Mission in France
Jun 03

Last week I had a few days holiday with a few mates in France… we had a day in Rouen, a day in Caen (and Aromanches – near the D-Day beaches), a day in Lille, and an afternoon on a beach in Belgium (De Panne). We had intended to spend all our time in Rouen… but we discovered that it was a dump and our motel was in the part of town where you buy your drugs, and stay in when it gets dark… so we went on a road trip instead!
My good friend Bret, who goes by the alias “Xander Coomber” came with me… he took some photos and shares some similar thoughts…
While I made a few jokes about blowing out the candles, jumping over the barriers into the ‘holy of holies’ and genuflecting when we arrived, it’s actually quite sad… France is, it would seem spiritually dead!
Here are the stats from Joshua Project… only 0.5% of French people are Evangelical Christians, 33% of the population are considered to be in an unreached people group. Compare this to somewhere like Malawi… my church has run several mission trips to Malawi (doing very good work in training leaders)… however the country is majority Christian and only 13% of the population would be considered to be ‘unreached’.
Now obviously where there is any unreached people, it’s worth investing there… but a lot of mission work goes in to East Africa, which is pretty Christianised, with established Evangelical churches… and it is a popular place for missionaries to go. BUT… why don’t we send more missionaries to places like France? There’s 33 unreached people groups in France, which make up a third of the total population, many are either trapped in the religion and ritual of Catholicism or have embraced the secular worldview of modern France… this country needs missionaries to go there, there is a greater need for gospel workers here than in East Africa!
…and here’s some good news – my church is going to be supporting a gospel worker in France for the next 2 years. I’m hoping she’s gonna blog while she’s there…
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