It all began in 1929. Every summer, a large group of young Christians gathered at a farm in Seest near Kolding.
Five years later, there were up to 1000 participants, and in 1939 27 students began in the farmhouse, the first 6-week Bible school. The course consisted of Bible interpretation, English as well as praise and worship.
The growing number of people at the summer rallies and the continuous training activity in 1941 resulted in a group of leaders headed by Sigfred Beck to be inspired to build a Bible school with the purpose of impacting the whole of Europe. The vision was presented with the motto: “Build the temple of faith by the example of faith”. In the same year, the entire current land with lake and park of 33,000 m2 of the Bible school was donated to the project by the farm owner couple Hans and Beate Beck. After that, a major fundraising began for the construction. Between 1941 and 1953, DKK 900,000 was collected. In 1949, the school was recognized as a folk high school, and in 1951 the first foreign students came from Switzerland, Norway and Germany, among other nations.
In the summer of 1957, the new building was officially inaugurated with 100 students from Denmark and abroad.
Today, the school consists of almost 5000 m2 spread over 5 floors, and if the school’s three longs are unfolded, it reportedly has the same dimensions as Noah’s Ark. More than 5000 students studied at the School.
Our Mission
We create impressions that change your expression and enable you to make imprints and inspire you to follow Jesus where ever you go.
Values that define our culture
The values are pointers to our everyday cultural life and to the way we want our surroundings to perceive us. We emphasize three things:
Propriety
People thrive best when we treat each other, the surroundings and the life we are entrusted with respect. It is about taking yourself and others seriously, about living gratefully and about taking responsibility for both yourself and the communities you are part of.
In God’s eyes, all men are valuable and invited to a life with Him. At the same time, He has given the individual a responsibility to manage and develop the life and the abilities He has entrusted to us. Therefore, it is our belief that we must do our very best, contribute to the fellowship of believers and to spreading the kingdom of God on earth, by becoming the best version of ourselves.
At Acts Academy we want to be known for quality and for doing the absolute best with what we have at our disposal.
Against
We teach each other to live courageously, with faith and with the willingness to take chances and fail in the effort to follow the call that we believe God has placed in the individual. We do not like political correctness and uniformity, but cultivate the uniqueness and uniqueness of the individual in respect of our heavenly father’s original plan and thought.
At Acts Academy we will create an environment where people are inspired to live courageously, with greatness, with space for creativity and a desire to reach for the dreams that God placed in their hearts. We will foster leaders who provide space for development, to take initiatives and to take new paths.
Generosity
Everything we do in life is about more than ourselves. We believe God created us with a purpose greater than ourselves and our personal ambitions. Therefore, we celebrate generosity and try to teach each other to live with other people’s best in thought. Generosity creates an amazing environment and is an expression of God’s own heart when he sent His Son Jesus and freely gave Him to all mankind.
Generosity is a way of life, an attitude, a way of living selflessly. It is a crucial ingredient in any society and fellowship that is interconnected and developed.
At Acts Academy we will foster a servant’s mind, willingness and generosity. We want to surprise and create experiences that inspire everyone who visits the house or comes in contact with our students and staff.
Networks
Part of a larger house
The Acts Academy is housed in a 5,000 m2 large and majestic building, located in the middle of a beautiful park and overlooking Kolding. It was inaugurated in 1957 and is today home to several different actors:
Euroclass is a continuation of our boarding school, Kildevæld. Here, young people who completed a minimum of 9th class are challenged with a life of formation, Bible teaching, travels and adventure. Euroclass students eat their meals with the Bible college students and share several practical tasks.
The church, “Kirkeibyen”, which is the largest church in the Apostolic network of churches, is also housed in the building. An church construction is planned to accommodate conference facilities for both ecclesiastical, professional and cultural activities.
Café Nærværket is another asset in the building. It is a meeting place for the socially vulnerable and is open five days a week. Nærværket, which is mainly run by volunteers from Kirkeibyen in cooperation with Blue Cross, also provides the framework for the weekly food distribution called ‘food bank’.
All the actors in the house eat in the Acts Academy’s dining room and attend morning devotion once a week.
Part of the Free Churches
Our cooperation with the Apostolic Church is natural as it is our spiritual hinterland. Acts Academy However, you also want to be a Bible school and a resource centre for a wide range of free churches and other ecclesiastical movements in both Denmark and Europe.
The school is bilingual (Danish and English) and a place where men and women are trained to bear responsibility in churches as well as in society. All students are on service internships in either their own church, or in churches, organizations and social initiatives with which we cooperate.
Our students are taught by the best educators within the church and society. This also creates a natural anchorage in a much larger hinterland.
We are also part of FrikirkeNet, which is the umbrella organization for most free churches in Denmark.
Part of the Danish Folk High School Movement
Acts Academy is one of about 70 folk high schools in Denmark. The Folk High Schools are a unique Danish invention that aims to create life education, grassroots anchoring and democratic formation, and therefore teaching must have a broad character. At Acts Academy, we live it out by bringing in students of different nationalities and teaching them the Christian faith as well as our cultural heritage. By seeing themselves from a perspective shaped by faith in God, students are shaped and formed in a community filled with challenges. They will also given concrete opportunities to engage in meaningful and socially relevant activities.