Caudéran Baptist Church

Our peregrinations took us this Sunday to Caudéran Baptist Church, where we could not have had a warmer welcome because our friend Collette was there. This is the lady who became a Christian the first weekend we arrived in France (not through us, I hasten to add). We were smothered in hugs and kisses. Other people were warm and friendly, too.

I suppose there were perhaps 50 - 60 folk present, though I am HOPELESS at counting people. The first 1/2 hour of the service was planned and conducted by the pastor's children and took the form of readings, reflections and songs of response.

Then my friend Micaël preached from Mark 7 about the challenges of descent from the mountain to the valley and our need for prayer and faith.

Songs included "Blessed be the name of the Lord" (in French one verse went Honorons le nom du Seigneur, which is very good for your nasal vowels). Toi qui disposes,  Sur le chemin va sans peur,  "Jesus, be the centre" and many others. I suppose we sang about 9 songs in total. Accompaniment included flute, guitar, violin, trumpet and piano in various combinations and at various times.

Getting to and from the church was easier than I thought as bus 3 - a SUPERLINE (Liane+) goes nearby.

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