A different style of public outreach has brought in dozens of visitors, including many who do not regularly attend any church, to special Seventh-day Adventist services in Holland's largest Northern city.

The approach so far has been to avoid mass media advertising -- some young people from the church gave out small pastries and an invitation in the centre of town -- and, instead, to concentrate on having members invite friends, neighbours, colleagues and family members.

Rob de Raad, pastors the Groningen Adventist congregation and is the district coordinator. He says the meetings, begun in November 2004, are the culmination of a two-year effort to help his congregation of slightly less than 200 implement an evangelistic outreach.

"What I've noticed in this country is that our approach to evangelism has been to convince people of the truth of Adventism, and convince them on the basis of the Bible that Adventism is a more true understanding of Christianity," de Raad said in a telephone interview. "The fact is only a minority of people in Holland go to church and are affected by that approach."

Formerly the executive secretary of the Adventist Church in the Netherlands, de Raad, son of a church evangelist, has always had an interest in outreach. He has been in Groningen for two years, during which he worked with the congregation to establish small group Bible studies and prepare members for outreach. Such preparation was necessary, he believes, because a now-secular Holland -- where only 10 percent of the nation's 16 million citizens attend any church -- also view religion as a taboo subject.

"There is a feeling that anything that has to do with religion is private," de Raad said. People find it very difficult to talk about religion with their friends and neighbours. ... What I've been trying to show them is that if we don't approach people around us, then who will? They are important in the eyes of God, and we are important in reaching them."

He added, "Most of us who are in the church are here because a family member or friend brought them into contact with the church for the first time."

The services, held at 4 p.m. on a Sabbath, or Saturday, afternoon, are a bit less formal than traditional worship assemblies, to be more inviting for newcomers.

"We have music, video, PowerPoint presentations, a talk that's relevant -- that's the way that we try to approach it," de Raad said. "If people show interest, we can bring them into small groups and into several courses that help them develop faith and get to know the Christian faith better."

De Raad said the meetings "seem to be successful" thus far, and church members are confident in inviting others to the services. Some of his congregants had not seen non-members come into the church for years.

According to Pastor Reinder Bruinsma, president of the Adventist Church in the Netherlands, de Raad's moves are timely.

"The [church] administration strongly supports this initiative as well as other innovative approaches to witness. We know that traditional evangelism will no longer work among the Dutch indigenous people," Bruinsma told Adventist News Network (ANN). "We are happy to see the mood of discouragement, which has seriously hampered outreach for quite some time, gradually being replaced by a new sense that it is still possible to reach people with the gospel."

Nearly 4,500 Seventh-day Adventist church members worship weekly in 50 congregations in the Netherlands. [Editor: Mark A. Kellner, ANN, for APD]