Boxing day

started with the journey to Blaye to preach. It's very cold here and on the way to the church there's a few underpasses where the sun don't shine. I felt the car slide a little but I don't think the family realised anything and we got there safe and sound to drop off the children before going on to Blaye. At Blaye I preached on the shepherds going to Bethlehem and we sang lots of Christmas songs. We were almost 20 people, which is a record for a Sunday morning that I've been there.

We got a message from the kids - could we go and eat with a family from the church, the kids wanted to spend time together, so we gladly went along and ate delicious fresh fish. There had been fewer folk in Cenon than in Blaye. Predictable what with all the folk that have travelled away for the holidays.

We got a message from some of the Chinese asking if there was an English service. We said yes, and so we met happily and thought of how God moved the heart of the Roman Emperor and sent people everywhere scuttling around so that the Saviour could be born at Bethlehem and we could be saved. So don't be afraid, rejoice.

The Chinese are very encouraged after about 70 people turned up for their Christmas Eve event. There have been around ten professions of faith this year so far. We plan to meet up soon to discuss how best to support the group, to encourage the converts and to integrate the group into the church / the churches.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A bit about music exams in UK and France

They're really different. I think I have already mentioned that while in the UK people generally find a private teacher for their instrument, or do it through a school scheme, here there are municipal music school, conservatoires and so on. The situation is a little more complex than I had first understood, because the schools vary in the rigidity of their organisation: the most, the conservatoires, next the municipals, then the associations. Our music school is an association, but it tends to apply the standards of the municipal schools with its programme of cycles, etc. Britain - grade 1 to 8, grade 8 being roughly equivalent to A-level, pre university/conservatoire. France - 3 cycles, each taking about 4 years, with 3ème cycle being roughly equivalent to grade 8. Theory of music - UK to take grade 8 you need theory grade 5. In France you study theory alongside your instrumental studies, very slowly. Catrin's flute music is MUCH more difficult than the stuff she does in theor...
Read more

Good news from my sermon buddy

Yesterday we went over my script from August 13. There really wasn't much she had taken exception to. Once or twice she wondered quite what I was getting at (they had the same problem at Deeside, I think...) and I do have difficulties with the word " de ", but then she said "Who doesn't?" So I felt very encouraged. I also took the opportunity to ask her about one or two things: 1) Direct preaching. Like I used to in Britain, I preach saying you - using "vous" when I am talking to the whole wide world and "tu" when I want it to feel as if I am addressing each person individually. French preachers tend to say rather "What will we do, what will one do". So I asked her if she felt my way was too direct, too brutal for the French ear. She said "I think you can get away with it with your English accent". In fact several people have commented on how much they appreciated being spoken to directly in preaching. 2) Liaisons Last...
Read more

A brief sortie to North Wales

 Following the Great Keswick Debacle, when our volunteering at the Keswick café was sabotaged by our assorted indispositions, we had airline tickets to use up. Yes, we had not taken travel insurance, so we paid even more money to change our tickets to fly for a short visit to North Wales. This time we were able to go. We passed extremely slowly through a very crowded Bordeaux airport but in good time to get our plane. All seats in the terminal were taken so we leaned against whatever we could find while waiting to board. Hey, bags need seats, too! though sometimes pointing out to Pat, "No, that's a bag seat", makes the bag find a new refuge on the lap of the person sitting next to it... Once on the plane we quickly found our allocated seats - right at the back on the left hand side - stowed our bags and the flight was smooth and uneventful.  We had 30 minutes in Manchester to disembark, get through immigration , hustle off to the station and board our train for Shotton. I...
Read more