Our job is to explain our HOPE

Yesterday my husband and I attended our regional Pastors' meeting at Lyon. Our day started with a discussion on the following text.

1 Peter 3:13-17

New International Version (NIV)

¹³ Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? ¹⁴ But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats^[a]; do not be frightened.”^{[b] 15} But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, ¹⁶ keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. ¹⁷ For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

We said a lot of things on this text: we will suffer for following Jesus because He overturns the values of this world;  we need to keep Christ at the centre of all things, then we will act correctly and in harmony with His heavenly principles; we mustn't sin ourselves when hard-pressed by circumstances or persecution; we need have no fear (remembering that perfect love casts out all fear); and, in particular, there was a discussion about our main task as Christians. I highlighted the text : it's our testimony to who God is in our lives and from whom we get our hope. So this powerpoint reminds us that HOPE is the distinguishing feature of all mature Christians. God gives us the rest: peace, faith and love.

This discussion also comes after a seminar we organised in our church about how to understand persecution. It is a weekend course written by the Open Doors - Brother Andrew's organisation and has been done in many situations where Christians are persecuted. As events unfold in France and we see decisions being made which don't correspond to a majority viewpoint, we feel the oppression and the combat. We need to be and are actively preparing our flocks...

Gay marriage & Gender choice debate in France

I'm posting a commentary written by Lauren Moore who is also an Aussie missionary working in France. She sums up a very worrying situation and I'm grateful for her perspective. I'm really worried at the way government is operating here and rough shod decisions and lack of correct, informed, public, intelligent and respectful debate. Even if our rôle as Christians is primarily to proclaim the Kingdom of God and not to try and impose our way of living and believing (if not, we would be practising the equivalent of the sharia - think about it!), we do have a rôle to play in stating our beliefs and explaining why we understand things in that way - we have to be an alternative voice.

"The gay marriage debate is officially over in France last week, but yesterday the protests continued. There have been 3 major protests, gathering Catholics, Protestants and non-believers alike, to protest against the law to allow gay marriage and same sex couples right to adoption. There is also a change in the education system, to teach children that there is NO difference between male & female, that gender means nothing. (I promise I'm not exaggerating). Despite the protests being massive (hundreds of thousand up to millions of protesters gathered in Paris), nothing has been heard. Literally nothing in any of the articles of these laws have been stopped. Gay marriage, same-sex adoption, and the teaching that there is no gender have all been passed."

Still accounting!

Still going through my diary to record my 'business' trips and note ministry expenses and found this entry at the end of January:

internet connection down so made the most of it by sorting through emails. After sorting, cleared out 1500 emails from between November 2012 and end of January 2013! Mmm, definitely feel lighter after that!

(PS wish I could lose kilos as quickly! - come to think of it, if I spent less time on the computer and more on getting out, I could lose kilos almost as quickly. Keeping up communication today is a very time-consuming process ....)

Accounts

It's when we run out of money that I realize I haven't done my ministry expenses claim forms for a while! So here I am at my accounts work. Usually, I'd rather not have to bother about all this money stuff, but it is interesting to look back over the last few months and to take stock of our ministry activities. Especially when you remember why you thought it was a good thing to organize at the time.

An example: in my diary somewhere in mid-January I had noted during one of our World Day of Prayer meetings : "About oecumenism - it's now over 500 years since the great split in Christianity - 1000 years if you go back to the split between orthodox and catholic. It's only in the last 50 years that the number of mixed marriages between Protestant and Catholic (and can be noted now between different religious backgrounds such as Muslim and Christian, Jewish and Christian ...) has really increased. Learning to live with each other, to respect each other, to concede that the other's relationship with God has its own sense and validity is such a recent thing really - and what strikes me is that it has come about because people have turned away from religious faith and practices in such a big way. As people were less tied to religious practice, they formed other alliances and now our formal institutions are being forced to related to each other through oecumenism; forced by the changes in society and the (often valid) questionning of past practices and beliefs.

Now we Christians are working in a spiritual desert - and you can't erase 500 years of animosity in 50 years. But this spiritual desert is making us ask all the right questions and opening us up to God's leading in a much clearer way. And here I am in Lamastre - a country town in the middle of Ardèche - working alongside women from the Reformed Church (more liberal theology, and quite liturgical), nuns from the Holy Sacrement Order and Catholic lay women, looking for ways to attract more children and their families into the World Day of Prayer, an ecumenical experience par excellence! In our discussions we are pinpointing the fact that this generation of children have no real spiritual 'prejudices' and their parents don't know anything much to transmit to their offspring.

Our challenge : work together for the Kingdom and see more of this generation intelligently informed of the spiritual choices we all have to make.

We are all accountable to God for this.

So I'm glad after all that I have to do my accounts!!

Grains of Hope - for French speakers!

This will test your French!

You know I participated in the organisation and running of the big women's conference at the beginning of April. Well, they also planned to publish a collection of meditations on the theme "May Your Kingdom Come" using contributions from a great variety of women connected to the Femmes 2000 organisation.

I had something on hand so contributed one small offering based on 1 Cor 15: 35-58 which many of you heard me speak on when on Home Assignment in Australia.

The editors managed to compile this collection and print it in time for the Congress. Here is the advert!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUP7jIuqTv8

Each meditation is like a grain/seed of hope to its readers, as much as the idea itself was an encouragement to the authors. At the congress we had times labelled "Graines du Royaume/Seeds of the Kingdom" which gave a chance to several women to explain their particular ministry and how the Lord lead them and encourages them to be witnesses in His Kingdom. It's been a real boost to hear of so many things done in the name of the Lord and from many very small, even tiny beginnings (miniscule steps of faith) some amazing things have happened. The Kingdom is advancing, inexorably!!