The First Week of CEM

On Sunday, en lieu de Bible Class, we had a small welcome ceremony for this year’s CEM students. After the church service, there was a meal with the congregation, and after that, we loaded ourselves into the church van and drove 3.5 hours to the church camp in the Ardeche mountains.
We spent the first two days being introduced to each other and to our CEM Professors, Max, Greg and Philippe. We went over the history of the Chapelle du Fuveau, the church which we will be worshipping and working with for the year. We listed most of the ministries and activities available with the Church, and talked about what we’d like to learn this year and what activities we’d like to get involved with.

We will have four classes this trimester, and 3 hours of class Monday-Friday. We will be studying:
The Gospel According to Luke (an in-depth study with Max)
The Old Testament (requires a lot of reading)
The Church (studying it from the Old and New Testament perspectives)
God’s Plan (ambitious title, only 1 hour of this class per week so not to blow our minds)

On Tuesday, six Seniors arrived for the francophone Church of Christ’s Golden Age (l’Age d’Or) retreat. I got to sit next to them a lot during meals, but unfortunately was not able to understand much of their wisdom. One of l’Age d’Or, Danielle, did CEM years ago, and gave us much wisdom, her blessing, and encouragement of the worthfulness of our time spent there.

Good to remember:
CEM n’existe pas pour vous. CEM existe pour les autres.
CEM doesn't exist for you, it exists for your church. The goal is that you will bring what you’ve learned back to your home church to edify them.

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A few of the mountains surrounding our camp.