One of my favorite movies of all time is Little Women. One of the main characters in the movie is named Laurie. Laurie and his grandfather live right beside the March family and he is always intrigued by what is going on in the March home, especially since there are four pretty girls close to his age who live there. One day, Laurie is staring at the house next door when he hears his grandfather’s thunderous voice calling out to him. “Come along, Theodore. It’s time for church!” At this point, Laurie is shaken out of his stupor and promptly obeys his grandfather following him down the stairs to leave for church.
There was something quite humorous to our family about the way the grandfather spoke and the New England accent added a certain twist to it. Countless times, we have looked at each other and said, “Come along, Theodore. It’s time for church!” Church was pronounced more like “chuch.”
Having said all that, at Centre de Formation Chrétienne, it is definitely “time for church!” Our Discipleship School has started back up and we have 15 classes of students of all ages meeting together before the main church service to study God’s Word in depth. Young and old arrive to church at 8:00 sharp. Otherwise, they miss the class and lose any possibility of gaining a perfect attendance record at the end of the year. Prit has taken the Foundations of Life Course that we both took at our home church of Rock Church (Tarboro, NC), and translated the lessons into French. After the lessons have been translated, he goes over them with our son, John. Then John teaches the teachers and monitors every Saturday morning. In turn, they teach our members on Sunday morning. Last Sunday, we had 391 to attend class. We almost hit the 400 mark. Our goal for the year is 600.
What a blessing it is to watch our people as they leave the classes to come into the main sanctuary. They absolutely love learning God’s Word and watching them reminded me that they, unlike Laurie, were not coerced. So, when the bell rings at 8:00 sharp, everyone hears the message, ”Come along, —–, it’s time for church!
Rehoboth Ministries 