LOCHES AND DESCARTES
'The Church is more than a building!'
This is a statement that Christians often make - and rightfully so. Never has that been more true for us, however, than in helping to lead the Loches/Descartes church (or the Église Évangélique de Loches Sud Touraine if you want to be technical about it). So how does this work, concretely?
The community in Loches was established in 2010, finally bringing the gospel to this particular corner of rural France just south of Tours. The region as a whole has far more churches than before, thanks to a combined effort of creating a temporary training center for church planters in Loches and the emphasis by Perspectives to encourage other church planters to come to the region and begin new works. We participated in that training program and were then sent further on to Descartes in 2016. Now that Loches and Descartes are both more established and no longer receive a steady stream of interns, we've begun to settle into rhythms that match who we are locally.
-Loches hosts a weekly church service at 5pm.
-Descartes hosts a bi-weekly church service, the first and third Sunday of the month at 10:30am.
-A weekly Bible study and prayer time is held in Descartes.
What isn't mentioned in the schedule is the ongoing training of preachers, worship leaders, and teachers, one-on-one discipleship, accountability groups (all church members are required to be in one), meetings between church leaders (both locally and regionally), and training sessions for church leaders.
We do what we can to foster relationships between those who attend in Loches and Descartes and creating community takes time. Please continue to pray that the ties continue to be strengthened and the churches continue to grow mature and grow and be a light in an otherwise dark place.
This is a statement that Christians often make - and rightfully so. Never has that been more true for us, however, than in helping to lead the Loches/Descartes church (or the Église Évangélique de Loches Sud Touraine if you want to be technical about it). So how does this work, concretely?
The community in Loches was established in 2010, finally bringing the gospel to this particular corner of rural France just south of Tours. The region as a whole has far more churches than before, thanks to a combined effort of creating a temporary training center for church planters in Loches and the emphasis by Perspectives to encourage other church planters to come to the region and begin new works. We participated in that training program and were then sent further on to Descartes in 2016. Now that Loches and Descartes are both more established and no longer receive a steady stream of interns, we've begun to settle into rhythms that match who we are locally.
-Loches hosts a weekly church service at 5pm.
-Descartes hosts a bi-weekly church service, the first and third Sunday of the month at 10:30am.
-A weekly Bible study and prayer time is held in Descartes.
What isn't mentioned in the schedule is the ongoing training of preachers, worship leaders, and teachers, one-on-one discipleship, accountability groups (all church members are required to be in one), meetings between church leaders (both locally and regionally), and training sessions for church leaders.
We do what we can to foster relationships between those who attend in Loches and Descartes and creating community takes time. Please continue to pray that the ties continue to be strengthened and the churches continue to grow mature and grow and be a light in an otherwise dark place.