Tuesday - the Colloque

Well that was a week, that was !
Easter Sunday, Maxime preaching at church and ALL THOSE PEOPLE at our place to eat. Wonderful !

Then on Tuesday off to Lyon for the Colloque Biblique Francophone where Don Carson was to give three addresses on the concept of "Son of God" in the Bible, Dr F was speaking twice about Islam, Charles Nicolas was speaking once on ministering to the sick and dying and Régis Berdoulat was giving a biographical address on the French Livingstone, François Coillard. And I would preach three times.

Lyon seems to be a major centre for Catholicism (shops full of statues of Mary, Catholic university etc.) and the Colloque was held in a huge conference centre up on a hill just outside the centre. Last year I went by train, which took 9 hours, before taking tube and bus to the ceonferece centre but this year Easyjet came to the rescue and I got to Lyon by 9 am. Which meant I had some hours to kill before going to the conference centre for 3.

So I browsed in bookshops and music shops, then hunted to find somewhere to eat lunch for under 20€ (NOT EASY) and ended up chatting to the people sat next to me while eating chicken and noodles in a pizzeria.




Found the conference centre with no greater trouble than my shoes, which were not really made for walking, brief nap, dinner, then gave my first message, from Ephesians 1 about being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. Off to bed to sleep better than I have for weeks !


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