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At the heart of Belgium,
In Brussels's Southern outskirts
This is where the Evangelical Church
Of Uccle is located.
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Recognised by Royal Decree since 1964,
It is a member of the
United Protestant Church of Belgium.
Our Church has decided to move and, as churches do not tend to move every day, the following pages are intended to help you understand why.
After a short description of its vocation, heritage and history followed by a few words on its legal status, where it is located and what its contacts are, we introduce, briefly and simply, the facts that have motivated our decision to move.
This introductory booklet should not be understood as a mere fundraising exercise. It also aims to make the reader aware of the urban vocation of a Church, taking one form among the variety that coalesce to produce what many call the Christian testimony.
Should you have any questions, the Church and its managers, including the college of the Consistory and Administrative Board, are obviously available.
Please contact us at: pfrlaurent@hotmail.com
Community vocation
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In accordance with the Bible's Revelation, the Evangelical Church of Uccle is defined as a spiritual edifice built on Jesus Christ, the cornerstone. Listening carefully to what the Holy Spirit tells, the Church acknowledges the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God, which constitutes the supreme and absolute rule of faith and life. In this, the Church's mission becomes evangelical; a mission that materialises into various enlightenment, evangelising and services ministries in a world that is utterly confused.
Spiritual Heritage
In its current form, the Evangelical Church of Uccle is the result of a merger between the Methodist Church and the Evangelical Protestant Church of Belgium. Over time, other traditions derived from the beliefs of new members of the community have been added to this Wesleyan and reformed heritage. With a view to reflecting unity in Christ despite its diverse members, the Consistory has been careful to allow this diversity to be expressed in the local Church whilst ensuring faithful and unwavering obedience to the Word of God.
Historical background
As part of the works initiated in Belgium by the Methodist Mission in the '20s, two buildings with a garden were acquired at 26 rue Beeckman, Uccle, to house a "home for children". In the nineteenth century, the main building was a castle owned by the Counts of Béthune. In the '50s, the annex, at 26a, was converted into a place of worship, while the main building served several purposes until it became what it is today: "Résidence Susanna Wesley", a home for the elderly. At this time, the estate was divided and the Church came to own its building.
Official Recognition and Legal Status
The Evangelical Church of Uccle is recognised as having established an "Evangelical Protestant Church" at 26a Rue Beeckman, 1180 Brussels, by a Royal Decree dated 17 August 1964. The local church is served by a "titular minister", to whom an "auxiliary minister" was affected by another Royal Decree dated 31 December 1980.
Location and Contacts
The Church is located in downtown Uccle (75,000 inhabitants), a municipality in the Region Bruxelles-Capitale (Brussels), near a very lively shopping area. It is also situated near another municipality called Forest and is adjacent to more popular neighbourhoods.
With "Echos", a quarterly publication mailed to around 300 addresses, the Church is also in touch with a sizeable part of South Western Brussels and with people abroad. Attendance at Church averages 60 and the congregation has 56 elector members.
International Dimension
The Evangelical Church of Uccle is in close contact with many friends abroad. For a wide variety of reasons (school, business,…), many people have joined our church, some for a few months, others for a great many years, always contributing their renewed vision of the Church of Jesus Christ.
We continue to have regular and fruitful contacts with most of those who have gone back to their countries or elsewhere. Several of these friends have done a marvellous work in the Consistory and have left a very nice mark indeed.
Finance
The Evangelical Church of Uccle is not subsidised by the local or national authorities, other than the wages of the Ministers, both titular and auxiliary, which are paid by the appointing authority: the Ministry of Finance. For a great many years, it has been a healthy tradition to earmark one third of offerings for external activities. The Church had decided to support three or four missionary projects instead of dissipating the effort by sponsoring a multiplicity of smaller projects.
The Future
In recent years, the Belgian legislation on homes for the elderly has become ever stricter and our neighbours of the Résidence Susanna Wesley have been under such pressure for growing obligations that they were faced with a dilemma: grow or go. They very much wanted to continue the work of so many years and so they offered to buy our part of the property.
