Ecumenical Worship Service in Chatenay

Dear Mother,

Last Sunday, Neal and Janie Blough drove us to Chatenay so that we could attend the Église Réformée de France, Communauté de Robinson (Reformed Church of France, the Robinson Parrish).  Since the building in which the Assemblée Mennonite de Chatenay (the Mennonite Church in Chatenay) was torn down and will soon be totally rebuilt, the Mennonites have been meeting in the Reformed Church Sunday afternoons.

This worship service celebrated the recent unification of two denominations in France, the Luthériennes (Lutheran) and the Églises Réformées into a new denomination called the Église Protestante Unie de France (The United Protestant Church of France).  Church attendance has been seriously declining throughout much of Europe.   

The Mennonites were invited to participate in the celebration, in part, since the sanctuary was not going to be available to them that Sunday.  I understand that nearly half of the people filling the sanctuary were Mennonites.  I appreciated the spirit of open cooperation between the two local congregations.  Both contributed to the music, the preaching, and the communion.  Grade school children excitedly rushed around taking the offering.

We arrived 30 minutes early so that Neal could rehearse the choir (about half of the singers managed to get there when I took the photo).  The communion elements were already set out, and there was a nice display for fall garden produce on a small step ladder, adding to the spirit of thanksgiving.

The two main speakers were, in order of their participation: (1) Alexandre Nussbaumer, the Mennonite pastor who grew up in Alsace, and (2) Philippe Kabongo, the pastor of the Reformed church, who grew up on the Congo.

The sanctuary was packed, with the overflow spilling into the foyer.  Singing was enthusiastic, largely in unison, with some Mennonite voices adding harmony.

For communion, everybody symbolically gathered around the altar.  But since so many people were present, we formed an enormous circle which wound all the way around the edges of the sanctuary and out into the foyer.

After our Sunday lunch, we drove to the construction site for the new Mennonite Church.  I am overstating this a bit.  The site being developed will house the Mennonite Church on the main floor, while the upper floors will have apartments, one of which is reserved for church use.  Some visionaries in the greater Archbold, Ohio area and beyond, who are very supportive of mission work in France, kindly donated money to purchase a second apartment for church workers.  At this point, the site is a big hole filled with leveled sand.  The hole's walls are supported by sturdy steel braces. 

The building next door is one of the buildings owned by Les Amis de l'Atelier (Friends of the Workshop), an organization which was begun by Mennonites in France and has worked for decades with people having various mental handicaps.

All for now, with love from us both,
Evan