EREI national general Synod at Branoux, Cévennes
Every three years the National Union of Independant Evangelical Reformed Churches (EREI) holds its national general synod. The churches send delegates (the pastor plus others). I am not a church member, but the church kindly sent me with two purposes: to find out about EREI so as to know how closely I could work with them and to meet people to build up contacts and links. I hoped to meet Paul Wells, but he wasn't there.
The synod meets over two long days and a half. As well as LOTS of business there are devotional sessions, reports from church commissions on ethics, theology, youth, etc. and lots of elections. Oh - and a concert given by an American choir.
The EREI elects all the members of its committees by the deux tours method. That is, you have a paper with a gap for each committee place that needs filling. You also have a list of people who have been nominated by their regions. You then write a name in each gap. When the scrutineers do their count, anyone who has been chosen by a straight majority is on the committee.
But there may be places still free on the committee. That's where the second round comes in. Then you write names again, and the places are filled in top down order - front runner, then second etc. till all the places are filled. I was sat with a church delegate from one of our churches who teaches accountancy, and I had to explain the system to them. It all takes a lot of time.
Reflections:
1) It was amazingly like one of our assemblies back home. Same spirit. Same happy humour. Same joy at being together. Same respect for one another. Same restraint and desire for wisdom. Perhaps a slightly smaller number of people, but then they have fewer churches than the AECW has.
2) The EREI has a generation of good young chaps in ministry, who have been trained by the faculty at Aix. Real "young Turks". There was no sign of the "this younger generation aren't as good as we were" stuff. Everyone was genuinely valued.
3) I can't imagine living with the liturgy, frankly. However, our local EREI doesn't follow the liturgy and certainly doesn't do the bit that I found very surprising indeed: fraction et élévation - officially banned in the Anglican church in 1549.
4) I took a lot of ragging after the French beat the Welsh at rugby. But I explained that we can't beat everyone two years on the trot and told them to look out next year.
5) The language generally worked OK, except for one terrible morning when I couldn't hear or understand the guy opposite me. Poor chap! It was good to hear the Americans, Chileans, Madagascar-ans (?), Dutch, English, etc all happily chuntering away - sometimes in French no better than mine, really. And there is a vast range of acceptable accents in native French people anyway. The mayor of Branoux proved that when he talked about toléransa en Fransa. So on that level the weekend was very encouraging and reassuring! As one chap said "everyone has an accent here - even the French"
One interesting thing - my companion, who spoke no English, didn't notice the Mayor's accent till I pointed it out to them, when it became as clear as daylight. But if one of my e's was slightly wrong they noticed straight away. I think what it shows is that if you are a frenchman you can get away with almost anything, but if you are a french learner then you just have to get it right. That's fine by me!
One last thing. Why no big hymns? Even when we sang a toi la gloire (Thine be the glory) it was just one stanza. Almost everything is short ... well, ditties really.
Anyway.... It was an encouraging time and basically fulfilled its goals.
The synod meets over two long days and a half. As well as LOTS of business there are devotional sessions, reports from church commissions on ethics, theology, youth, etc. and lots of elections. Oh - and a concert given by an American choir.
The EREI elects all the members of its committees by the deux tours method. That is, you have a paper with a gap for each committee place that needs filling. You also have a list of people who have been nominated by their regions. You then write a name in each gap. When the scrutineers do their count, anyone who has been chosen by a straight majority is on the committee.
But there may be places still free on the committee. That's where the second round comes in. Then you write names again, and the places are filled in top down order - front runner, then second etc. till all the places are filled. I was sat with a church delegate from one of our churches who teaches accountancy, and I had to explain the system to them. It all takes a lot of time.
Reflections:
1) It was amazingly like one of our assemblies back home. Same spirit. Same happy humour. Same joy at being together. Same respect for one another. Same restraint and desire for wisdom. Perhaps a slightly smaller number of people, but then they have fewer churches than the AECW has.
2) The EREI has a generation of good young chaps in ministry, who have been trained by the faculty at Aix. Real "young Turks". There was no sign of the "this younger generation aren't as good as we were" stuff. Everyone was genuinely valued.
3) I can't imagine living with the liturgy, frankly. However, our local EREI doesn't follow the liturgy and certainly doesn't do the bit that I found very surprising indeed: fraction et élévation - officially banned in the Anglican church in 1549.
4) I took a lot of ragging after the French beat the Welsh at rugby. But I explained that we can't beat everyone two years on the trot and told them to look out next year.
5) The language generally worked OK, except for one terrible morning when I couldn't hear or understand the guy opposite me. Poor chap! It was good to hear the Americans, Chileans, Madagascar-ans (?), Dutch, English, etc all happily chuntering away - sometimes in French no better than mine, really. And there is a vast range of acceptable accents in native French people anyway. The mayor of Branoux proved that when he talked about toléransa en Fransa. So on that level the weekend was very encouraging and reassuring! As one chap said "everyone has an accent here - even the French"
One interesting thing - my companion, who spoke no English, didn't notice the Mayor's accent till I pointed it out to them, when it became as clear as daylight. But if one of my e's was slightly wrong they noticed straight away. I think what it shows is that if you are a frenchman you can get away with almost anything, but if you are a french learner then you just have to get it right. That's fine by me!
One last thing. Why no big hymns? Even when we sang a toi la gloire (Thine be the glory) it was just one stanza. Almost everything is short ... well, ditties really.
Anyway.... It was an encouraging time and basically fulfilled its goals.
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