The Lord's Supper cloth of the Noorderkerk

During the celebration of the Lord's Supper, a white cloth is placed on the table. This particular cloth from the Noorderkerk is special because drawings by children from the community served as examples for the embroidery. When the rooster crows (left), Peter, one of Jesus' disciples, has said three times that he does not know Jesus. The crucified Jesus is depicted on the right. The Noorderkerk involves a relatively large number of children.

Jordaan residents

Between 1620 and 1623, the Noorderkerk was built at the request of the people living in the newly built neighbourhood the Jordaan. It is a densely built-up neighbourhood. It is mostly inhabited by middle-class migrants and the number of different nationalities is large. Many of the migrants are stricter in doctrine than the inhabitants of the canal district for whom the Westerkerk is built at the same time. Whether, proportionately, many children attent the Noorderkerk at that time is not known.

What is known is that children were involved in the faith in a different way than today. In Protestant Holland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, children often attended the second Sunday service with their teacher: the ‘learning service’. At the end of the eighteenth century, the so-called children's church came into being, an official church service organised especially for children. In addition, in the nineteenth century, the phenomenon of Sunday school emerged, where the emphasis was on education and learning together about God and the faith.

The Noorderkerk in 2024

The Jordaan is still a neighbourhood with a diverse population. However, it is no longer the Jordaan neighbourhood residents who make up the majority of the Noorderkerk community. Nowadays, most church members come from outside the Jordaan, sometimes even from outside Amsterdam. There is a lot of focus on the youth. The Noorderkerk calls itself an 'open-orthodox' congregation.