Pastoral couple Jonathan & Rachel Vaughan celebrate a process of development
Perspectives’ goal is not only to plant new churches, but to help those churches grow into stable, well-established congregations that will one day be able themselves to plant new churches. This process of development can be seen in different ways in the Cardinet church: numerical growth, leadership, and structure.
Our church building was very full for the Christmas service, with many invited guests. We’d like to be able to welcome more people to our services and are at times reaching the limits of our current premises. One idea is to rent a larger space for special services, as an intermediate step towards finding a new meeting place. Property prices in our area of Paris are sky-high, making buying somewhere bigger a daunting prospect. Please pray for God’s wisdom, and that He would continue to bring new people to our church.
For the last 18 months, the équipe pastorale (elders’ team) has been down to two people. We were therefore looking to identify and train a new elder, to ensure healthy spiritual leadership for the years to come. In January we invited Mika Andrianarijaona to join the team. Mika preaches regularly, and with his wife Dina already serves on the church council. Please pray that God would confirm Mika in this new role and for the elders to serve well together.
At our AGM in March, we set up our church’s association cultuelle. This is a legal declaration to the French authorities of our existence as a local church (a bit like setting up a registered charity in the UK). It’s a necessary step in the church’s development, one that Perspectives has been encouraging us to take and is now possible. Rather than just an administrative formality, we celebrate it as an important milestone in our church’s history.
Praise God for these positive signs and pray that He would continue to bless and guide us as Cardinet church continues to develop.
