Letters of Hope and Contention: Reading the Letters of Jeremiah 29
Tuesday 19 January at 19h30 via Zoom.

All are welcome at the January Virtual Thurber Conversation with Rev. Dr. Steed Davidson. As we journey forward into this new year, let us join together for prayer, fellowship, and learning.

Letters of Hope and Contention: Reading the Letters of Jeremiah 29. In this correspondence the prophet contends with those who would push a narrative of hope for a quick resolution to their current situation. Instead, the prophet expands the horizons of the future to an indefinite period, preferring instead to see Babylon as home and the place where God’s hope can be realized. What does it mean when hope takes on a different form than we expected?

Dr. Davidson, who preached for ACP on 27 December, will join us live from Chicago, where he is the Dean of the Faculty and Vice President of Academic Affairs, Professor of Hebrew Bible at McCormick Theological Seminary.

Dr. Davidson is the Dean of the Faculty and Vice President of Academic Affairs, Professor of Hebrew Bible at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois.

Dr. Davidson is author of Empire and Exile: Postcolonial Readings of the Book of Jeremiah, co-editor of Islands, Islanders and the Bible: RumiNations, and is currently co-authoring Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: A Guide for the Perplexed.

He is a native of Trinidad and Tobago, and earned a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He received an S.T.M. from Boston University, an M.A. from the University of the West Indies, and a Diploma of Ministerial Studies from the United Theological College of the West Indies. He is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church.

Thurber Conversations are an adult community gathering and growth time that is open to all.

Video recordings of selected past Thurber Lectures and Conversations here

Wednesday Evening Adult Learning at ACP:
6 weeks, beginning 6 January 19h30-21h via ZOOM.

Register here to receive Zoom link.

Each Wednesday evening we will be digging into the quintessential teachings of Jesus found in Matthew chapters 5-7. What might these teachings have meant to his disciples, and to the others who first heard them? How do these teachings enhance our understanding of the rest of Scripture, and how do they speak across the centuries to us today?

As we pay careful attention to his words, we may just discover that Jesus provides us a road map to living as God would have us live here and now!

Join each Wednesday as Pastors Doug and Jodi provide the core teaching that welcomes us into fruitful small group discussion where we're free to reflect upon the text and our lives in relation to others.

A Thursday Evening Discipleship Encounter for New Christians
8 weeks, beginning 7 January 19h-20h via ZOOM.

Register here to receive Zoom link.

This short Thursday encounter is designed help new believers to take their next best steps as followers of Christ. We will examine the importance of grace for empowering and enabling growth in the Christian life. We will look at some guiding principles that will serve to help us balance our lives as Christians. Finally, we will begin to practice “watching over one another in love” as we get to know and care for others who have joined us in this encounter.

Walking in His Steps will be taught by Pastors Doug, Jodi, Odette, and Jim, and facilitated by two key layleaders. All who are new, or relatively new to the Christian faith are welcome to join us.

Theology on the Ground
10 weeks, beginning 10 January

For more information, contact Victor Greene, Associate Pastor for Youth and Young Adults

Theology on the Ground
10 weeks, beginning 12 January 20h

For more information, contact Victor Greene, Associate Pastor for Youth and Young Adults

Worship Online

Please DONATE NOW

You can also watch on Youtube here.

You can download the worship bulletin here.

Click "Read more ..." for the abbreviated bulletin.

Previous Worship Online Services are available here.

For surely, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Jeremiah 29:11

Learn about ACP's 2021 worship services, Bible studies, small group studies and prayer, educational events, music ministries, family sharing groups and resources, youth and young adults, and fellowship initiatives below.

Click the slides or links below for more information.

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Worship

Worship Online

Children's Worship Online

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Children's Ministries

Kids' Monthly Bible Study, 17 January

ACP Youth Music Ministry Fall program

Threaded Together: A Children's Ministry Initiative

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Youth and Young Adult Ministries

Youth program - Theology on the Ground

Young Adults program - Theology on the Ground

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Adult Ministries

Wednesday Evening: The Sermon on the Mount: Living as Kingdom People (a six week study)

A Thursday Evening Discipleship Encounter for New Christians: Walking in His Steps: Living as a Disciple of Jesus (an 8 week encounter)

Making Sense of the Bible – A six week small group pursuit of greater Biblical Understanding

Sunday Afternoon Adult Bible Study

Tuesday Morning Women's Bible Study

Women's Monthly Bible Study: Women of the Old Testament, 17 January

Men's Ministry at ACP

Women's Monthly Sunday Fellowship, Sunday 24 January 16h via Zoom, Christmas celebration

A Future with Hope – Strengthened through Generosity!

Jeremiah reminds of us of God's plans for a future with hope.

