FAQ

Who is it for? life with God

• Who is it for?

  • We are writing these letters for
    – believing Christians
    – who desire to grow in a personal relationship with God
    – and are prepared to personally invest in this.

    This means we assume that
    – you believe in the existence of a personal God,
    – you are already somewhat familiar with the Christian faith,
    – you are accustomed looking up biblical texts.

    Of course, we know that God works individually with each unique person. If you have the feeling that Amen may be important for you at this point in your life, then you are most welcome.

• Is there a maximum age limit?

  • Amen is for anyone aged 16 or older. There is no maximum age limit- 19 and 90 are both “older than 16″…. The style of the letters is orientated towards youth and young adults. But whoever feels at home with this is welcome to join us.

• Does it matter how long I’ve been a Christian?

  • We are not writing these letters as an initial introduction to the Christian faith. Our answer to the question of whether or not God exists is ‘yes’, but we are not concerned with further arguments about this. This is not because the question is irrelevant, but because others have already answered it in a satisfactory way. We want to help you to discover what living with God is like. Therefore, these letters seek to explore the depths of your faith life.

• Does it matter what church I am from?

  • No. God is for everyone and therefore also for you. In these letters, we consistently take God’s Word as our starting point.

• I already do a lot for the church. Will I still get anything out of Amen?

  • Amen is not concerned with your work, but with you, and with God’s relationship with you. Every relationship can always be deepened, irrespective of the work that you do. Even those in religious communities continue to learn after years of experience. Therefore, it can be good for everyone to return to the basics every now and then, and to explore them in a deeper way.

• What about groups?

  • In principle, Amen is intended to be a personal process that supports your life (of faith). But you could certainly do it together with others – you simply sign up together, and all receive the same letters at the same time. You can decide among yourselves at what pace you want to receive the letters, so that you all go through the process together.

    You will be able to find ways of sharing your experiences together. One possibility is to discuss the contents of the letters together, or to share your experiences of the exercises. And probably the most important is that you can pray together of course!

• May I pass my letters on to friends?

  • We address you personally in the letters. This is an essential part of Amen for us; we want to emphasise that God knows you personally, and that He speaks to you personally. If you pass your (old) letters on to others, you are depriving them of this personal approach. For this reason, we ask that you do not do so.

    If you think that Amen would be worthwhile for them to do, then encourage them to sign up for it themselves. You could perhaps even sponsor them financially.

What is it about? life with God

• What is it about?

  • “Knowing Who God is” is not the same as “knowing God” – and “knowing God” is not the same as “living with God”.

    How do you learn that: “living with God”? By spending time with Him. Amen supports you in this by providing concrete exercises. Together with these, we use God’s Word to help you see how reality is designed to function. This will make it easier for you to understand how God speaks, so that you will be able to recognise His presence more easily. In this way, you will be able to follow His directions on your journey to your unique destination. But: journeying is only really possible when you are prepared to leave the well-known environment where you are now…. and that is challenging!

• Is it a course?

  • No, Amen is not a course, nor is it a method of some kind. There is no exam and you don’t get a diploma. Amen simply seeks to encourage and support your life with God.

    Unfortunately, ‘life with God’ does not happen automatically, but requires your conscious dedication and perseverance. Without your commitment, Amen will remain nothing other than a nice way of whiling away your time. But with your commitment, Amen can enrich your life in unprecedented way. You are the one who makes the difference.

• How long is each letter?

  • The original Dutch version of each letter prints on four A4 pages (so, if you print the letters double-sided, that will be two A4 sheets). We try to make this the same for all languages, but unfortunately the English translation sometimes needs more words to express accurately what we want to tell you. Practically this means that some letters have a few lines more, which will print on a fifth page.
    Some letters also have an appendix containing extra information about certain topics. However, these appendices are not essential to Amen’s progression.

• What does a letter look like?

  • To give you a first impression of the style of our letters you can download a short sample letter in PDF format. Depending on your browser it will open in a separate window, or will be downloaded to your destination folder.

• How many letters are there?

  • There are a total of 100 letters, divided into six series. We can’t tell you everything at once because what God wants to share with you is all too great for just one letter. We therefore proceed with small steps. We start at the very beginning with the foundation. The topics that are dealt with in the first series form the basis for all the following series. Therefore, you can’t change the order in which you do the series, nor can you skip any of them.

• How long does Amen take?

  • If you follow all six series in the tempo we propose, Amen will take a little over five years.

• Why does Amen take so long?

