Ministry and Family News

Matt and Sylvie's Oct 5th update

Dear Friends,

There are times in life when you plan something and you have a pretty good idea of how things are going to turn out. There are other times when you lay out your plans and you have no idea how things will go.

Over the last three years the CEP and the ICG have worshipped together on a number of occasions. The services are conducted in French and English and each time there has been a unique experience of worship.

Yesterday we held a bilingual service. In the mornning as Sylvie and I walked to where our churches meet I was expressing my uncertainty over how things were going to play out. While in the past I was confident that something good would happen as we met together for worship, yesterday before things started I was uncertain. I was wondering if we were getting into a routine. Or if we were we trying to do too much. For example the number of children in Sunday School doubles on these days and that puts stress on those teaching the children. Plus the class space is already small on a normal day...

As we walked I took comfort in the beautiful weather that reminded me of God's loving care. And I put what was coming in his hands.

We arrived an hour before the start time to practice the music and get things set up. We started on time and the building was full to overflowing. During the time of welcome I asked for those in attendance to say where they are from... China, Samoa, New Zealand, Vietnam, Columbia, Congo Brazzaville, Scotland, England, Spain, Madagascar, Canada, the United States, Mexico, France, Germany. We were truly an international body drawn together by God's Spirit in worship.

Fred Sanchez a missionary from the CEP to Spain spoke. John Pavey who was translating into English kept up with the rapid cadence of the evangelist. Jesus Christ and his boundless grace were lifted up through Fred's message. Our time around the Lord's supper was a wonderful moment of worship as prayers were offered in the different languages of those in attendance.

We finished our service singing "Shout to the Lord, all the earth let us sing, power and majesty, praise to the King..." It was a powerful moment as our hearts and voices were one in praise to God.

After the service we spilled out onto the parking lot in front of the building. A fellowship supper followed and we used nearly all our tables and forks and knives... We were all blessed.

Where is God leading us? I really don't know. What I do know is he is forming us into a community of people whose lives are transformed by the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We exist to glorify him.

Thank you for your faithful prayers on our behalf. Thank you for being one with us in Jesus Christ.

Joyfully,

Matt for the five of us...

--

Matthew and Sylvie Glock

2 rue Champ Rochas

38240 Meylan

FRANCE

tel 04 76 04 84 06

http://www.endirect.blogs.com/endirect

Financial Support

If you feel led by God to be a part of the team

that gives to make this ministry happen

contributions may be sent to...

International Teams

411 West River Road

Elgin IL, 60123-1570

Tel 1-847-429-0800

info@iteams.org

www.iteams.org

Checks should be made payable to

International Teams and designated

for the ministry of Matthew and Sylvie Glock.

You may also give using a credit card

through the ITeams website. Here's the address...

https://wwws.iteams.org/iteams/

Matt and Sylvie's Sep 26th update

Greetings everyone!

We returned from our time in the States a month ago!

The school year has started well on all fronts. Here are some highlights.

Family news

Anastasia is in high school.

Juliet is in middle school.

Pascal gets to be the big brother to Juliet at the middle school.

Here's the inevitable reference to Sylvie and I getting older and wondering where the time has gone. But it is so true! We thank God for the blessing of our three children and pray that they will continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Thank you for praying for them too.

You may of noticed that the return email address is mattandsylvie@gmail.com. I've created this address to simplify communication between Sylvie and I. So when you respond to this she'll get your responses right away!

The CEP and the ICG growing in maturity

Last year was a year of transition at the CEP as I finished my ministry and passed on my responsibilities to Jean-yves, which means there is not a lot to do this year and that's a good thing. Tomorrow (September 27th) the church will celebrate the installation of Jean-yves Le Guehennec as pastor. This is a big day for the CEP. Thank you all for your prayers through the years and support for seeing this church grow in maturity. While I am no longer a part of the leadership of the CEP, Sylvie and I continue to attend and are involved in a few ministries.

This year is the ICG's fourth year of existence. We are growing in our understand of our vocation as a local body of believers and our commitment to the mission God has given us. I've been asked to devote more time to pastoring this church. I see my role as similar to what I did for the CEP in helping them get to the place where they could call a full-time pastor.

The Grenoble City Team

Over the last few years the International Teams missionaries in Grenoble have been meeting regularly. Last year we chose to call ourselves the Grenoble City Team convinced that what we were doing individually needed to be brought together. We exist to encourage, resource and facilitate the development of transforming communities among churches in Grenoble through the design and implementation of specialized projects. I'm team leader, which means I get to coordinate our meetings and help the other missionaries in their respective ministries in whatever way is needed. God is doing some very exciting things through the various ministries of the team and in future update I'll be highlighting what is going on.

