Do you remember going over to your grandmother’s house for Christmas or Thanksgiving and she’d pull out the special dishes… perhaps china, accompanied by crystal stemware? For those occasions, the Corelle stayed in the cupboard… those were the everyday dishes. That’s exactly the idea behind today’s blog title.

There are a couple of reasons to talk about vessels of honour today – one positive and one negative – and I’ll get to them both, but first…

Prayer Walk

We kicked off our week with another prayer walk… this time in the village of Archigny, where Annie & Ghislain live. They are the older couple that started attending our church roughly one year ago. They are a vibrant couple who are not afraid, in the least, to talk about the Lord. They don’t travel at night and for that reason, weren’t part of the prayer walk we did last week in Châtellerault.

Since we’d not yet been to their new house, we thought we’d kill two birds with one stone so to speak: (a) we’d visit with this great couple and (b) we’d walk through and pray the same things over their village that we prayed last week here in town.

Interestingly enough we passed by an “allée de Memramcook” which is the name of an Acadian community back in our home province, New Brunswick.

 

Vessels of Honour – 1

This is the good reason for today’s title, which comes, indirectly, from 2 Timothy 2.20-22.

²⁰ But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. ²¹ If a man therefore purge himself from (sin), he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and (ready) for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work. ²² Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”  2 Timothy 2.20-22

On Wednesday night we began watching Pastor Raymond Woodward’s Bible Study series, “Vessels of Honor” (he uses the US spelling whereas I’m just a little obstinate about using Canadian spelling… “colour, honour, neighbour, etc.)  🙂

He’s an incredible teacher and this is a series on living life in such a way as to honour God. If you’re reading this and wouldn’t call yourself apostolic or pentecostal, this is a great study on why we hold some of the lifestyle beliefs that we do. I highly recommend it and it’s available for purchase here. (note: I don’t get a commission or anything… just an honest plug for great teaching)

Holiday Visit to the Internet Castle

Thursday was a public holiday so we piled in the car and drove an hour or so to the Chateau de la Mothe Chandeniers. It made world-wide headlines last year through an online crowd-funding venture seeking 500,000€ to keep it from demolition. The internet went wild and three times that amount was raised.

In a nut-shell, the interior was destroyed by fire in 1932 while most of the exterior remained in tact. Abandoned, time and nature had their way and trees & shrubs grew from within… over balconies and through windows.

Look for a Travel Tuesday post in the next week or two… I’ll show you more pictures of this unique castle.

A Little Less Wisdom?

Remember that Dominic recently got braces? They’re only on the upper teeth but still gave him a couple days of discomfort. Yesterday, however, opened him up to yet a few more such days as he was in the local clinic to have his wisdom teeth removed.

In Canada, seems to me, they do any work like that first, before putting on braces. One thing’s sure… he’s looking forward to LOTS of ice cream over the coming days and is glad to get all this out of the way before school starts in a couple of weeks.

Prayer.

If you’re thinking of us this week, I’d appreciate your prayers as I go up to Melun for a week of Bible School. I’ll teach 12 hours worth of course material on the epistles. These weeks are always intensive. Now…

Vessels of Honour – 2

Back to Monday where we were prayer walking around Archigny.

Here you see us walking by and later sitting in the local church there. The kids began singing as there was no one around and the presence of the Lord swept in. It was beautiful!

It’s remarkable how so many catholics (former or non-practising catholics in particular) have told me how cold and impersonal they find their churches… with their stone interiors and simple wooden chairs. Oddly enough I’ve never found that to be so. When the Spirit of God lives in you… then no matter where you find yourself, you can feel his presence.

While in there we noticed the damage pictured in the lowest photo… a marble plaque commemorating local war dead had come detached from the wall and, in falling, not only broke in pieces, but also broke part of the altar over which it hung.

Little did I know that I’d photograph that brokenness earlier in the same week that the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report would bring to light a very different kind of brokenness… but brokenness just the same.

It’s given detractors and personalities more fodder with which to skewer “the church”.

We are all called to live as vessels of honour and if everyone who names the name of Christ, claiming to be a believer, would do what Paul instructed Timothy to do… there would be much less reason for non-believers to hold God, and his church, in contempt.

There is always someone watching us… waiting to see if we’ll be more like Grandma’s china & crystal stemware than her Corelle.

Let’s aim to be vessels of honour!