, which we hope will be infused with joy. It also includes our seasons of suffering and struggle, which we will openly acknowledge and come alongside one another for support.

We are about trying to understand and discern our world in order that we may accurately pray about it, and effectively engage it.

Church of the Ascension is a theologically and liturgically traditional Anglican church. We seek to live out the historic Christian faith. We desire to be a joyful, thoughtful Christian fellowship, ministering to people in the region of Het Gooi in the Netherlands.

We are a part of the Church of England in the Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe.

For those without a Christian background, you are most welcome to come to our services and participate in our fellowship. We believe Jesus is inviting you to "come and see". We also welcome any questions you may have and will try to answer them.

For those with a Christian background, but who are unfamiliar with the Anglican tradition, Anglicanism describes itself as both Catholic and Reformed. For more on Anglicanism please click here.

For those familiar with Anglicanism and its different kinds of "churchmanship", our worship life is in the High Church Anglican theological tradition and follows the Book of Common Prayer liturgical tradition.  We place high emphasize on the Word of God written and the sacramental life in our ongoing conversion to Christ.

We seek to know and love foremost God in the face of Jesus Christ and in that light come to know and love our neighbours as ourselves. We long to see the truth, beauty and goodness of God and to know better the astonishing gift of being human, the tragedy of sin, and the hope of glory, a glory unimaginable.

The Church of England describes its teaching this way in its canons:

The doctrine of the Church of England is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal (the liturgy for the ordaining of ministers). [Canon A5]

On ethical issues, our church will teach what the vast majority of the Church has always taught and still teaches.

To live a moral life is to move from being carnally minded to spiritually minded. We seek to cultivate the virtuous life as we are graced with faith, hope and love. [e.g. 1 Cor 13]  It includes, as a beginning, an awareness and a right ordering of the passions of the soul - pride, vainglory, dejection, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust. [e.g. Mk 7:14-23, Eph 2:3] We don't focus on one of these passions more than the others, neither do we forget any.

But to live a moral life is not an end in itself. As our passions are reordered by grace, our vision opens up.  We are illuminated from above, we see more clearly God in the face of Jesus Christ, in creation and in our lives.  We become more able to truly love God and our neighbour.

Through our union by Word and Sacrament with God in Christ, who has ascended, we too will ascend into the life of God who is our true end and joy.

In the ancient Creeds of the Church we proclaim what the Scriptures testify, that after Jesus Christ's death and resurrection, "he ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father".

"The Ascension of Christ proclaims and celebrates our spiritual destiny as sons and daughters of God by adoption and grace (by faith and baptism).  We are born of the Spirit, and therefore we are spirit; and spirit cannot ultimately be bound by worldly ends and earthly limitations.  By the comfort – the strengthening, transforming power – of the Holy Spirit of God, we are to be exalted “unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before”. [Collect for Ascensiontide] “Our conversation is in heaven”. [Php 3:20]

“Our conversation is in heaven,” and in the Church’s liturgy, we find ourselves engaged in precisely that conversation, “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven”.  Here, in liturgy, all the arts conspire to solicit mind and heart, to wean the soul from worldliness.  A door is opened into heaven."

[from a Sermon by Robert Crouse]

If you attend our church regularly, are baptized and a believer, you are considered a full member.  If that is you, welcome!  If you are not yet baptized but are interested in baptism, please click here.

Why sign up to be on the Electoral Roll?

• This is a way for us to know who considers themselves connected to our church and community.
• It gives you the right to vote on proposals at the Annual General Meeting of All Saints Amersfoort Chaplaincy (of which we are a daughter church).
• The number on the Roll is important for our participation in the life of the Diocese, as it determines the number of representatives to the annual Archdeaconry Synod and our dues.
• It allows you to serve in Ascension church in various roles, such as steward, chalice assistant, on the Leadership Team, as Archdeaconry representative.
• If you serve as a volunteer in our Church in any way – and your name is not yet on the Roll – we would especially like to ask you to consider putting your name on the Roll to make your connection to our community visible.
• Being on the Electoral Roll in our church does not exclude you from being connected with other churches.

When you sign up on the electoral roll, it is valid for six years, but please let us know if your address changes.

You are eligible if you are:

• Baptized and 16 years or older;
• A member of an Anglican Church or any other Church that subscribes to the doctrine of the Trinity;
• A regular (at least once a month) worshipper here on Sundays over the last 6 months.

The only thing you need to do is:

1. To download an Electoral Roll Application Form - please click here;
2. Fill in your name, and details, and select what applies to you, and sign it;
3. Send the form in by email (scan and send) to revdgphillips@hotmail.com or give it to the priest at church, or you can mail it to:

Ascension Anglican Church Hilversum
Overmeerseweg 120
1394 BJ Nederhorst den Berg