Prayer Letter

The Bible In A Year

In our first church, at Croxley Green (in Hertfordshire), one of the leaders once said to us (Mary Evans, for those of you who know her) that she reckoned that most people read their Bibles in the same way as they take the London Underground.

“They come up to the surface in, for example, Genesis 12: 'The call of Abram', and they go back underground. Then, they pop up again in, say, Psalm 23: 'The Lord is my shepherd'. They might then resurface in, for example, Isaiah 9: 'Unto us a child is born' or Galatians 5: 'The fruit of the Spirit'… But people generally don't know how it all fits together!”

We have launched a new activity at the church-plant in Gif-sur-Yvette. It is, very simply, to read through the whole Bible in a year, following a daily plan of Old Testament and New Testament readings. Then, participants gather each Saturday morning to talk through the previous week's readings; and just to make things a bit more convivial, we share a brunch while we talk.

It's not an original idea, of course. A neighbouring Baptist church has been doing this for the past fifteen years! It is so straightforward and yet so helpful. Maybe you should be trying it in your church?

Change May Be Just Around The Corner

At Gif-sur-Yvette, we and our co-pastor Lula are anticipating that change is coming, in one form or another, in the pastoral leadership of the church-plant.

With Lula having completed her training and been recognised as a fully accredited pastor this summer, she and we feel that the time is coming for either Lula or us to be reassigned elsewhere. This is in the context of the wider needs of the French Baptist Federation, where some churches currently have no pastor at all.

Lula and we have begun to prepare the church-plant for this coming change, talking it through with the congregation in September. No decisions have been taken yet but we would ask you to pray for the discernment process, that God would make known His plans and purposes. We'll keep you posted.

What is the collective noun for church-plants?

We have shared with you before that we are, in fact, one of three church-plants located in the two 'new towns' added to Gif-sur-Yvette in the 1970s and 2010s. One is an Assemblies of God congregation that began three years ago; the other, a Brethren congregation that is only just starting.

We are aiming to work in a coordinated way and, to that end, the three sets of leaders meet for prayer on the first Tuesday of each month. Building on that, it was great to hold our first joint Sunday service in October.

Family News

In our early years in France, we enjoyed the friendship of an American pastoral couple who lived nearby and regularly provided us with dinner, good ideas, and encouragement.

Although retired in the USA, we keep managing to bring this couple back to France to help out for anything between three months and a year. Now in their seventies, they have been enticed back once again and are currently providing key support to a Baptist church in the centre of France.

We are looking forward to catching up with this couple later in the month and to experiencing an authentic American Thanksgiving.

Prayer Points

- Pray that 'The Bible In A Year' would be a means of people developing a greater knowledge of and appetite for God's Word.

- Ask that God would make known His plans and purposes for Lula's and our future ministries.

- Give thanks for the good and growing collaboration between the three church-plants in Gif-sur-Yvette.

With our warm good wishes and our thanks for your ongoing support,

Philip & Rosemary.