  • As we said: we’re not interested in giving you (new) information. We desire that everything God will give you (with or without the help of Amen) really becomes part of your life. That doesn’t happen automatically, and it will not happen all at once. Every growth process takes time. Allow yourself that time, because you’re worth it!

• What are the letters about?

  • We read God’s Word for what it is: God’s Word. For example, what does He mean when He speaks about love, sin, salvation, heaven, and redemption…? We will explore these things step by step. This is why we have divided the letters into six series, with the following general content:
    – First series (1-10): Basic spiritual principles. What reality are you living in?
    – Second series (11-28): God and you as a person (the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit)
    – Third series (29-46): God and you as persons (the sacraments and the Church)
    – Fourth series (47-64): God and us (marriage, family, community, unmarried life)
    – Fifth series (65-82): God and time (eternity)
    – Sixth series (83-100): the rest of your reality
    Having completed these series will not mean that your life has come to an end. God is not limited to Amen – He is eternal and that means that there is always more for you to receive. This will continue throughout your whole life, until you finally reach your ultimate destination with Him in heaven, where you will see Him ‘face to face’. In this sense you could say that Amen is simply the beginning of the rest of your life with God.

• Who writes Amen?

  • Amen is written by Father Gert Overmeer and Father Johan de Beer csj. They both live in the Netherlands and long for greater unity among believing Christians. The feedback from a group of Dutch youth also helped us to improve the letters.

• Is Amen Catholic?

  • That depends on how you understand the word ‘catholic’… God speaks to everyone, and we listen. We simply pass on to you what He speaks to us. We take God’s Word as our starting point in this, so if you are familiar with it, you will certainly come across things that you recognise. But there is always more to discover, which means that whoever continues to listen continues to grow!

How does it work? more of God

• How does it work?

  • You can sign up via the registration button on this page. After registering and paying, you will get your own secure personal page on our website. This is where you will receive the letters, which you can print as PDFs. If you want to, you can use a special (free) app for your tablet or smartphone, which allows you to read and manage your letters offline on your device.

• How often do I receive the letters?

  • Three weeks after you first download a letter, the following letter will be placed on your personal page. You will be informed about it via email. Letters that haven’t been downloaded will remain on your personal page for one year.

    The most important part of the process is what takes place between receiving the letters, and you are the one who determines this. The letters contain Bible studies and practical exercises, and the intention is that you should work actively with them. How this works in practice naturally depends in large part on what is going on in your life at a particular point.

• Can I also read the letters online?

  • You can read the letters in PDF format on your computer, or in an adapted form on your tablet or phone. We want Amen to be a part of your prayer life, rather than simply study material. The letters are therefore intended to be taken with you to the place where you pray.

• Is there a fixed period between the letters?

  • The minimum period between receiving the letters is three weeks. We specifically want you to apply the contents of the letters to your life, and that requires time. If you want to, you can lengthen this time yourself. If you don’t download a new letter, we won’t place new letters on your page. In this way, you can determine your own pace without feeling that we are rushing you.

• What can I expect?

  • Repetition is an inevitable part of the Amen process. Just as we cannot tell you everything in one go, so you also cannot absorb it in one go. Therefore, you will inevitably come across repetition in the letters. You can compare this to building a house: you begin with the first layer of bricks, then the second one, then the third, and so on. In each round you will come across the same doorpost, but at the same time you are on a ‘higher level’. In our letters, we also first lay a foundation, and we then proceed to build on that. Although the same themes recur in our letters, you will also discover something new in them each time.

    In any case, it is not the intention that you should be able to repeat everything that we write. Once more, Amen is not a course. Living with God is ultimately a matter of the heart. Your heart. ‘Make my heart new’, as David prays in one of his psalms. And in the New Testament we read that Mary ‘treasured all these things in her heart’. Today we would say that you need to make it your own. If this is about your life, then it is not simply about a beautiful theory, but about something practical.

    Unfortunately, this does not happen automatically. Just as your body needs training to achieve certain things, so your heart also needs to be trained. This is the reason for the Bible studies and exercises provided in the letters.

• Are there any expectations?

  • We assume that you have expectations – and that you want to grow in your life with God. But each person is unique, which means that everyone has unique possibilities. It is therefore not reasonable to expect that everyone will produce the same ‘results’. This is also not what God expects, for He wants you to love Him in your own way.

    This means that there is no exam and no diploma. In the letters, we try to be personal in a universal way, so you can adapt everything we say to your own circumstances. We have deliberately designed Amen so that you can decide on the pace that is best for you. You therefore shouldn’t feel that you are not doing well enough if you can’t keep up with the pace we have proposed.

