who we are
durance international church
Durance International Church is a community of Christians from different countries and Church backgrounds.
Our common language is English.
Our common beliefs stem from the Protestant Reformation: Christians are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, as revealed by Scripture alone, to the glory of God alone.
We are all very imperfect people, on a journey together to grow in our love for God and in our love for our neighbours.
We meet together in Manosque, France, where the Durance River passes.
Our mission is to gather people together from all nations to know Jesus Christ and grow in Him.
You are more than welcome to come along at any time and see for yourselves !
Our History
A group of international Christians has been meeting in Manosque informally as a house group for over ten years.
In 2021, with the arrival as Brad and Catherine Dickson as a pastoral couple, we started meeting more formally for Sunday morning worship services.
In 2022 our Church was registered with the French government.
Our Leasdership
Welcome to Durance International Church !
My wife Catherine and I know a bit about what it is like to live in a country we didn’t grow up in. We are in fact an international couple ourselves since Catherine is French and I am Canadian. I remember moving to France as a young man and feeling so frustrated trying to make myself understood in French and trying to understand behaviors and attitudes that seemed so culturally strange to me. Then we married and moved to English speaking Canada for three years where Catherine shed more than a few tears struggling with English and our strange to her Canadian ways.
For the last thirty-seven years we have been planting Churches in South-East France, seeing God raise up congregations in Gap, Grenoble, and Aix en Provence. It was in Aix en Provence that God led us to start working with international students, many of whom were Asian. We experienced great joy seeing them progress in French and open up to the good news of Jesus Christ at the same time. We believe that God was preparing us during that time for our present mission, planting an International Church in Manosque.
We have the wonderful privilege of serving here with an international team of seven committed members. They are Korean, Chinese, American, Franco-American, British and Canadian.
Catherine and I have several passions: loving our own family of three married children and seven grandchildren, showing love to internationals, marriage and family counselling, hiking in our beautiful region, introducing people to the French language and culture. But one passion outweighs all of these: sharing the Good News of peace with God through Jesus-Christ!
Come and visit our Church, whether you are believers or not. We will be pleased to get to know you and perhaps to share some of these passions with you.
Brad and Catherine Dickson