Dauner News Update November 2008
Two Church Weddings
2008 has been the year of weddings for members of the Marseilles church and CEM alumni. After four in the spring, two more were celebrated this past month at the Fuveau Chapel.
The first wedding, performed by Philippe, joined two young ethnic Berber converts from Islam: Jacob and Sabrina. Since the families and many of the friends of the bride and groom were of North African origin, the wedding had a multicultural flavor, with hymns in French, Berber and Arabic (complete with ululation).
A good number of the guests who packed into the chapel were Muslims; it was the first time they had ever set foot inside a Christian place of worship. It was a special opportunity for the new couple to bear witness to their faith in the Christ. The Muslim guests said they were very impressed by the Christian love and fellowship enjoyed by the different ethnic groups in the church.
The second marriage ceremony, which I performed, was a smaller affair. The bride and groom, Maya and Alain, are of my generation and have been believers for some time. Many members of their families, however, are not Christians and their attendance at the wedding was a good introduction to the church.
Choral Mission to Poland
During the fall trimester break, a dozen members of Chorale Harmonie took advantage of budget-priced flights to make a four-day mission trip to Warsaw, Poland, where they performed gospel concerts in two different local churches and on the street. One of our avowed missions for the Marseilles church and CEM is to promote a European-wide vision of church fellowship and evangelism. Previous mission tours have put us in Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Romania and Turkey.
Local Church Weekend Retreat
Our traditional “church family” retreat will center this year on the theme “Witnessing and Prayer”. This retreat has always been a time to assess the spiritual condition of the congregation and to help define any course changes we need to make in the church’s life.
The emphasis on evangelism, while always timely, is a response to the fact that our net membership has not progressed much in the past three years. The number of departures (mostly moves out of town, with a few deaths and falling aways) has about equaled the number of conversions during this time. So, we will be seeking together, in God‘s presence, how we can, as a church, cast our nets into deeper waters.
We are encouraged by some positive things as we prepare at this retreat to look to the future:
• Justin will work this year as a preacher in training with the Marseilles church, in conjunction with the Bible seminary where he is finishing up his Master’s degree in theology.
• Raphaël Enderlé, while not the scholarly type, has a heart for God and desire to serve the church. He is presently seeking a situation (part-time job, shared apartment) that will allow him to follow, in extension of his CEM studies last year, a part-time on-the-job training with the leaders of the Marseilles church.
• The committee of servants, inaugurated earlier this year, is having a ripple effect. Our people, already involved in many good works and noble pursuits on a personal level, are learning more how to also serve in the collective efforts of the church.
Which leads me to the following reflection by way of conclusion:
There are no doubt different stages in the Christian’s journey from sin to sainthood, from conversion to consecration, from being a “nice” but self-centered church-goer to becoming a selfless lover of God. But I think the main milestone to pass is when we stop seeing God as a part of our story (a more or less important part, having more or less priority) and start seeing ourselves as a part of His story. When we see God as the Author and ourselves as a character. When God is no longer a moving blip on our radar screen with ourselves as the unmoving center, but when we become a blip on His screen, with Him as the unmoving center.
This Copernican revolution of perspective will progressively set our priorities straight, simplify our overly complicated lives, strip down our superfluous ambitions and free us to serve God and his purposes. It will also give us joy.
Most of us are somewhere along the road that passes by this milestone. We can take heart at the distance already covered, look behind us in fear to avoid sliding back and look ahead in hope to see where we are heading. Live for God, live for heaven. I promise that you will not have wasted your time here on earth.
Max and Prisca Dauner