After discussing this proposal at length over several meetings, the members of the Evangelical Church of Uccle decided to sell their property to the Résidence and move to a more lively area. Our departure should ensure the Résidence's survival; it should also improve our visibility and testimony. This is how we started looking everywhere and eventually found a very interesting building.
Have a look at our new location and dont forget to hit "Back" !
With its location come a number of advantages that match our desire to permanently increase our presence in the life of Uccle: it is not far from our current location and it is situated at a crossroads between two shopping streets. It will not be too expensive… but expensive enough to provide renewed impetus for our community's donating arm! Finally, the new premises will allow larger audiences and will enable us to diversify our activities vis-à-vis the outside world.
By chance or by design, we have met an architect who is doubly precious in our eyes: he is an active Christian and actually was involved in building a church in the past! This enthusiastic specialist has made himself available to help us in our endeavours and has tabled a project that fits perfectly within our objectives.
Table #1 below summarises the costs of the alterations we have planned for the new building:
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1 - ESTIMATE OF THE COST OF ALTERING THE NEW BUILDING |
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Ground floor |
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1 Partitions and false ceiling |
1,400,000 |
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2 Floor covering |
540,000 |
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3 Electricity / lighting |
300,000 |
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4 Heating |
500,000 |
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5 Ceiling installation |
100,000 |
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6 Plumbing |
300,000 |
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7 Fire control |
300,000 |
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8 Woodwork |
210,000 |
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9 Staircases |
600,000 |
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10 Glass roof and structure |
385,000 |
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11 Ventilation |
240,000 |
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12 Fitting of 1st floor |
315,000 |
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2 |
13 Masonry on 2nd floor |
200,000 |
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3 |
14 Frontage |
820,000 |
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Total |
6,210,000 |
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10 % safety margin |
621,000 |
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Total |
6,831,000 |
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Architect's fee (12%) |
819,720 |
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VAT (21%) |
1,606,651 |
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Grand Total |
9,257,371 |
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In this particular context, a call for renewed contributions has been launched and the members of the Church have blessedly acted on their decisions. To date, a majority of them have made a firm commitment of BEF 15,000/week. A 10-year loan for BEF 6,000,000 at current market rates carries weekly payments of around BEF 16,000.
Beyond the cost of refitting the new place of worship where the Evangelical Church of Uccle will be moving in the not too distant future, we still need to raise another BEF 7,500,000 at this point (the detail of which is summarised in table #2 below) in order to continue to manage the Church's daily operation and our support to various missionary projects.
Of course, we are not alone in this adventure. Our leaps of faith have been echoed by very rejoicing decisions. The Uccle Town Council has voted an extraordinary contribution of BEF 5,000,000 , for which we are extremely thankful. The municipality's decision has been ratified by the statutory authority, i.e. the Région de Bruxelles-Capitale. We have also secured all the necessary permits from the various authorities (Municipality, Region, Synod of the United Protestant Church of Belgium) to move in our new place of worship at 877, chaussée d'Alsemberg.
Appeal
Several people have already shown that they are interested in our endeavour and are convinced that the visibility and influence of our new Church, as well as its testimony, can but be stronger at the end of this adventure. We would be pleased to hear further such echoes.
For this reason, we take the liberty of appealing to your finances. Maybe you would like to sponsor a particular part of our project, e.g. the ventilation system or the heating equipment? Rest assured that your contribution will be put to the best possible use! And if your financial circumstances do not enable you to make a sizeable contribution to our works by sponsoring a "major" item from the budget, maybe you can finance part of our removal expenses? Your donations are welcome!
The following two pages include a sketch of the frontage as well as blueprints for the meeting room. There are sections of the various floors as well. With these two pages, you should be able to imagine what the Evangelical Church of Uccle will look like a few months from now. Even though we firmly believe that a speedy move to such nice premises is mostly in the hands of the Lord, whether it becomes reality in the weeks ahead also rests on our shoulders… and yours!
Uccle, April 2000
Contacts
Donations are welcome on the Evangelical Church of Uccle's heritage account
# 034-1120421-36.
Standing orders are also welcome to the Church's account # 001-2131907-20.