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Bonne année!

Published
by
Simon
on January 2, 2008
in family and kingdom
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Elise ice-skatingNew Year streamers

Happy New Year! Our family New Year’s Eve involved a trip to an outdoor skating rink which the city of Nantes puts on for the festive season, a nice meal which didn’t quite work out (Simon cooking!), some games and a movie. We also talked around the table about our favourite memories from 2007. I am experiencing the usual disorientation of wondering where the year went. I generally approach the new year with a vague sense of a number of decisions that need to be made, new habits that need to be formed, and then when the first of January rolls around I don’t feel ready. Then I remind myself that it’s silly to get hung up about a change of digit in the year, which is, after all, a completely arbritrary way of dividing time. There’s nothing sacred about the calendar. But it is a reminder of the ever-accelerating passage of time, and the fact that we are not getting any younger. I’m getting ready to teach a series on the Jesus’ teaching on the end times in Matthew 24, and have been struck again by the many references to time in the prophetic Scriptures, and the signs that are to help us get ready for the events of the end - whether they come in our lifetime or not. It is a good reminder that time is going in a specific direction - forward! The calendar may be arbitrary, but the passage of time has specific purpose as we head towards the fulfillment of all God had in mind when he created the world: the establishment of a kingdom on earth with Christ as its king.

Can a blog be resurrected?

Published
by
Simon
on January 1, 2008
in blogging
. 1 Comment

Two months of silence in the world of blogs is an eternity. This will be an interesting experiment to see if the small number of people who read this blog have completely given it up for lost, or whether I may be able to attract them back again. During these two months I must admit to have pondered on the potential and purpose of a blog, wavered backwards and forwards about the wisdom of divulging certain things over the Internet, and questioned some of the fairly self-centered and even narcissistic elements that one finds in the blogosphere.

But I’ve come back to the fact that I get a lot out of reading other people’s blogs, and I enjoy writing so why not carry on? It’s a good discipline, and who knows, there’s always the chance that from time to time I might contribute something useful to some online discussion. Is this a new year’s resolution? I’ve always been really good at keeping those …for the first week of January. So I’ll commit myself to writing this week, and next we’ll see what next week will bring.

A week of it

Published
by
Simon
on October 15, 2007
in church, family and simple church
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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.

New Zealand rugby black and blue

Published
by
Simon
on October 7, 2007
in France and New Zealand
. 0 Comments

When you’re a New Zealander living in France, people regularly talk to you about rugby. I received calls before the match “wishing me luck”, a number of people slapped me on the back jokingly “offering their condolences” in advance. This is ironic because overall the feeling here prior to last night’s world cup game was that the French were bound to lose.

This is a case of déja vu for me because exactly the same thing happened in 1999 prior to that historic defeat of the All Blacks by the French that was so totally unexpected. This was the historic defeat that would supposedly “never be repeated”.

I think I’m starting to understand something which may be indicative of a difference between French and New Zealand mentality (prepare yourself for a sweeping generalisation on that notoriously inexact science of cultural psychology…) : the French seem to do best, and are at their most passionate, when there is no real hope other than being defeated honourably. Being told that they will probably fail, which is, by the way, a standard pedagogical technique used by large numbers of French schoolteachers, seems to have the opposite effect of goading them on to success.

On the other hand, New Zealanders seem to do really badly when they have not fully grasped the strength of their opposition. I’ve noticed many commentators have already suggested that the run of matches leading up to the quarter-final where the All Blacks just walked all over the other team was psychologically very poor preparation for facing the French. Nobody in France expected the All Blacks to lose - along with 4 million New Zealanders!

I’m wondering if this is applicable to areas other than sport…

One thing for sure, there will be an interminable post mortem about this in New Zealand; the nation will be in sackcloth and ashes for weeks (it’s already started here at the country’s largest newspaper). Meanwhile, dans la patrie des Bleus, the celebration goes on…

Bravo les bleus! C’était un super match! All Blacks - great job. You didn’t lose by much. Take a break, go fishing - it’s only a little oval ball, after all!

Is the Inquisition over?

Published
by
Simon
on October 5, 2007
in France and faith
. 0 Comments

I had one of the more surreal experiences of my life this week. We had set up an English conversation & coffee event at a local community centre. Our first meeting was a great success, and we were just planning the next event when I was called in to meet with the director of the centre.

It transpired that an overly zealous member of what is sometimes affectionately referred to as the “anti-cult cult” had contacted the centre to warn them about me. I was informed that the community centre was awaiting a file of incriminating details confirming that I had infiltrated the community centre in order to brainwash the other members and drag them into my “cult”. This file duly arrived, and I went to a meeting to hear the verdict.

