Yannick (one of my best friends here in the church in Tours Nord) told me last year that she has a passion for songwriting. I told her I’d be delighted to help her write songs to be used in church. In France, as in many other countries, we use lots of songs translated from English. Some of these don’t really keep the richness of the meaning, so the prospect of helping write some original language French songs was exciting to me!

A few months later she invited me and Nadine (another musical friend of hers from another town) to her house. Yannick shared with us some lyrics she’d written for four Christmas songs. Nadine put melodies to choruses, and I put melodies to verses to compliment her melodies. We edited some lyrics and tweaked melodies. Later, others from Yannick’s family got involved with harmonies and instrumental accompaniment. We spent a weekend together in Chateauroux recording in September.

I talked to the pastor here in Tours Nord and he was keen to use the songs in December. I shared the songs with the main worship leader of the church who picked out one in particular he appreciated. We sang two of the songs during Advent and then both again during the carol service the week before Christmas, with Yannick and I leading together. They were well appreciated by the church and have now entered the repertoire of Christmas songs for the church here. Praise God for a wonderful chance to equip and develop others in ministry.

Next step, French language children’s worship songs...

You can listen to’Noël Noël’ here

To find out more about Sarah and Jack click here

To read more about "Equipping across Europe" in our latest magazine click here