BOUNDLESS
SA Worship Magazine was fortunate enough to catch up with Maikel Stuivenberg who is the leader of Boundless. This team serves in the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Slovakia Territory of The Salvation Army as the Territorial Worship Team.
SAWM: So Maikel, where are we chatting to you?
MS: I am in Almere (Netherlands) where the Salvation Army’s Headquarters are.
SAWM: How did boundless get started?
MS: We started at a summer camp that we have every year in the Netherlands, and there was a need for a new band. So a few musicians were asked to play and that was the start of Boundless. That summer camp was right after the Boundless 150 International Congress, and our camp was called Boundless too, so that is part of why we called the band Boundless.
SAWM: You started at the camp providing music for worship and then after camp, what happened?
MS: During the week of the camp we found that we played well together and were really enjoying playing as a band. There was just a feeling that we really wanted to do this more. For a while, we were just enjoying playing together and then after some time we started getting invitations to help provide worship music for some corps on a Sunday morning. After a few years of doing this we wanted to do more for corps in the Netherlands and so we went to leadership of The Salvation Army to ask for help. They made us the territorial worship team and gave us a space to rehearse and supported us.
SAWM: Do all of the members of Boundless come from Almere?
MS: No they don’t. The Netherlands isn’t big. Our rehearsal venue at headquarters is centrally located in the country but we have people coming from 2 or 3 hours away, so we
have to plan our rehearsals. We try to rehearse once a month and then we are usually out doing ministry once a month too.
SAWM: What is worship music like in The Salvation Army in the Netherlands?
MS: I think it is probably considered very traditional; there are a lot of brass bands and older traditional songs. There are some worship teams around the corps in the Netherlands and I think it is a growing area and somewhere we need to grow more. With Boundless, we have tried to bring some more contemporary worship music. I think that my generation and the generation below me appreciate that diversity in our worship music.
SAWM: Are you writing original worship music?
MS: Not at the moment. We have tried one, but at this time we use songs from international Christian artists like Rend Collective and Dutch worship leaders. Most of our worship is done in Dutch. I think it is useful to have songs that are specific to The Salvation Army because The Salvation Army is different to other churches. We are focused on other things.
SAWM:You emerged out of the summer camp and are now into a rhythm of ministry. What is the main goal for Boundless?
MS: We started with a goal to give young people an opportunity to connect with God through a new style of music. There have been many opportunities with youth choirs and youth bands, but we thought that there was a gap that we could fill. We found after the summer camp that there wasn’t much contemporary worship for those kids when they went back to their corps. We wanted to help provide that for those young people. In a few months, we will be at Rotterdam Corps and workwith their corps worship team to help them grow and go further.