Wrapping this up...

I'm realizing that I needed to write sooner because there is way too much to talk about... As always I'm deeply grateful for your faithful participation in our ministry. Just by making it to the end of this email is a great encouragement to us! I've attached a pdf file that is an interview I did with Logan Long. He and his family were members of the ICG. They've returned to the States and Logan had a school project. The interview is about being a missionary.

With love in Christ,

Matt for the five of us.

Praying with the CEP

Here's our program for this weekend. (times are eastern standard, and i took into consideration DST for the Sunday!)

Saturday March 10
11am - 3pm : Individual prayer time at the building of the CEP. We will have three rooms set aside. One that will focus on confession, another on intercession and the last on supplication/request

2pm - 4pm : Group prayer, looking to the past, confession

4pm - 6pm : Individual prayer time

Sunday March 11

5:30am - 7am -  Sunday worship, looking at the present, intercession

7am - 9 am - Individual prayer time

9am - 11 am - Group prayer, looking to the future, supplication

As you pray with us here are some requests organized by the type of prayers...

Confession

• Pray that God will give us the grace to see where the life of our assembly did not bring him glory. That we would also understand that we are as body. Nehemiah identified with the sins of his people we need to understand that we need to do the same thing.

Intercession

• Pray that God would bring healing to our assembly. We need to see relationships restored and hope renewed. We need to place Jesus at the center of what we are doing.
• We also have a number of cancer survivors who need prayer. Another member has MS and she's just recently had to start using a wheel chair. Another member has Parkinson's.
• A number of couples are under great stress and need to see God work in their marriages.
• Our core groups is around 40 adults and the total network of people associated with the CEP is over 100. Pray for all of us that our faith would deepen and that our capacity to love our neighbor would grow.
• Finally, what you would ask for your own assembly will work just fine for us!

Supplication

• That we would stop with futile discussions and look towards the future.
• That God would be pleased to use us to make Christ known in our towns (here's the names of a few: Meylan, Corenc, Grenoble, Poisat, Vif, Domène, Muriannette, Vif, Seyssins, Le Moutaret)
• That we would as a group work together to love each other fervently.
• That we would seek God's specific will for us as a body of believers.

Praying for the CEP

My trip to the States was excellent in many ways. Reconnecting with the individuals and churches that support what we are doing through prayer and give to make it happen is a great joy for me. Plus I was able to see a lot of my family.

When I left France on November 3rd we as a church had just had a vote. The vote was positive in that it allowed us to clarify the role of the elders in the church. On the other hand, all votes draw lines of winners and losers. What I'm seeing now that I've gotten back is that there are a lot of folks feeling wounded and tired of the tension we've been living for nearly the last year.

Tomorrow I will start a new series preaching through the book of Luke, which coincides with the coming of Christmas. My prayer as I prepare is that we would find hope and encouragement for the future in the first few chapters of this Gospel.

Thank you for praying with us.

New Photo Album

I've just uploaded some photos into an album called November 2006.

Enjoy!

Traveling in the States

I'm a few hours from starting my journey to the States. I promised in my last newsletter that I'd get my put my schedule here...

Nov 4+5 Faith Bible Church, Mechanicsville, MD
Nov 6-8 International Teams Offices, Elgin, IL
Nov 10-14 Nags Head Church, Nags Head, NC
Nov 14-19 Plano Bible Chapel, Plano, TX

I'll be doing something in each of the churches on the Sundays. If you want more details please feel free to ask...

Sylvie's Ministry

Sylvie ended her volunteer work last November. A few months before she sensed that the time had come for her to move on. For nearly three years she along with Joelle, a member of the the CEP, had been the primary crisis counselors and the horrors of the stories she was hearing had begun to wear on her emotionally. In September she had announced her intention to stop at the end of December. She was able to do this in part because a number of women who would be able to take over from her were nearing the end of their training. Her departure was precipitated by the offer of a full-time job as a substitute teacher.

I thank God as I consider what he has done through Sylvie and what has happened through her volunteer work with the association. It is really hard to summarize all that was accomplished and there is so much that is known only to those who were helped. From my point of view one the most important aspects has been Sylvie's relationship with the other volunteers. She showed what it means to be a follower Christ through her commitment to helping the victims of the injustice of incest, who are among the brokenhearted of this world, through the testimony of God's work in her life and by her love for the other volunteers.

