Category: Ministry

A busy weekend

Last weekend was quite busy compared to usual. It started on Friday evening with our first evening of “Passerelles vers Dieu”. We were a small group and the discussion went well.

On Saturday, I attended with my colleague a meeting in Rennes to reflect on the churches of our denominations in the West of France and the possibility of working together to plant a church. It was interesting.

In the evening, I was leading the youth group. We ate together, studied the Fall and played some games.

On Sunday, I was preaching on Ephesians 4:17-32. I was glad these two days were over. The week ahead has less meetings, but there’s lot of catching up to do. I must write an article for our home church, a book review. There are piles of papers to sort out on my desk, and I’d like to start reading ahead for the various studies and sermons coming up.

An evangelistic evening: Most

Last night, we had a public projection of the short fim “MOST”. It is the story of a father who need to make a choice between saving his son from certain death, or saving a train full of people. He chooses to let his son die so that the many people in the train can live. It’s a powerful tale, inspired from John 3:16. It needs a bit of explaining, but is quite well made.

About 20 people turned up, with at least 8 unbelievers. I think that most of these had come to the church for the first time. We started with a light buffet, followed by the film and more time to chat and enjoy a drink. People stayed on after the film to chat for a while.

One reason for this event was to invite people to a 6 weeks series of evangelistic meetings starting on 9th November. You can watch the trailer below:

The problem with French secular culture

French people have a very strong sense of privacy. Many things are private, and according to proper etiquette you should never ask questions about these. Often, you don’t ask for people’s names when you meet them. You certainly won’t ask them what they do for a living, how much they earn… When you grow up in France, you learn to discern these things and to work them out for yourself indirectly, from the clues you can gather, or from someone else.

But there is one subject that make people really uneasy. this subject is religion. You never talk about religion with anyone. This is one of the most private things. It means that unless the people you meet follow a religion that has some visible outward signs, you just can’t know if people are religious or not. It makes talking about spiritual things very awkward I find.

On Friday morning, I was with our stand on the market when one of the dad’s from our children’s school came up to me and started chatting; He is very friendly guy, knows half the school. He is always a gentlemen with ladies. But I would never have thought the guy and his family were practicing Roman Catholics. They are involved in te local Parish and go to mass regularly. I can’t say I am surprised, but I would never have imagined this man was religious.

Having been brought up in a context where you never talk about faith with anyone, I just take it for granted that most people are not going to church anymore. But meeting that guy on the market was encouraging.

 

Ministers’ fellowship in Pontivy

On Monday, we had our first ministers’ fellowship meeting of the year in Pontivy. As usual, not many had come but there were a few new faces. On is was a young man named Paul Yang. He works with the GBUs (UCCF), in the West of France, including Brittany. He was an interesting young man in his early thirties. Another visitor was a German minister who Pastors a church in Normandy. He has recently moved there from another pastorate in Normandy as well. It seems that both of them will be coming regularly.

It was good to be there and catch up with people. The most interesting part of the day is always lunch because that’s when people do the real talking and open up.

On the market in Rostrenen

We had a good time on the market in Rostrenen. I love going there. The atmosphere there is very different from the atmosphere on the other markets we visit around Guingamp. It’s more rural, more authentic.

People seem to have more time. They spend a lot of time going from stall to stall talking. They don’t talk to us though. I also heard some folks speaking Breton, which is always nice. There are  also more outcasts it seems, people who have been excluded from society or live on its margin, selling their fruits and vegetables, or homemade cheeses.

There are also lots of British people as well. They are usually quite visible and sometimes noisy.

We are usually insulted by a man who lives on the main street each time we go. But he was quiet today. I saw him watching us from his window, but he didn’t say a word.

But there is no Evangelical witness in the town, and as far as we are aware, there is only one believer, a retired woman who is a member in the church in Guingamp and hosts our monthly Bible study in Rostrenen.