Mérignac

So yesterday we hit the road for Mérignac and the new church recently started by the Christian and Missionary Alliance at the Hotel du Phare. Bus 4 to Barrière de Pessac, then bus 11 to the hotel.

We found the hotel without too much difficulty (thanks to the GPS built into our phones !) and were greeted warmly by the pastor who was setting up for the service. The service is held in the conference room of a hotel/motel not far from the Rocade.

Musical accompaniment was provided by the pastor's wife on guitar and a cellist. Songs were all modern : Baloche Hosanna, Jesus be the center, Open the eyes of my heart, Il est beau de louer le Seigneur (all in French of course).

I suppose we were about 15 people, perhaps 1/4 of us French, the rest American or British (there were two Brits. Us), but remember that it's holiday time so numbers were down and proportions were unrepresentative, too. At Cenon there were 20 Dutch !

The service began with a time of meditation of a short Bible passage, there was a time of open prayer, communion service, the sermon was on Acts 16 : 6 - 10 on guidance. This is a passage that has long fascinated me, and the pastor's message was useful. It was illustrated with a map of Paul's second missionary journey and his sermon points were put on the screen, too, in an unobtrusive way.

After the service we chatted with the pastor and his wife and decided to set up a coffee date after the summer break is over. Then we chatted with a French couple about the church scene in Bordeaux and so on.

Getting back was interesting. First we had to find the bus stop. Not so easy. In the end we got it. Then we had to work out our route. Then we missed our stop. Then we thought we'd missed our connection by 2 minutes, but thankfully the connecting bus was perturbed and retarded so we avoided a 40 minute wait !