Bournagain

I put “house church” in inverted commas as we are still not sure what to officially call this gathering we have weekly – not having a name doesn’ t seem to have been detrimental up till now so we’re going with the flow.

Tonight was a meeting just as I like them. We all arrived a bit late, and everything was a bit disorganised. We discovered nobody had eaten but the soup we had made for dinner just stretched as each person turned up and joined us at the table – not that this had been planned. Had a great time just sharing news around a bowl of soup – catching up on some issues people in the group are facing related to their homes, their jobs etc. – things that we had already been praying about.

We then moved to the comfortable seats and opened the Scriptures where we had left off last time (we’re in Revelation at the moment), and although nobody had had the time to prepare a “study” as such, we drew out all kinds of insights which led into some very worthwhile learning. I think we could have all gone on much longer, but we try to respect the one and a half hours we agreed on – seeing that we meet weekly, and some have to get up early to work.

One great story we heard tonight was about an original way of starting a church. The parents of one of our house-groupies started a house church, and the way the group really took off was when they decided to have baptisms in their garden and invite all the neighbours. Many of the onlookers were that surprised to meet Christians so ingenious as to have a baptism in their garden that they asked all kinds of questions, and this process morphed into an Alpha Course which now has many of them making definite steps toward faith. This is FRANCE, folks – not India, Guatemala, or some other place where you just need to put a church sign up and they get a crowd. Who says that people aren’t interested in the gospel in “post-Christian” Europe?

Complete change of subject: this poor blog suffered from such neglect for such a long time – I hadn’t updated WordPress for ages, and when I finally did I lost all the bells and whistles in the sidebars. So we’re going for a kind of pared down, minimalist look until I get a moment to fix it.

If you are one of the four people who read my blog (Hi Mum!), you may have been waiting to find out how my weekend in the Cévennes went. We were staying in a community with the words “God’s Property” intriguingly inscribed on a sign to welcome you as you drive in after an impressively scenic drive into the hills along windy narrow roads. This place was started about 20 years ago by a couple who had been given this property, and saw it as a “safe house” for all who needed it – from homeless and marginals to alternatives, nomads, drifters – anyone was welcome. There are no conditions for entry other than respect for the fact that it is “God’s Property”. In practice this means that people are welcomed and respected in their differences, without judgement, that people participate in the running and financial needs of the community as they are able, and that they attend 2 community meetings each day, where there is singing, prayer, and sharing from the Scriptures. We experienced a couple of these meetings: 70 people crammed into a kind of stone basement with vaulted ceilings, praying and sharing together in all simplicity…it would be impossible to imagine a more diverse bunch of people! You could not escape an overwhelming sense of “God is here”. It’s rather like a modern-day monastery, I suppose.

It was therefore a PERFECT setting for this gathering. How can I describe it? We are so dependent on labels, aren’t we? But such a diverse group is difficult to put a label on. We had Jesus Freaks, student & youth workers, community dwellers, missionaries, a methodist minister, 24-7 prayer guys, house bus nomads, house church planters – you name it. The common thread was a passion for living a Jesus-centred life, sharing that with others, and living it out not only within the four walls of religious buildings but out in the world. We talked a lot about emergent church, simple church, house church etc. etc. But it was encouraging to see that the focus what not so much on any particular structure or method being THE answer for being church in the 21st century. The emphasis was much more on relying on the Holy Spirit to give us the right approach in our particular situation. Since the weekend I’ve been reading Red Moon Rising about the 24-7 prayer movement, and it’s helped me realise how much my way of relating to the Holy Spirit is changing. The book points out that for years in the church we were praying “Come Holy Spirit”, and he came. Today the Holy Spirit is calling “Come, Holy people” – come and live out holiness among people where they live – not to distinguish ourselves, but so that they too can share in what it means to be holy (definition: centred on God rather than on self. It is the opposite of being “holier than thou”, which is the way it is often wrongly understood). The question is, will we go? Or will we remain in the “come Holy Spirit” mode – come and bless our churches.

The meeting did not end with any great strategy or plan for the future, but we achieved our goals of networking, new friendships, and getting a bigger picture of what’s happening in France and across Europe. Hard to predict what the fruit will be, but for me it was absolutely a not-to-be-missed experience.

I’m writing this from Montpellier where I’m waiting for a bus to take me out to a Christian community in the Cévennes hills – a historic area where many huguenots (French Protestants) took refuge during the wars of religion. Some weeks ago I received information about this gathering from Connect Europe:

As many of you know the spiritual situation in France is still more problematic and difficult as may be in other countries. Right now there is a little team of friends coming together who have the dream, aspiration and vision that God wants to change something, that in France a new kind of community based church will emerge, that will influence the French culture and will have something to give to Europe and what God is doing there…

This immediately caught my eye as I’ve been following the activities of this group for a while through various blogs (Marc’s Messages, Andi’s Perspective etc…), and it’s the first time they’ve had a gathering in France. Ordinarily it was going to be impossible for me to make it because of other commitments. And the SUDDENLY, everything opened up, I found cheap plane tickets just yesterday, and here I am! Not sure what to expect, but really looking forward to connecting with people from different parts of France and Europe who are seeking to “connect, pray together, build bridges” and work towards new (old) ways of being church and community in Europe.