• What language are the letters in?

  • You will receive the letters in the same language as the website that you sign up on. If you register on the English page, then you will receive the letters in English. If you would rather receive the letters in another language, then first choose that language for the website.

• Can I change languages halfway?

  • You can change the language of the website, but you cannot change the language of the letters. If you begin in English, then you will receive all the letters in English. Therefore, if you speak more than one language, you need to carefully consider which language you want to use.

• Can I respond to the letters?

  • On your personal page you will find a ‘feedback button’ that you can regularly use to let us know how your personal Amen process is going. Unfortunately, we don’t speak all languages … we’re sorry. If you have specific questions, you can ask us these in Dutch, English, and German. If you don’t speak these languages, you might manage with Google translate and we will simply have to make do. Until we get a colleague who speaks your language, of course….
    On your personal page you will already find some questions and experiences of other participants, as well as our responses to those.

• I cannot register myself

  • 1) In case you mean that the website is not functioning, please use our contact form to let us know what the problem is.

    2) In case you mean that you do not have access to the internet because you don’t have a computer or because you don’t internet yourself: the best option is to find someone in your local area who is willing to do the registration on your behalf (maybe one of your children, or your neighbour). This person can maintain your personal page, and can print the letters for you.

• What is the AmenApp?

  • The (free) AmenApp enables you to read and manage the letters on your smartphone or tablet. It will automatically make contact with the site whenever you go online. If new letters have been placed on your personal page, the app will automatically download them. The app also enables you to read and manage the downloaded letters when you are offline. In this way, you can also use the app during your prayer.

• Where can I download and update the AmenApp?

  • You can update our app on the AmenApp page. The link to this page is in the header and the footer of our website.

What does it cost?more of God

• What does it cost?

  • To gain admittance to the first series costs € 7,50
    
    Admittance to each following series costs € 15.00

• Why can I only pay in Euro’s?

  • It is quite expensive to have the necessary technical payment tools installed and maintained. We prefer to keep the prices as low as possible, in order to have Amen available for those who live on a small budget.
    Most banks can automatically make the conversion to your own currency. In case you want to pay manually, see the options below, under ‘how can I support Amen?’

• What is the money used for?

  • You do not pay for the letters themselves, but for access to your personal page on our website. Your personal contribution helps to maintain our website and pay our translators. By participating in this, you are also helping to make Amen available to (young) people in other countries.

    This is why we can’t refund money if you decide to stop halfway through a series. For more information, see our terms and conditions.

• Are there additional costs?

  • Yes, definitely – time and dedication.

    Dedication and perseverance certainly cost something, and they may cost a lot. Imagine that we were to give you a bicycle for the first time in your life, and told you how it worked. Would you then be able to cycle? No, ‘knowing how it works’ is different to ‘being able to’. You learn to cycle by sitting on your bike and doing it – and then you fall off. That is inevitable and is not something we can change. You are the only one who can make the choice to get up and try again – and then fall off again. What does it take to learn ride a bike? And what does it take to keep doing it? If you stop pedalling you will soon stand still – and usually at the bottom of a dip.

    The same is true of our life with God: it requires practice. What are you willing to invest in this? We can’t make the choice for you, but we want to be honest. God will lead you to many high peaks, but the higher the peak, the more challenging the climb. We want your dedication and perseverance to produce as much as possible, and therefore we will support you with a solid preparation and training. But we cannot do the climbing for you – that is your job.

    One thing is certain – it requires time. The greatest challenge for many participants is to set aside time for God regularly (preferably daily). You are the only one who can determine how much time you can (and will) set aside for God each day and each week. This varies from person to person, which is why we have deliberately developed Amen so that you can choose the pace that is most appropriate for you. As we’ve already said, the most important part of the process is what happens between the letters, and this is for you to decide.

• How can I support Amen?

  • You can support us in three ways:
    1) Tell others about us. Let your friends, colleagues, fellow Christians know that we exist. Send out tweets, like us on facebook, write about us for your church magazine…
    2) Sponsor a participant. You pay, someone else registers. It can be someone you know, but you can also leave that option to us.
    3) Bless us with a gift. We will use the money to pay our translators and technicians.

    Bank
    Name: G.T.J. Overmeer
    IBAN: AT09 2081 5000 4245 4934
    BIC/SWIFT: STSPAT2GXXX
    Description: the kind of sponsoring

    PayPal
    Name: Amenletters
    Email: info_amenletters.com (you know where to put the @)
    Description: the kind of sponsoring

    Thanks!