New Church Visit in Lyon

This morning we visited a Grace Brethren church in Villeurbanne, which is just east of Lyon. Several of our International Teams colleagues, the Mussers and Stauffers, both work out of this church.

We haven't had many opportunities to visit churches new to us in France very often, so it was interesting to feel what it is like for a visitor. We've been at Belleville for 5 years now, so we're part of the old furniture there.

Both kids did well during the service. Our 23 month old daughter sat quietly with my wife during the whole service. Our 3 1/2 year old son did very well in the class for kids his age. When I took him, the teacher was very warm toward him, as were the kids in the class. While he didn't understand much of the French, he sat in a chair with the group and especially enjoyed drawing with the others. After church, he enjoyed running around the room with some of the other kids.

As a parent, it was very reassuring to have a good kids program that our son enjoyed. I was told that there wasn't a nursery for the young kids. That would have been a bummer, except for our daughter being calm this morning.

The church owns its own building, which is nice. We were able to park on its small parking lot, which was convenient. The main meeting room was rather plain, with no real interesting decorations. Many evangelical churches in France aren't very artistically appealing, which is sad. Hopefully, they have more festive decorations up during the normal school year.

The sermon was solid in terms of truth, but not very colorful. It was done by one of the layman in the church. This is another area where old styles of homiletics might not appeal to the younger or more artistically oriented. Ironically, my wife (the more artistic of us two) enjoyed the sermon more than I (the more "intellectual").

We got in late for the music/worship section, so only caught one song.

After church, we asked about restaurants in the area. One kind couple had us follow them and led us right to one. This was the type of warm welcome that makes a church stand out.

In any case, the bottom line was that it was good to be with some of God's people this morning. Despite varying tastes and preferences, I think that God was honored.