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History
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The History of the Bethel Christian Fellowship Meeting Place 1993 Cliff and Maureen had bought a derelict property in France in June 1993. However they had to return to England and the property remained empty until 1998. 1998 In June 1998 Cliff and Maureen returned to the house in France. The house had been empty for 50 years. It had no electric, no water, and only one room habitable. Meetings started late in 1998 when believers and non-believers met in the lounge. This continued for about five years. 2003
In 2003, Cliff and Maureen felt the Lord tell them to to convert the grenier into the Upper Room as a place that could be set apart as a meeting place. Rather like in the book of Acts. Meetings at that time were every second week of the month.
There is an above-ground pool associated with the property in which there have been 8 baptisms to date. 2009 A New Beginning It is with great Joy we are able to be back at The Temple again, in our new place of worship at Villefagnan. Our first meetings were here 11 years ago and after many trials we are returning. A little older and I hope wiser. We are very grateful to Mr Lancelot and the people in the church in Angouleme for all their faith and trust they have put in us. Let us not disappoint them. This is a protestant Huguenot (see below) place of worship and we are very proud to be carrying the banner again to be a part of the plan of God to bring life, and, I pray, revival back to the hearts of the French and the English believers. There are very few Temples left, most were destroyed in the religious wars over the last 3 or 4 hundred years. In France the protestants call their religious buildings Temples to distinguish them from those of the catholic church. All the Temples built before the Edict of Nantes revocation were demolished on the orders of the King. Then, the Protestants met secretly in the wilderness, outdoors, or in barns placed at their disposal. The 1802 Concordat allowed them to meet openly again. They were granted some deserted churches (Beaussais ,Niort). Beginning 1820, temples were built. Until circa 1850 they were going to have a Greek temple front, a tiled roof and the bareness of the barn inside. The high central pulpit showed the supremacy of the Word of God read and preached there. The only ornaments are Bible verses. Maureen The Huguenot cross
The Huguenot cross serves as identity for French Protestants. Among the different kinds of cross (Latin, Greek, St Andrew, Lorraine, swastika), the Huguenot cross seems to originate from the Maltese cross ; the small balls or pearls which decorate its points come from the cross of Languedoc. The date when it appeared and its precise origin are not really known. It first appeared as a jewel and its first maker seems to be somebody from Lyon and also some jewellers in Nîmes in the seventeenth century. Some of them are found today either with the « tear-drop » (pestle or « trissou » from Nîmes) or with the « dove », symbol of the Holy Spirit according to the model created by Maïstre. It is also believed the « tear-drop » could represent the phial which contained the Oil for the Anointing of the kings of France. It had all the components of the decoration of the Order of the Knighthood of the Holy Spirit, created by Henry the third in 1578 and from which the Huguenots were excluded. We can suppose that it was in response to this ostracism that they had the idea of creating a jewel, the Huguenot Emblem, which would be inspired by this decoration. Adopted as an emblem by the French Church in London, it is also found in the Dutch temples where it was brought by the French migrants. It had varying success, its revival dates from 1910 ( when the « Musée du Désert » was founded ) and the Huguenot Cross, in various forms and materials, is still the rallying sign and the affirmation of the protestant faith. Many people saw three main aspects in the symbolism of the Huguenot Cross:
Cf : Pierre BOURGUET : La Croix Huguenote . Ed. Musée du Désert. 1991. |
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