In the latest episode of the podcast Het Hart van de Nieuwmarktbuurt, Klaas Touwen is the guest: a pastor, church reformer, and philosopher at heart. Host Irma Thomas and sidekick Jim Zielinski welcome him to the Tim Cantor Gallery, an intimate studio filled with surrealist art, hidden on one of Amsterdam's busiest historic streets. It immediately becomes a conversation that twists and turns in all directions, from the vault of the Oude Kerk to Sloterdijk, from Rutger Kopland to serendipity, and from TikTok to the question of whether we even know what we're searching for in life.
The Old Church: the beating heart of the Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood
You can already see it when you drive into Amsterdam: the tower of the Old Church, towering over the rooftops of the Nieuwmarkt district. The city's oldest building, dating back to 1306, and it still ticks. Literally, as the carillon rings out over the neighbourhood every quarter of an hour. For Klaas, the Old Church is more than a monument. It's a living heart of this part of Amsterdam.
But what happens behind those heavy doors? The vault is not made of stone, but of wood, otherwise it would sink into Amsterdam's mud. Built like an upside-down ship, something that Amsterdammers have always been good at. The light falls in a special way through the old glass. And every third Sunday of the month, there is a church service that is nothing like what you would expect.
Church as a theatre with free entry
A procession during which the Sweelinck Kantorei enters singing. Music from one of Western Europe's finest organs. And instead of a sermon: a special guest from outside theology: a scientist, an artist, a politician. Jim spontaneously compares it to a theatre production. Klaas wholeheartedly nods: a good church service *is* theatre. The entrance fee? Zero euros.
A street preacher
Klaas isn't a minister who sits behind his desk. With his clerical collar, he hits the streets and deliberately seeks contact outside the church walls: neighbourhood residents, the old neighbourhood bobby, editors of forgotten local papers. His greatest mission: to break down the difference between inside and out. Not a church that tells the world what to do, but a church that also listens to what the world has to say.
Connection and rootedness in the Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood
The conversation is about TikTok and fragmentation, postmodern belief and the limits of the word ‘meaning’. About what connection truly means: because connection alone is not enough. It's about being rooted, knowing who you are and where you come from, before you can truly meet another. Klaas quotes Sloterdijk, rejects Tertullian and ends with a definition of serendipity that silences the room.
His message? “Everything that truly matters in life will announce itself.”
He retires at the end of September. After forty years in the church, three years on the Wallen. We speak with him about his career and what he plans to do next.
Listen to the full conversation above, or discover one of our other episodes with special residents and entrepreneurs from the Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood.