Yes, it was as they feared: I am a dangerous and deceitful man, and I was to be struck off the membership of the community centre without further ado.
“We are a non-confessional organisation sir”, I was reminded by the Catholic director and her yoga-instructor assistant, who rather put her foot in it when she said that as a coordinator of an activity it was impossible not to let one’s beliefs show through, and this would be in violation of the secular principles of the community centre… Whoops. So, in other words, it’s okay for Hinduism to “show through”, but not Christianity ??

I was fascinated to know what juicy bits of information there might be in my file, but they made the rather surprising decision to ferret the file out of my sight the moment I asked for it. So, no specific accusation was made, no serious investigation into whether or not any complaints had been made, just an arbitrary “on your bike”, for no apparent reason other than that I am perceived to be an e***gelical Christian (there’s that terrible “E”-word again!)

You think this is a joke, right?

It really happened.

Is the Church a worship centre?

Published
by
Simon
on September 30, 2007
in articles, church, mission and worship
. 0 Comments

What is worship?  I have felt uncomfortable for years about this notion that if we have great worship in our churches, people who don’t know the Lord will come in to our meetings and be transformed.  Nowadays, with few exceptions, it is only with great mental effort that I manage to get through a contemporary church worship time with a good attitude.  The question “why are we doing this?” pesters me incessantly.  As a worship leader, this is an extremely uncomfortable position for me to be in, so I am very much enjoying an extended “worship- leading” fast at the moment (6 months and counting).  I long ago gave up the expectation that what normally goes under the heading “praise and worship” would actually attract outsiders to Christ.

I found this article (courtesy of The Edge ) written by a former praise and worship “guru”, entitled Worship as Evangelism.  The context really doesn’t apply to France, as it is speaking more to the American mega-church culture.  Where we live, a mega-church has a hundred people!  And yet the church here is still influenced by the “praise and worship” movement (an example: Hillsong has now launched a church in Paris - a little taste of Australia in the city of light!  Apparently it’s doing really well - some of our Paris colleagues are involved there).

I liked this article because it poses deep questions about this view that church is fundamentally a “worship centre” that draws people (the basic function of a temple), rather than a mobile community which goes out to demonstrate Christ in the world.  The very idea that “evangelism” can effectively take place within a church building seems contradictory to me now.

Take a look if you’re interested - it’s a very well-written article.  Do you think I’m being too cynical?

Article on fruitfulness

Published
by
Simon
on September 29, 2007
in Bible and articles
. 0 Comments

One of the blogs I like reading is that of Floyd & Sally McLung in South Africa.

There are some interesting reflections there on John 15 and living a fruitful life, which I find very applicable to us at the moment.

Why blog?

Published
by
Simon
on September 29, 2007
in blogging
. 0 Comments

Have been thinking a lot lately about the purpose of this blog.  I’m aware that there are a number of things that we are involved with that aren’t really appropriate for posting on the Internet.  But on the other hand I have benefitted so much in recent months reading various blogs of people, around Europe especially, who have been going through a similar transition to us.  Especially in the area of seeking a simpler and more authentic experience of what it means to live out Christian community.

I’m also aware that there’s a lot of pontificating out there on the blogosphere which isn’t necessarily that helpful.  It’s a great way of “living transparently” before people, but sometimes it’s hard to know just how transparent to be.   I like that fact that it forces me to think about writing things that I would be happy for anybody in our various circles of acquaintance to read.  It’s a good exercise in “being real”.  I think the current buzzword for that is being “holistic”.

So I’d like to keep this going, but I think the blog is going through a bit of an identity crisis at the moment.

Connected again

Published
by
Simon
on September 22, 2007
in Internet
. 0 Comments

We had been three weeks and five days without telephone or Internet at home. It is surprising how irritating this has been, and how powerless we are when we are dependent on technology that we use without really understanding how it works.

We took the plunge a while ago and replaced our regular telecom line with a VOIP line, and without realising it at the time we also gave up any right we might have once had to that old fashioned notion we used to call “customer service”. In France, at least, VOIP is where you pay for a service whether or not it is provided, and when something goes wrong, you either figure it out yourself, or go gradually bald as you discover the hard way that there really, truly isn’t a real person somewhere at the end of that infuriating series of recorded messages.

Our provider, a company with the euphemistic name of “Free” (i.e. you are free to part with your money without ever worrying about getting something back for it) has tactfully chosen as their background music, to be enjoyed as you wave goodbye to your 34 cents a minute, a song with the following soothing lyrics “Don’t worry baby, there’s a way that we can work it out.”

Just when we were wondering what to try next, lightning struck very near our house during the night, with a huge thunderclap. We heard an ominous click, and lo and behold, this afternoon we discover that Internet and phone are again working. Could there be any relation between these two events? I don’t know, but we have all been very quick to download a copious backload of emails, in case our connection to the outside world is short-lived.

Anyway, I know you’re not supposed to give excuses for why it’s been ages since you’ve written in your blog, but I think you get the idea.

Learning to be led

Published
by
Simon
on August 26, 2007
in friends, prayer and simple church
. 0 Comments

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.