My sending church, Hamilton Baptist Community Church, sends me its weekly church bulletins. It's great to keep up with their activities and some news. I like reading the Pastor's Pen - how many times has the subject echoed for us here in France? - our Western society is so going down the wrong path in many ways!
For prayer, they list the members of the church family by family, individual by individual and also give a specific prayer point for each day. This coming Sunday's point is:
Ask God to strengthen your faith when evil seems to triumph
This seemed so appropriate to me because, although we are not in direct persecution or physical danger here in France (or in Australia), every day we are confronted by evidence of evil and the consequences of evil. I can be very evangelical in saying that we can easily find evidence of badness in our own lives - deal with the log in our own eye before trying to get rid of the piece of straw in another's - but the good news is we CAN deal with this evil and get rid of it. However, French Christians are feeling overwhelmed by the evidence of evil in our own country (sexual scandals, gay marriage, financial corruption, power plays, bizarre conception of democracy, lies that certain are particularly keen to pass on to our youth and the list goes on...) Our pastoral role is to encourage Christians to pray and to act as written above. This joins what we were saying at the Pastoral meeting. See previous blog entry.
This Sunday is also our Church Union's Evangelism Day to raise awareness in our churches about the continuing need to do our part in witnessing. Pray that our church service this Sunday will keep the fire burning in our small community. We have work to do!
