One', the inter-church gathering that replaced the annual assembly of French-speaking Switzerland's Free Evangelical Churches (FREE), is marking a decade, and its organisers say the original wager — that unity is worth a shared event — still holds. The project was born in 2016 from a vision shared by about ten FREE pastors for a meeting that would cross both congregational and organisational lines in French-speaking Switzerland. This year's edition keeps to the tradition of the first Saturday of November, now at the Espace Gruyère in Bulle.
One' took the place of the federation's annual meeting and was designed from the start to be broader than a church assembly: its partner list now includes the Salvation Army, Operation Mobilisation, Compassion, the Bible Reading League, Medair and several other Swiss Christian agencies, alongside local congregations. In 2023 the event moved from the Forum Fribourg to Bulle after the Fribourg venue was rebuilt. Organisers deliberately aimed at younger adults aged 20 to 35 while keeping every generation in the room, and say the first edition proved the sceptics wrong.
This year's programme introduces a renewed Bible study, described as a kind of "theological speed-dating" for children, older people and adults, alongside testimony slots called "One' Story" and a guided time of prayer. Sébastien Demierre, who chairs the One' committee, said themes are weighed in prayer and tested against the Nicene-Constantinople creed, and that harder subjects — gender, sexuality, the climate transition and Christian political engagement — are handled in short talks by specialists. The question of Israel, he said, has been left aside as too polarising.
(Originally published in French. Summary translated by CC / Connexion.)
Source: La FREE — Fédération romande d'Églises évangéliques — lafree.ch
