BY BILL KNOTT

The following article appeared in the Adventist Review on October 14, 2004.

HE ELEVANGELIST ROBERT SCHULLER loves to entertain visitors to his world-famous Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, with stories of preaching to parishioners from the roof of a drive-in movie snack bar shed in the same city where his gleaming sanctuary now rises. It is a classic American success tale, told by a famous pastor: a man and his wife arrive in a new region with but $500 in their pockets and a dream in their hearts. A half century later, a stunning multimillion-dollar edifice stands near where families in convertibles once listened to the sermon through crackling movie speakers.

For the members of the 5-year-old Ghanaian Adventist church in southeast Amsterdam, however, the walls of their drive-in sanctuary are anything but gleaming, and only the difficulties are towering. Twisted rebar grows from the cracked cement where lane dividers once stood. Gang graffiti in coiling purples, reds, and blacks decorates the exhaust-blackened walls to the height of a teenager artist with a spray-paint can. The incense of a million long-dead cigarettes seems permanently trapped in the concrete structure.

Surrounded by sprawling apartment complexes that ring the area, Adventist believers in this neighborhood gather in the only space available—several large rooms literally carved out of the city's abandoned multilevel Kruitberg parking garage. But it is only a temporary home: the structure is slated for demolition within a year as the city moves to renovate the neighborhood adjacent to the garage.

In a city where rental property for a church is difficult to find and land use regulations make new construction impossibly expensive, these members of one of the fastest-growing groups within Dutch Adventism make do with rooms sublet to them by a local Pentecostal congregation fortunate enough to now be worshipping in its own space.

"Do you know what?" local elder Daniel Larbi asks rhetorically as he looks around at the unusual edifice. "We can meet here only on Sabbaths. We have to do all the things that we want to do on Sabbaths. And on Sunday we have only two hours. But we are used to meeting every day of the week in Ghana.

"In Ghana," he continues with shining eyes, "we have Wednesday prayer meeting, we have the women's ministry, we have the choir, we have the singing bands, each day appointed to each group. Now we have to squeeze to do everything on Sabbath."

His voice trails off as he thinks of the unmet potential. "We cannot do what we want to do."

Other elders gathered around the table murmur their agreement. In five years their thriving congregation has quadrupled in size, expanding from just over 60 members when then General Conference vice president (now secretary) Matthew Bediako joined them for their official organization as a church in May 1999. The rented rooms in which they gather are already full; hallways and Sabbath school classrooms are thronged with smiling visitors and children. At 250 members, their congregation is rapidly approaching the size when church planters would recommend it divide into two groups, or plant a daughter congregation seeded with active members of the current group.

"It all goes back to the building," another elder reiterates. "If even the mother church is not having a place of its own, how can you start another one? That is the problem we face again and again."

A church home of their own would also significantly enhance the nurturing culture these members are accustomed to in their home congregations in Ghana.

"Now you see somebody just once during the week," says elder George Kwayie, who has been with the congregation since its inception. "But when we are coming day by day during the week, you see everyone. And if one is missing, you can tell, and find out why. Here, we may see him only once in a week, and it's easy to forget that person if you miss him for a few Sabbaths."

The congregation's elders estimate that there may be as many as 1,000 Adventist Ghanaians in metropolitan Amsterdam out of a total estimated population of 10,000 from their homeland, though reliable numbers are hard to come by. Like ethnic believers anywhere adjusting to very different cultural and religious institutions, some immigrant Adventists in Holland have not identified with traditional Dutch Adventist congregations, finding the language barrier difficult to break through and the forms of worship unfamiliar. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, have found fellowship with large Ghanaian Pentecostal congregations that have also sprung up in the past decade—churches that worship in the Twi language.

It is not difficult to imagine that these warm and expressive believers might find the worship experience in a traditional Caucasian congregation, well, um, "challenging."

On a typical Sabbath the worship service begins about 11:00 a.m. with the entrance of the church choir, a vibrant group of young adults outfitted in rich purple graduation robes and mortarboards. They move joyfully down the aisle and across the front with a traditional West African step that would probably occasion frowns in many White churches. Moments later, the church's "singing band"—not your usual Sabbath afternoon group—also enters to a traditional Twi anthem. Their striking leaf-printed costumes are vividly outlined against the painted cinder-block walls behind them. Point and counterpoint, call and response, the two groups first offer their unique anthems, then answer each other in shared hymns, and finally blend their voices to lead the congregation in spirited praise.

The music and movement at the front of the sanctuary are only pieces of the worship experience in this remarkable church, however. Throughout the two-hour service members of the congregation rise from their seats to circle soloists or mixed quartets, sometimes joining in the song, sometimes gracefully moving to the infectious rhythm. Worship "happens" here, guided by an overall plan, but full of joyful, spontaneous moments that never could have been charted by a steering committee. Laughter suffuses the room as a handsome young man passes close to the graceful young woman singing an anthem: all can sense the chemistry between them. Deep solemnity settles on the congregation as believers lean forward in their seats to hear the Word preached. They answer with moving lips, murmured "amens," and open hearts.

Those who prefer to be spectators at worship services had best not make this place their spiritual home. Someone here is sure to take your hand, move you a step or two, pull you into the shared energy of this smiling group. Visitors are greeted warmly and at length—truly welcomed—by those who cannot forget the loneliness of being a stranger in a strange land.

"You see, Ghanaians are sociable," another elder informs me confidentially. "Many of those who have migrated to this country are so afraid. They are lonely, and no one wants to sit home without going to church. They want to find a place to go. Things like this," he gestures at the structure as though to invoke all the spiritual passion it contains each Sabbath, "things like this will work among the Ghanaian community here in Amsterdam. All we need to encourage us is time—and a place to organize our programs."

At least one other need is high on the list, though. Members and elders know that to grow and evangelize as they could, they will need a Ghanaian pastor fluent in Twi, and one able to relate well to the mostly Caucasian leadership and pastoral workforce of the Netherlands Union Conference. Since the church's organization in 1999, they have been in the capable hands of Wim Altink, the experienced pastor of the congregation in the Hague, 70 kilometers to the south. Altink worships with them, preaches monthly, participates in their board meetings and planning sessions—and completely concurs with their need for a pastor who knows their culture from the inside.

"I can be a nurturer, an encourager," he says, "but I don't know and can't know what it means to be an immigrant in this big city, what it means to have deep roots in another country and another culture.

"And more to the point," he adds with a laugh, "I haven't yet learned Twi! I know—and these members know—that I can't be all the pastor that they need just now. But I'm glad to fill in as long as I can be useful. We've been assured by church leaders that they are working hard to provide this special group with a pastor well-suited to their situation.

"And someday soon," he says "they'll also get the building they deserve."

Those who want their churches tall and elegant, graced by majestic windows, and landscaped with impressive sculptured gardens, will never give this place a second look. Could any good thing come out of an abandoned parking garage?

But those who venture past the graffiti and rubble in this place find a robust, confident group of Adventists intent on sharing their faith and growing their congregation in one of Europe's most challenging cities. That focus, that consecration, will surely preserve them, even when the wrecking ball arrives and they must find another place to worship and to fellowship.

Don't let the painted slogans and the empty parking lanes deceive you: this is a church in every real and lasting sense of the word. "The Lord does not see as mortals see," God reminded Samuel long ago. "They look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7, NRSV).

And in this most unusual place of worship, the heart is doing remarkably well.

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Bill Knott is the editor of the Adventist Review.