Student Life

Housing

One of the significant values of life at Tyndale is our dormitory. Many of our program students live in the dormitory which is located directly across from our main building containing our classrooms, dining hall and library. The students who are able to live in-community are able to access our facilities with great ease and can also connect with other students on an informal basis quite regularly.

Students who apply for housing normally share a dorm room with one or two other students. There is a shared bathroom between two dorm rooms. Each bathroom is relatively large, containing bathroom facilities that include showers.

There is also limited married student housing. Students who are accompanied by family members (spouse and children) have found housing in and around the seminary campus. While Tyndale does not provide housing for families, we can assist you with this task.

Tyndale Seminary has its own dining hall and student center. Meals are available as part of the room and board packages for residential students. Non-residential students may also sign up to eat in the dining hall at a reasonable cost.

One aspect that enriches and is somewhat unique for the European context is that many of our students live on campus. Our dormitory was built in 2005 and can accommodate up to 63 students at any time. Several other students live within biking distance of the school. All of this makes for a warm and vibrant community life where our faith is lived out beyond the classroom.

What is life like in the residential community? Learning to live, study and serve with others from around the world brought together in one place bears fruit in our lives as our Christian life is lived out in the community. We study together, eat together in our dining hall and often do trips together. Even though 20 to 30 nations are often represented on the campus, there is a deep fellowship that is often built cross-culturally. We support each other in daily life.

Living in this diversity of cultures does have its challenges. People from different countries or continents have different cultural practices, but we see it as God’s blessing to us in the form of a diverse community. It also makes for enjoyable and sometimes challenging conversations as theological topics are discussed, debated and applied.

Part of life at Tyndale is helping out with the duties and chores needed to keep the school operational. Serving one another as we study and learn is part of our holistic approach to training for Christian ministry. Being a missionary school, Tyndale does not have the funds to employ separate workers for various upkeep, gardening, lawn care, maintaining the dining hall and similar jobs. We all pitch in and serve our Lord and one another through campus duties.

Outside of classroom hours, your day is yours for studying, reading, doing your campus duties, relaxing, etc. We highly recommend that all students get involved in a local church. There are many English-speaking, international churches available. There are also hundreds of churches representing different countries and communities around the globe in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Rotterdam alone has over 170 churches of people who have moved to the Netherlands from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Studying at Tyndale is a challenge. It is meant to be so. This is a Master’s level of education. We expect that at the end of your education, you will be leaders, and we want to equip you for that task.

An education at Tyndale should equip you to do careful, critical thinking; to know your faith, and know why you believe it; to do careful research; to be confident in your use of the biblical languages; and to be able to lead and communicate with people well.

There will be a lot of hard work involved. There will be many books to read, many papers to write, languages to learn, and presentations to make. You should plan on spending at least 50 hours a week on your studies. You might be interested in taking a look at one or more of our course syllabi. A few sample syllabi can be found here.

We are here, though, to help you succeed! You need to bring a high level of commitment, a willingness to work hard, and an openness to learn new things. We will help you and encourage you in the process, and offer advice when you need it. The faculty and staff are eager to aid you as you become better equipped to serve God!

Tyndale Library is located in the central Atrium of our main building, Chatlos Hall. Our collection numbers approximately 25,000 hard-copy books and other materials.

Tyndale Library focuses on theological books: biblical studies, systematic and dogmatic theology, church history, and practical/pastoral theology. A small number of other works of non-fiction and fiction are also included.

The main language of Tyndale Seminary is English, so most of our resources are in English. However, our Dutch-language section is expanding and we also have some resources in German and other languages.

Digital access: Tyndale makes use of the digital resources of the KB (Dutch National Library). ATLA/EBSCOHost, JSTOR and Project Muse are some of the resources available. Students, faculty and staff are invited to take out a personal membership to access the KB. For more information, see the KB site: https://inschrijven.kb.nl/index.php.

At Tyndale we view your entire education as Spiritual Formation. We are called to make disciples. In order to intentionally help you in your holistic growth we address many different areas of life. Your mind will be enriched academically. Your character will be formed through class interactions, interpersonal relationships and acts of service through campus duties.

A key aspect to our spiritual formation program is small group mentoring. Students are assigned a personal mentor from either faculty or staff. Each mentor has a group of three to four students with whom they interact on both a group basis and individually. The goal of these relationships are to walk side-by-side with each student through their time at Tyndale. This allows students to have someone who is focused on personally caring for them and helping them to process their life in community.

More information is available on Spiritual Formation within the Student section.