“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

The act of generosity is an integral part, along with faith, love, and kindness, of this plan; it inspires hope.

Your generosity in 2021 enables ACP to provide that hope to hundreds of people each day through our online Worship services, traditional and contemporary music, and the many missions and ministries and outreach activities. Our ministries – our congregation – YOU are making a difference in the lives of individuals. Your generosity is the source of so much good news in this time of uncertainty.

In 2021, as in 2020, ACP is counting on your generosity to allow us to maintain and grow our mission and ministries and to reach a growing community on-line. The ongoing Covid crisis has caused dramatic decreases in our wedding revenues and certain rentals as a result of limits on gatherings. It is for each of us to look at our financial situations, and to prayerfully reflect on how we can provide our church with the resources it needs to be the Beacon on the Seine, and a sustaining force in the lives of its members and the broader community.

One of ACP's goals is for 100 individuals or families in our congregation to take the spiritual step of committing to be generous contributors to God’s work at the ACP by pledging their donation for 2021. This goal is not focused on the amount that each individual or family commits but about the very act of pledging to be purposeful about our role in carrying out the ACP’s mission. Last year, 45 families took this spiritual step despite many others giving – please help us meet our goal of 100 in 2021!

Let's show our collective generosity, pledge now here:

Generosity Pledge

Interim Senior Pastor

Odette was born in Stamford, Connecticut and raised in southern California. Ordained in the United Methodist Church, she pastored, founded, and redeveloped congregations and university ministries in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area including UCLA, UC Berkeley, and San Diego State University.

With a BA in Religious Studies from California State University, Northridge, she graduated summa cum laude from Boston University School of Theology with a Masters of Divinity. While a student she co-founded the Anna Howard Shaw Center, and was delegate to the World Council of Churches Consultation on Women in Theology in Cartigny, Switzerland. She taught seminarians in the practice of ministry as Faculty Director of Community Engaged Learning at the Pacific School of Religion, teaching immersion courses in Colombia, Washington D.C., and at the U.S. Mexico border, engaging Christian theology and the public square.

Her writing includes devotionals, curricula, sermons and poetry, as well as articles on social religious history, prayer, and Christian formation. Grateful to serve with the ACP in this transitional season, “In Christ, our lives and our life together are shaped and reshaped by the Spirit. Every gift is needed. Christ removes barriers we place before the Lord’s Table or the altar of our hearts.”

Odette and her husband of thirty-five years, the Rev. Jim Lockwood-Stewart, take delight and loving pride in their four grown children, and eight grandchildren, who live in California, Oklahoma, and Maryland. Rev. Jim is a retired United Methodist pastor and a bassoonist. For re-creation, Odette enjoys reading, writing, cinema, theater, studying languages, and she revels in being a flaneuse.

Get involved at the American Church in Paris.
Learn about ACP’s groups, Bible studies, fellowships, and activities.

Get involved here.

Get involved here.

ACP is committed to moving forward with in-sanctuary worship services as Covid-19 protocols allow, and also providing a quality online experience for those not able to return to church for live worship. But in order to accomplish these two things, we need people to usher and work with livestreaming.

Ushering: Volunteers are needed for each service to welcome and seat worshipers in a safe and efficient manner. Training is available and the commitment is for about 2.5 hours on a Sunday. If we have a large enough team, ushers will need to serve only once a month.

Live-streaming: Volunteers will be trained to use the cameras and software systems that ACP is putting into place. We need two people for each worship service and would hope to build a team of 6-10 people for each service. You don't have to be technically inclined as we will train you, but if you have an interest in video and sound, please offer your services.

Please do prayerfully consider how you could help out as we continue to adjust to worshiping in new and different ways. ACP's sanctuary worship services depend on volunteers.

Interested? Please contact us here.

The American Church in Paris (ACP) welcomes you to worship each Sunday at one of our three services. The 09h00 service is a weekly communion service; the 11h00 service is a traditional service with special music from one of our guest soloists or various choirs; the 13h30 service is a contemporary service with weekly communion.

Our congregation is an interdenominational and international Christian community whose mission is to bear witness by word and deed to the love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, to provide a place of English language worship in the American Protestant tradition, and to engage in ministries and services that enrich the lives of residents and visitors in Paris.

The ACP is the first American church established outside of the United States. Begun in 1814, its official charter and first sanctuary were established in 1857. We have been located on the quai d’Orsay since 1931.

Stewardship plays an important role in enabling ACP to continue being an Embassy for the Kingdom of God and in furthering our individual paths of discipleship. We invite you to pray about the role of giving in your spiritual growth and to join us dedicating our pledges on Sunday. You can find our pledge forms for printing here or on-line version here.