After months of talks and meetings, the church building is finally going to be undergoing major restoration work from the end of June. This is going to be a huge project which will take 12 or 13 months, not finishing until August 2008. The front of the church is going to be completely restored, it’s not just a case of cleaning up the stonework: several blocks will be replaced as well as the columns and the statues. Several objects are also going to be renovated: the large main door, the stain-glass window, the surrounding fence, the steps etc. This is a major operation, one which is done every two or three hundred years on a monument such as this! Of course the work is going to cause major disruption to the everyday life of the church community. For safety reasons, entry to the church will be via a tunnel and for a short time the main entrance will be inaccessible. So as to avoid intrusions, the church will be largely boarded up. All this work is being paid for by the sate but in addition, the church council have decided to enlarge the capacity of the church by changing the entrance. The necessity for this work is a testimony to the great news that the church congregation has increased dramatically in recent months, but it won’t be paid for by the Paris town hall. The work in the entrance will hopefully begin in March or April so we have only until then to find the necessary funding and financial plan for the project. The members of the church are really relieved and happy that this work is going to take place. The church is a beautiful building and in a bit of a sad state at the moment. In August next year we’ll be able to see such a huge improvement. The building will be all the more attractive and hopefully the beautiful and renovated exterior will finally reflect the life and vibrancy that you can find within its walls. We would really appreciate your prayers for this huge project! We pray that the final plans and preparations will go according to God’s will. We pray also that we can find the needed finances for renovating the entrance area to increase the building’s capacity. And finally, that, despite the disruption that will be caused by the work, the church can still continue to serve and worship the Lord with ever more faith and passion.

This year in the Marais God has been giving me the great opportunity to meet his people. He’s showing me just how wide and diverse He is and I’m learning so much from meeting so many different people but who all share in the love of Christ.
Growing up in my home church in my village back in England has been wonderful, there is such a sense of family there and I’ve been so blessed to have such a great church and community to call home. But it is true that you can get stuck in your ‘church bubble’ of people and customs that you know, you might not get the opportunity to meet other Christians from different backgrounds and so grow in your knowledge and understanding of God and his works.
Going to University and becoming very involved in the Christian Union started me off in my meeting of more of God’s people. There I’ve met and made good friends with people from all different parts of Britain and from various denominations, people who perhaps have a different way of doing things and understanding things to me. It certainly opened my eyes up for the first time and I began to learn more and understand more about my own faith from meeting and talking with all these new people.
I think in this respect University was preparation for this year. Here in Paris God has introduced me so many people from a huge range of backgrounds. Even though, door to door, I am only a few hundred k/m from my home in England, meeting French Christians in l’Eglise Reformée du Marais has been so good for me. People in this church are so on fire for God and it is so inspiring and refreshing to see. There is so much going on and you can really see the passion that everyone involved has. Spiritually I have already learnt so much from talking and listening to Gilles and also other members of the church. I’ve been given new perspectives, new ways of looking at things which has helped in my understanding of God’s Word, his works and his love for us. Before coming out to Paris I’d been warned that Parisians can be a bit cold and unfriendly! But everyone in the church and at the Alpha office is universally lovely! Amongst the Christians of Paris that comment doesn’t have a foot to stand on - and that I find encouraging! I feel so welcome here and I am really feeling a part of the church, even though I’m a foreigner with a bit of an English accent!
I’ve also been blessed with meeting and interacting with all the different communities who meet in the church: ‘Les Bâtisseurs de la Cité’ who are of African origin, the Japanese community and the Arabic Christian community. I’ve had a few good and interesting chats to the Arabic Christians and I’ve been along to the ‘Batisseurs’ service which was very different to what I’m used to. At first I was a little anxious and sometimes I didn’t quite understand what was going on but all the same I felt so very welcome there and I learnt a lot. It helped me to open my eyes and be receptive to other ways of worshipping the Lord, to ask myself and God questions and simply to meet, talk to, learn from and worship alongside people who have a different background to me.
Personally I find it so refreshing and inspiring to see that God is at work in the diversity of his people. Obviously I knew that he hasn’t just touched the hearts of white middle-class Britons in South-East England, but to really see the love of God in so many different people and to experience and learn from the diversity and yet unity in the love of Christ has been amazing and such a valuable experience. I have already grown so much as a person and in my understanding of the Lord and my faith in him!

The differences between the French Reformed Church and English Evangelical Denominations initially seem to be quite small: the format of the Sunday service at the Eglise Reformée du Marais probably wouldn’t look too out-of-place in a typical, albeit fairly traditional, Anglican Church back home. Many of the aspects of worship – from the organ-accompanied chants to the ubiquitous Powerpoint Presentation – are fairly similar. But scratch beneath the surface, and differences start to emerge.

Culturally, evangelical Christiantiy seems to occupy a more difficult position within French society than in the UK. Religion is seen in France as being a private affair – a preconception that makes evangelism and outreach work particularly difficult. An ingrained suspicion of ‘born-again Christianity’ à l’anglo-saxonne seems to have confirmed the status of the Protestant Church in France, in many French minds, as being that of a cult. It has been something for a challenge for us - as English students used to a fairly vibrant, open and (relatively) widely acknowledged ‘Christian scene’ back home – to come to terms with this obscurity.

As far as church life itself goes, I’ve found the way in which the Bible has studied here slightly different from in England. Certain aspects of my own Christian background have taught me to view scripture in quite ‘rigid’, non-negotiable terms. The central tenets of Christianity certainly are non-negotiable. But while I have, in the past, felt a bit reluctant to ask awkward questions on awkward topics, Gilles (and Regina, the leader of the student bible study on a Wednesday evening) like to actively encourage discussion.

There’s no doubt that the French desire to debate and discuss (the product, it seems, of a culture steeped in philosophy) can cause bible studies – and church meals - to go on for a very, very long time. But the possibility of discussion never fails to produce fresh insights; new, exciting ways of looking at what seem to be the same old Bible passages and the same old concepts. Gilles has just concluded a series of talks on the relationship between Islam and Judeo-Christianity. One of his most striking points challenged my assumptions and, perhaps, misconceptions, of the Bible. Christianity is not a faith centred, as such, round a piece of scripture: a ‘Holy Book’. It is based upon a living ‘Word’: the Word, or parole, of God. Instead of being merely an affirmation of our faith and an instruction manual about how to live according to it, the Bible is the instrument through which God communicates personally, with a myriad of messages and insights potentially emerging from every passage, to every one of us.

The concept of The Word of God I was familiar with and believed in; but it was a concept I had never appreciated quite in this light before. The Wednesday evening bible studies which Jenny and I attend place a special emphasis on this way of reading scripture. We look at passages that appear to be familiar, afresh. Discussion is open. All the baggage that can surround a Bible Study – ‘Am I asking the right questions?’, ‘Is this the answer he wants?’ – is discarded.

Many of those whom I’ve spoken to joke that the French take a lot longer to ‘get to the point’ than us Brits. Despite that being a vast generalisation, there’s probably some truth in it: look through the window of a restaurant in the Marais at 11.30 at night, and you’ll see unhurried diners still polishing off their main course, deep in a heated debate about Ségo or Sarko. But it is in this unhurriedness – this conscious rejection of what can sometimes be regarded as clinical Anglo-Saxon utilitarianism - that the time to listen to, and consider, what God has to say to us emerges. Maybe we have a lot to learn from the much-maligned modèle français. Robert C.