Category: French evangelical scene

Are we taking the gospel for granted? Assumed Evangelicalism

I think we do, and unless we make the conscious and deliberate step to go back to the gospel explicitly, we will soon be facing some problems (which are already appearing it seems. Read this article on the subject: Assumed evangelicalism, some reflections en route to denying the gospel. It had been sitting on my reading pile for a few years and I read it at last Saturday evening.

Some meetings can take an interesting turn

Last night’s prayer meeting took an interesting turn. It is summer, and the meetings is usually little attended. So, I opened the building and waited for a while. At 8.10, I was still on my own, but was determined to stay anyway and pray. After a few minutes, a sister arrived.

We got started, sang and read a passage in 2 Kings. After that, we prayed for a while, thanking God for his goodness. About halfway we stopped to share some prayer matters. At that point, three Gypsy ladies turned up to join us. One of them has been coming to us for the last 3-4 weeks. It was great to see them.

We had a chat and prayed together. At the end of the meeting, we talked a bit more about baptism and some of the differences between our churches. They call us “les sedentaires” (roughly: the sedentaries, or settled). It is not meant to be negative. It is just a way to distinguish between people who live in houses as opposed to the travelling community (who often live in houses part of the year, but still see themselves as Gypsies). Their church meet in another part of town.

I was thrilled to get to know them. I had recently prayed that there would be some contacts with some of the Gypsy christians in Guingamp.

Eglise Protestante Evangélique de Pontivy

Sunday saw the Durand family heading to Pontivy, about 80 km away, where Emmanuel was preaching in the local Evangelical church (France Mission). We had a great day.

The church is quite small, and that morning, the vast majority of people were English expats. I probably could have preached in English as a number of them had very little French. There was even a lady from Texas.

The Pastor was away, preaching in Guingamp.

We had lunch with his co-elder, Stephen, and his wife, Janine. They are an English expat couple and leave about 15 km from Pontivy in an old Farm house, lost in the Breton countryside. It was sunny and hot, very hot. It was 27°C in the shade at 13:30, and 32 when we left at 16:30. It was good to see some countryside and to visit another church in the area.

Sinned in a Literal Adam, Raised in a Literal Christ – The Gospel Coalition Blog

I was reading recently a magazine on origins in the magazine of a French Evangelical Denomination. It depressed me to see that all the articles without exception were supporting a theistic evolution viewpoint. The most worrying to me was the great confusion there seemed to be on who were Adam and Eve.

Although I don’t think I would follow him on Genesis 1, this article by Tim Keller is helpful in putting things back into perspective:

Sinned in a Literal Adam, Raised in a Literal Christ – The Gospel Coalition Blog.