Our girls...

Happy Birthday

Another year! Sylvie is saying she's turned 34. Yesterday I went shopping with the kids for gifts. They chose a mug and bowl set. I bought some plants for our balcony. Sylvie went shopping for clothes with her birthday money...

Today I prepared the meal; fresh filet of cod with gratin dauphinois, zuchini gratin (the two gratins were bought at our local butchers who also sells prepared dishes...) and snow peas, accompanied with a Pouilly Fumé. Very nice. Sylvie bought the cake in the picture from the local bakery. It was excellent, a charlotte with wild berries. If all this seems to good to believe you are more than welcome to come and join us...

Since last November Sylvie has been teaching art at a vocational high school in Grenoble. This has been a big change for her. She loves teaching art. Plunging back into teaching after 13 years has been a challenge. Add to that the fact that her Dad passed away in January and I went through the whole cancer thing it has been a very intense year for us.

June 20th 1991

On June 20th 1991 I arrived early in the morning at Heathrow Airport outside of London. Korky Davey picked me up and took me to Bristol. I was planning to spend the next year training with Korky, an evangelist with Open Air Campaigners. OAC is known for its street preaching using the sketchboard and Korky had developed a ministry throughout Europe encouraging effective evangelism.

I first met Korky at Dallas Theological Seminary's missions conference in March of 1990. Inspired by his example Joe Hishmeh and I started using the sketchboard in Dallas. Korky returned to the missions conference the following year. I was finishing up my degree and was wondering what God had planned for me. While talking with Korky he says, "Why don't you come to Europe and do something useful." The idea stuck. I immediately talked with my parents and they also thought it was a good idea. They were pleased that I found something that would allow me to put my education to use!

You see up until the end of February 1991 I had been nurturing the idea that I would continue my studies after seminary. At the time I was interested in exploring the relationship between great literature and theology. Just before I went to seminary Tim Mostert told me I should read The Idiot by Dosteovsky. As I read it I was fascinated by the way Dosteovsky revealed the souls of his characters. Throughout seminary I continued to read Dosteovsky and other authors like him. This fueled my desire to continue my studies. Contributing to this desire was the fact that I had no interest in the typical career path of a seminary graduate with my profile. In other words I had no sense of calling to be a youth pastor. In fact at the time I had pretty much lost any sense of calling to full-time ministry.

Everything changed in the matter of a few weeks. On February 24, 1991 I totaled my car for the second time in 8 months. I called my parents to give them the news and I clearly heard this, "Son, you are on your own for a car and you need to put you education to work." The car was a gift from them and they had paid for my studies. They were right. So I finished my last few months in Dallas without a car and started to wonder what I should do...

At the time I was doing an internship with Jim Lewis at Plano Bible Chapel. I started attending PBC in September of 1987 and as I came to the end of my studies it was great to spend time with Jim learning about life and ministry. During the week after the car had been finished off, I was explaining to him what had happened and telling him what my parents told me. He wisely said, "It sounds like God has got your attention and is preparing you for something. We'll see what he has in store..." The following week was the DTS missions conference.

Before the end of the end of the conference I had talked extensively with Korky and a plan had come together. I would go to England to get training and experience with Open Air Campaingers. The initial plan was to work with Korky for at least one year. The elders at Plano Bible Chapel supported my plan and in the next three months I was able to get everything together in order to move to England. I graduated at the beginning of May and was commissioned the same weekend by Plano Bible Chapel. The initial year turned out to be 15 and counting!

In the Autumn of 1991 I was training with Dawn Clancy, an OAC evangelist based in Plymouth. One evening I was asked to give my testimony to a group of junior high students. As I prepared I was thinking back over when I put my trust in Christ and my call to be a missionary and remembered that it all didn't start when Korky Davey said I should come over to Europe and do something useful. When I was thirteen God called me to be a missionary and at that point I started acting on that call. I told Norma Down the Christian Education Director at the church we attended, Wallace Memorial Presbyterian Church and she would later write a letter for me referring back to the phone call she received from a very excited 13 year old saying he wanted to be a missionary. In the summer of 1980 I went on a summer missions trip with Teem Missions. I still have my journal for that time and there's an entry where I say I've committed my life to full-time ministry. Throughout high school and college being a missionary was my goal.

During seminary that goal had been pushed aside by other things. I had a lot to learn. Then at the right time God got my attention and put me back on track...