Category: French evangelical scene

I am finding the whole worship bands emphasis difficult. Yesterday, we worshipped in a church with a good worship band. They played well, but I am still finding it difficult. Here is why:

1. We hardly know the songs, therefore hardly anyone sings apart from the lead singer.
2. When we know the songs, we still don’t know how they are going to be interpreted, which paragraphs are going to be sung when, and how many times, and what about the chorus, how many times are we going to sing it? The people controlling the projection are not sure either and get lost. Therefore, people give up singing.
3. Then, the leader suddenly start praying. Hold on, how can I pray with you if you don’t warn me you are going to pray. I just stand there, looking stupid, wondering what is going on. When is this going to end?
4. I’ve said it before, hardly anybody sings in the assembly. Why bother, the band is doing it for me, and they sing in tune. How am I taking part in the worship if I am not singing. I am passive, waiting to be told to sit down.
5. In the end, I am just watching a nice performance. But wait, did I come to watch a performance, or to worship God? If I want to watch a performance, I might as well go to a concert and pay for it.

You don’t have to agree with me, but it feels the band is taking more and more space. The service was about 1 1/2 hour. Almost 1 hour was taken by the worship band, the rest was shared between the message and the communion. Is anyone going to say anything, or are we going to carry on until the space for the Word has shrunk to the point of disappearing?

Yesterday, we visited the Eglise Protestante Evangélique du Drac. We had a warm welcome. I think people were happily surprised to have visitors. Maybe that’s because the church wasn’t easy to find. In theory, it should be. It is alongside the dual carriageway, I even spotted a sign advertising for the alpha course as we drove past it. In practice, once you get out of the carriageway, the building is tucked in a dead end, and you’re not sure whether you are allowed to cross the tram tracks or not with your car. It took us 5-10 minutes to work out how to get to the car park. Then we had to find where they meet, upstairs, at the end of a long, dark corridor.

Another reason for their surprise may have been that French Christians don’t often visit other churches. We were in Grenoble to visit my brother and spend the day with the whole family. It had snowed most of the night. Most French people would have skipped church and would have gone to their family reunion. But we wanted to go to church. There was one not too far, so we left a bit earlier to get in time for the service, and we left quickly afterwards.

It was nice to see another church, much bigger than the ones we are used to. The service was quite smooth, with a strong brethren stance. Only drawback to me was the worship band (more of that in another post). They played very well, but I am finding the accent on having a worship band with a lead singer difficult. But it was a nice bunch of folks. We’ll go again if we are in the area.

I wrote yesterday that the small town of St Marcellin, near Grenoble didn’t have any more evangelical witness. For more details, read the post here. I was led to believe this through a report on teh website of the Union des Eglises Evangéliques libres which stated that the church had closed its doors(see the report here). This report, written for a recent synod of this denomination stated: “L’Eglise de Saint-Marcellin, au terme de plusieurs années de difficulté a progressivement cessé ses activités, jusqu’à s’éteindre complètement. Plusieurs de ses membres ont rejoint les Eglises de la région dont l’Eglise libre de Valence.” I am very sorry if my initial post misled some of you.

But I am glad to say that this is not the case. Following my post, I got in touch with the former pastor of that church, who was also a friend of my grand-father. He replied to my email today to say that there is still a group of believers meeting in St Marcellin. They are mainly elderly people, but there are a few younger ones. They had to sell their building a few years ago because of the running costs (it was a very old building in a former convent). After meeting in various places, they bought another building with the money of the sale of the other one.

He also told me that a man from a church in Grenoble is taking interest in St Marcellin and has been thinking bout establishing a work there. I pray that this man won’t start a new work but would rather work with the existing church.

According to a poll from 2010, only 10% of French protestant Pastors (including liberal and evangelicals) believe in the historicity of Genesis 1-3. The same pole results show that only 22 % of protestants believe the same. About 1/3rd of Protestants are Evangelicals. You can see the results of this poll here.