The Anglican Chaplaincy Arnhem-Nijmegen: Why, what, who and how in the years ahead? (July 2025)

(1) Why and what?
We believe that God calls us to be his Church in the Arnhem and Nijmegen area. Answering his calling, we offer English speaking and Eucharist centred worship in the Anglican tradition, within a welcoming, inclusive and caring community.

(2) Who?
Connected to our church network are around 80 people, of whom circa 30 are regular churchgoers on a Sunday and circa 25 are on the electoral role. These are people of different ages, nationalities and ethnic and denominational backgrounds. For some of them this chaplaincy is their only church home. Others are also connected to one of the other local churches. Some of us are year long members, others are only staying with us for a short while. Some are there almost every week, others attend only a few times a year, or are not able to come to our services anymore, but like to stay connected in a different way.  Our two-weekly Newsletter is received by circa 100 email addresses. Around 13 persons regularly take part in our Zoom Compline (night prayers), which we offer twice a week. We also get one-off visitors, such as tourists, visiting our region. All of them are equally welcome.

Our main target groups are:
• Expats
• Mixed couples
• International students (HAN, Radboud Uni, and Hochschule Rhein-Waal)
• Dutch and Germans who live in our region and are attracted to our style of worship and Anglican theology
• Refugees
• Visitors and tourists

The clergy team consists of a (stipendiary part time) chaplain and a (self-supporting part time) assistant chaplain. We also have a minister in the area with permission to officiate.
As part of the Diocese in Europe of the Church of England, we are supervised by the area dean for the Netherlands, the archdeacon for North-Western Europe and our Bishop.
There is an active involvement by many of our lay members in roles such as: church warden, chaplaincy council member, reader, intercessor, eucharistic assistant, catering and PR.

(3) How?
This is the offer we have as Anglican Chaplaincy Arnhem-Nijmegen at this moment: We are a welcoming and inclusive community of Christians, coming together every Sunday for Services of Holy Communion, in Nijmegen in the morning and in Arnhem in the evening. Once a month (usually on the first Thursday of the month) we meet for a midweek service of Holy Communion (*) in Arnhem. We use the liturgy of the Church of England. The services take place in churches rented from the Roman Catholics and the Old Catholics respectively. Usually we have musical accompaniment by an organist. There are refreshments after the services and a ‘bring and share’ lunch in Nijmegen every first Sunday of the month.

On several occasions we have joint ecumenical services with the Lutherans and Old Catholics in Arnhem and we engage in ecumenical relationships with other churches, (e.g. the Airborne Sunday Evensong with the PKN in Oosterbeek). We are members of the local councils of churches in both cities.

We offer Zoom Compline (Night prayer) twice a week and occasional (digital) courses and meetings during the year. There is a monthly meeting in person of a group of so called ‘New Arrivals’ for a meal and Lectio Divina.

Pastoral care is provided by the clergy team, in particular by the assistant chaplain. This involves making pastoral home visits, offering home communion and anointing for healing, and reaching out in all kind of other ways, in particular to those who are not able to attend the services. The clergy also cater for pastoral services (e.g. baptisms, funerals and weddings) on demand.

In terms of new activities and encounters we plan to (re)introduce an annual inspirational chaplaincy ‘away day’ and one or two courses during the year (e.g. Lent and Advent).

We are easy to find through our website which is regularly refreshed and we provide a two weekly newsletter to those who have given us their email address. We are not very active on social media.

(4) Challenges
Our main challenge is the fact that we are at the moment using our financial reserves (of about €260k) to continue with what we are doing. The regular income (some €25k) is not enough to cover for the regular expenditures (some €55k). With a yearly shortfall of at least some €30k we will eat through the reserves in just a couple of years. If our present level of income and expenditures stays unchanged, we will run out of money around 2031. It is clear that if nothing changes, we will simply not be able to survive financially in the middle-long term. The biggest expenditure is the income of the incumbent (ca. €24k). In a couple of years, we will not be able to offer that anymore. (Perhaps good to know, that the present parttime stipendiary chaplain is four years away from his retirement. He might be available to carry on for some time as a Self-Supporting Minister (SSM), just like the present curate/assistant chaplain. But their service cannot be taken for granted and will be less regular.) If nothing changes, we will also reach a point where we cannot afford renting two church buildings anymore. At an earlier stage, we may have to decide to stop having paid musicians at our services (which costs ca. 4k).

Another challenge we face is the small number of people who are willing and able to fulfil the different roles and tasks within the chaplaincy on a regular and voluntary basis. Typical for our setting is also the fact that there is a high turnover among the members. We also have some relatively regular worshippers who at the same time remain attached to other churches in the area. Our congregations in both cities have been rather small already for quite some years. Despite many efforts, there has been no significant growth at any point in the past decades. Fortunately, our numbers have also not decreased in the past couple of years, but seem to stabilise on a level that is in the end not sustainable. But this means that we continue to struggle to fill up our vacancies and to fill in our rota.

A Mission Action Plan (MAP) that was drawn up a few years ago aimed at raising numbers, has resulted in some of the extra activities listed above. But it has not brought us a substantial rise in numbers nor in income. Setting specific numerical goals, has proved not to be helpful within our context. We are mindful of the fact that we would need around 30 more members who are prepared to increase their present donation, or to start donating to our chaplaincy around 5% of their net income, in order to close the present deficit (**). If this cannot be achieved, we would have to rely on further incidental income (such as will/legacy or one off donations and other fund raising activities) in order to survive financially in the middle long term.

(5) Do’s and don’ts’s in the coming years
Uncertainty about our future (in financial terms and in terms of numbers) has been a constant characteristic of this chaplaincy and there are no quick or easy solutions. A complete change of our present churchmanship would not be authentic and would estrange the present congregation and clergy. A substantial extension of the things we have on offer (e.g. more house groups as was suggested in the present MAP) is simply not viable, given the limited working hours of the clergy and the small amount of volunteers available. But we should of course never give up the effort and continue to look for any kind of options and new ways that are available for us to welcome new members. In particular by trying to reach out to the target groups mentioned above and to increase our visibility in general. This is a task not just for the clergy, but for all who care for sustaining our particular churchmanship within this region. Every fresh idea with this respect is most welcome.

We should try to raise our level of (regular and incidental) income, e.g. by raising the issue of stewardship more regularly within our present congregations.

In terms of reducing expenditures there are only a few quite painful options. The three most important ones in probably the most reasonable order of succession are (1) alternating services in Arnhem and Nijmegen as we have done in the past, (2) stop having paid church musicians, (2) stop having stipendiary clergy and (3) stop renting one or both of our present places of worship. But if nothing changes, we will have to be ready to face such options in the course of the coming years.

(6) Conclusion
Our short term financial and numerical prospects may not be very bright, but this should not withhold us from simply carrying on with what we have on offer in the best way we are able to. In the mean time we will have to look into new ways to improve our visibility and to reach out to some of our most important target groups. Our aim in the coming years is to retain the people who are connected to us at present, to attract new members, and to raise our level of income in order to increase our sustainability as the Anglican Chaplaincy in Arnhem-Nijmegen.

(*) Usual synonyms are: the Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper.
(**) The 5% is a guideline used in the Dutch churches at their annual fundraiser called ‘Actie Kerkbalans’. This calculation is based on taking 5% of the median Dutch income.