Togetherness

I'm going back 2 months - never seem to have time to write all the things that come to mind.

In France in January there are 2 official occasions for Christians of various communities to get together for prayer and worship. We call them "célébrations" in French in order to avoid confusion between a protestant service (called "un culte" : be careful of what we teachers call 'false friends' in words that are the same in the 2 languages, but which have different meanings ! I'll give you another example in another posting !) and the Catholic mass.

The first is called "la Semaine de prière pour l'Unité chrétienne" (The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity) and is held from 18th to 25th January each year. Apparently, it was started in Lyon (France!) in 1933 by a Catholic Abbot Paul Couturier. It is now an International event held in January for the Northern Hemisphere and at Pentecost for the Southern Hemisphere.

So in little ol' Lamastre, we had a celebration with the Catholic and Reformed Churches based on a theme written by the churches of Jerusalem. The local priest here has been to Israel several times and will take a group from here on a pilgrimage next month. He used his own photos to show all the different churches in Jerusalem. Then ended the slide show with this beautiful image and text.

JUST AS THIS OLD OLIVE TREE IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANIE, THE ANCIENT CHURCH OF JERUSALEM, MOTHER OF ALL THE CHURCHES IN THE WORLD, HAS PRODUCED NUMEROUS BRANCHES. HOWEVER, ITS ROOTS PLUNGE DOWN INTO THE ONLY WORTHY NOURISHING SOIL, THAT OF THE LOVE OF GOD.

The second week takes place from 9th to 16th January and is organised by the French Evangelical Alliance. It was created in 1847. This year we didn't do anything mainly because the Evangelical Alliance has been absorbed into a new group called The National Council of French Evangelicals. Our Union of churches has not yet voted on whether to join this federation or not. This will be done in June at our Synod.

Our second big event was the World Day of Prayer, 4th March. Our mixed group of women from the 3 main churches of Lamastre shared their enthusiasm and gifts to organise a children's and youth afternoon on Wednesday, then a Round Table discussion on the text from Mark 6: 30-44 with the 3 clergy on Friday morning, followed by a Chilian meal at lunch time. There were 38 people at the more traditional celebration Friday afternoon and a wonderful turnout of 120 people, including 40 children, for the evening celebration which was mainly led by the young people. My role was to organise and delegate for the evening celebration and to coordinate the celebration. It was a lot of work, but so exciting to see so many people worshipping together, so many people mobilised to participate, and seeing the younger generations learn how to worship together.

 Preparing the World Day of Prayer

The children hearing about Chili,
and the World Day of Prayer

This is a wood-burning oven outside the Manse of the Reformed church. Geneviève lit it and baked 15 loaves of bread to distribute during the celebration in the evening. A symbolic moment which reinforced the teaching of Jesus' miracle in multiplying the 5 loaves and 2 fishes in order to feed the crowd.

Some of the women taking part
in the afternoon celebration

The children distributing the bread in
12 baskets representing what remained
after Jesus provided food for the crowd.