Progress on the new center of la Fonderie

We had our usual weekly meeting of la Fonderie today.

This is a busy month with our 5 week series on Thursday nights, as well as a special prayer meeting for artists on Ssturday March 25. This is part of the worldwide prayer for artists and arts ministries on this same day. Then there's the June 23-25 annual conference for artists in Paris featuring Gordon Pennington.

Present at today's meeting was Steve Thrall, my former Paris team leader with my organization. He is currently on a 2 year ministry assignment in Vermont and Montreal. He brought along Bernard Racicot, a Quebecois painter and musician who is in Europe for 3 weeks. It was good to catch up with Steve, who has already been away for 8 months.

Our organization has had a number of workers in Paris for 15+ years. In my 6 years here with it, there hasn't been a coherent project that drew us all together. We therefore have functioned like individual teams for the most part. However, arts ministry through la Fonderie appears like the missing link, at least for having me and Steve work on the same ministry team. There are a number of great possible ways that Steve could be involved in arts ministry here when he gets back in 2007. Of course, the international networking of arts ministry implies that he could even be involved in Paris arts ministry now even though he's currently based on the other side of the Atlantic.

After our normal meeting, then a 2nd meeting in a café, we visited the currently renovated site that la Fonderie will start renting next month on the Rue de Lille. This is just down the street from the Orsay Art Museum and right next door to my favorite French Christian bookstore 7-Ici. Progress on the site is going well and I was very impressed with the inside. While it's not yet done, it already gives lots of ideas of how the site could be used for art exhibitions, small concerts, etc. There is even an office there that Jim Beise will use.

It was good getting to discuss some leadership and vision ideas with Jim, Steve, and Bernard. This is a season of widening the net of contacts and partners, defining vision, values, and corporate culture, and building the structure of the right people in the right places. Lots of new stuff and messiness, but very exciting to be part of. With all this going on, we sense the need to pray more and add other intercessors as well. It reminded me of my dream of several days ago that implied that I needed to pray, in addition to my other efforts.