Missionary pastor Peter Calvert shares his thoughts on this initiative
One of the main differences between the French and British evangelical worlds is the disparity in the amount of available resources. For some time, Perspectives has been looking to develop resources to help local church leaders train the members of their churches in practical skills for Christian living and church service. Last year, a new programme entitled Equipe!, headed up by Arnaud Schrodi of the Perspectives national leadership team, was launched nationwide. It’s an ambitious venture, intended to run on a 4-year cycle, covering 12 topics, from discipleship to leadership and from preaching to personal piety. Supporters of France Mission in the UK have contributed to funding this project, for which we’re all very grateful.
Though the material (consisting of a training manual and a series of videos) is produced at the national level, the sessions are organised at a regional level with several local churches grouping together. Any other churches in the area (beyond the Perspectives network) who share our philosophy of ministry are welcome to join in. The aim is to benefit from the stimulation of sharing experiences with folk from other churches, whilst keeping travel to a minimum. In areas where churches are thinly spread, there will be maybe only two churches grouped together, such as the Berry/Sologne region, where I worked until last summer. In the Paris region, where I now work, or in Alsace, where there is a higher density of churches, there can be six or seven churches grouped together.
Each session lasts a whole day, and there are six of them in the year, but participants can choose the topics they want to study. The material is good quality and the teaching style very interactive, so we don’t get bored. Those who’ve made the effort to come have generally found the experience rewarding. Nevertheless, it’s not always easy to motivate church members, particularly those who already give a lot of their time to church activities, to give up a whole Saturday for training. And yet these are the people it’s most important to train!
We’d value your prayers for the ongoing development of this programme:
· For the inspiration of the Holy Spirit on Arnaud and the team who make the training material. They work to a tight schedule. Pray that their teaching would be biblically faithful and stimulating.
· For the Lord to raise up large numbers of local church members, especially those with leadership responsibilities, to make the most of the training sessions.
· For those who organise and lead the sessions in each of the 14 different sub-regions; that they would doit with grace and enthusiasm. The next session is on the topic of discipleship.