Came across this excellent new acronym the other day from a blog post that turned up in my feed reader: WBKWWAD, which stands for “we barely know what we are doing”. It expresses so beautifully how we are feeling at the moment about doing mission in Europe. It was in the context of an interesting account of churches starting up in Starbucks shops – church life seems to be springing up in the most unlikely places these days. Apparently it was an American sociologist, Ray Oldenburg, who first coined the term “third place”, to refer to a place where community life happens outside of our “first place”, which is the home, and our “second place”, which is our place of work. He stresses the importance of informal public gathering spaces in the health of a community – something that is sadly lacking in the suburban deserts of large American cities. I haven’t read his books – although we do share one thing in common, both having studied in Minnesota (where the cold does wonders with the brain cells, apparently…) You don’t have to think too hard before you realise that there is more than a little wisdom in this concept, and between the lines some probing questions about the way we usually do church. The churches we have been involved with for 20+ years have been gathering spaces, yes, but neither informal or public.

Although we like quoting that “the church is the only institution that exists for outsiders” (who said that?), the reality is that our church involvement can make it unlikely that we will have regular, natural contact with those outside, because we’re too busy with what’s going on inside. This “third space” concept really intrigues me. We have been working to create a “third space” for a few months now (use the “Email us” tab above for details), and I’m sure there are other existing “third spaces” in our community that we haven’t even discovered yet, where we should be hanging out more. We don’t have Starbucks in France, but one lovely thing is that the cities are not (yet) too suburbanised, and even large urban conglomerations are more like a patchwork of little villages joined together. This is a feature of urban life here that I’m not sure we as the church have really seen the potential of.

Sometimes people ask us what a “normal” week looks like. It’s always such a difficult question to answer, as a week rarely ends up looking like what we expected or planned.

Monday I spoke to a group of visiting Americans about French church history – I think that if I ever had to change jobs I would quite happily be a history teacher.

That evening I joined in with a series of seminars one of the churches here is running on house church/simple church. This church is in the very unique situation of preparing to merge with two other churches, and making home meetings the centre of their activity. One of the really fascinating things is that the ethnic makeup of these three churches is very diverse.

Tuesday morning Dad took school with the children while Mum helped out at La Maison – a drop-in centre for local homeless people. It is a reality check for both of us to know what some of these people go through.

Thursday evening there is a fledgling home meeting happening on the island in Nantes where we heard the great news that one of the group has just got engaged, and got into some good discussions around Genesis 1 & 2.

Friday I have 7 hours of English classes, back to back.

Saturday we had the second installment of the language café in our new venue. After much searching we found a suitable café that opens on Saturday mornings. It’s actually in the centre of town, which may have turned some people off. Nice atmosphere though, and I think we will keep it going to see what develops.

We have been to very few Sunday morning meetings since getting back from NZ, and have been enjoying the strangeness of this (after 20+ years). However, being a special day with a meal and baptisms, we spent the day with all our St. Sébastien church friends on Sunday.

And now it’s Monday again – the beginning of another week, at the end of which we will probably wonder, as usual, where the days have gone.

One of the commitments we’ve made recently is to learn to be led more by the Spirit than by our diaries, and when it comes to “ministry”, trying to get better at identifying those doors that God is opening, rather than being carried along by activity for activity’s sake. Well of course we have believed for a long time that this is what we are supposed to do, but when you’re a “ministry professional” there can be quite a gap between theory and practice.

One answer to our prayer, “God lead us to the right people” came in the form of a phone call from Camille*. Last time we had news from her she was very ill, but she is doing a lot better and wanted to see us. In the middle of the conversation she ventured that she couldn’t see how going to a church on a Sunday morning would ever work with her schedule, but that she would be very interested to find out more about what being a Christian is all about. She brought it up, not us! Open door! “Lets get together for a meal!”

The meal happened today, with Camille and her children. It just so happened that it was typically busy weekend with JCrois, a Christian youth gathering that happens each year in Nantes, so Sunday lunch was definitely not the most convenient. But we went for it, and we’re so glad we did.

We really wanted to do some “Acts 2:42 stuff” with our friends, to kind of model what Christians do (should do?) when they get together. Well, we didn’t do very well in the prayer department, mainly because we lost track of time. But we did manage to “break bread”, have fellowship and read through the first chapter of Mark together around the table – a first for our friend and her kids. Led to some interesting discussion on healing, and answered prayer. Not super in-depth, but probably just right for where our friend is at.

Was this church? Not quite, because we missed out the prayer bit. Definitely a step in the right direction though. We will it lead? We don’t know, but we’re really looking forward to finding out. Camille would like it to be at her place next time.

*You guessed it, that’s not her real name.