In my last blog post, O Theophilus - I mean, O Reader - I talked about one kind of desert, the genuine hot, dry and pretty much waterless version. A hard place for anything to grow or thrive without significant divine intervention. But that was only 1 of the 2 deserts I visited during my week overseas in September. After leaving the United Arab Emirates, it was time for a 3-day stopover in my other "desert" destination: Paris.
Désert #2
Wait, what?
you say.
How can Paris be a desert city?
you say.
(And how could you only go there for 3 days?!
asked my ballet friend Emma, who was horrified to hear that I didn't even spend one whole week there.)
But Paris, glittering, glamorous, alluring and aristocratic capital of France - is, after all, part of Europe.
Europe, where just over 500 years ago the Protestant Reformation brought religious & spiritual upheaval to nations or kingdoms that we know as England, Germany and Switzerland
- BUT -
this same Reformation, for God's own mysterious reasons, did not have much long-term impact in south-western regions such as Spain, Italy or (you guessed it) France.
Europe, some areas of which were completely transformed by Protestant Reformed teaching from the Bible - at least for a time. But from then until now, there were still European nations (and their capitals) that missed out on this; regions that remained strongly Roman Catholic, suppressing or opposing Protestant Christian evangelism or church growth. Nations like France, where during and after the in/famous Revolution of 1789 the oppressive, non-egalitarian, Catholic-friendly monarchy was overthrown, then eventually replaced, by a sometimes militantly secular Republic.
Europe, which English-speaking missionaries will tell you outright is now (mostly) a really tough place to be Christian, live as a Christian, or grow others in their Christian faith.
And as someone who has been in modern Paris as a semi-competent (read: non-native
) French speaker, who has tried to talk with French university students about the good news of Jesus
, who has walked alongside local French ministry apprentices (we call our Aussie equivalents Howies at Sydney University or MTSers at CBS, etc.) and seen something of the challenges they face
...I would agree that France IS a hard place for Christians or Christian groups to grow or thrive.
Like a desert environment, France is, in fact, a hard place for a believer, OR for a Christian student movement, OR for a local church to grow or thrive spiritually - without intervention or special provision from our merciful God. So places like Paris are much more like a desert (in a spiritual sense) than you would otherwise think.
________________
In 2011, I met with Australian believers who were living in Strasbourg. They'd started as cross-cultural missionaries in France over 10 years before I could even think about visiting. (My thinking started in 2008; they were serving in Paris with CMS pre-1995 before they moved out to Strasbourg during the 2000's.)
Even before my 1st trip to Paris in late June 2009, I'd heard from these Aussies and from others like them how hard life was for French believers, the French church and French Christian groups around universities (Groupes Bibliques Universitaires, or GBU). Even then, they spoke about France as something of a spiritual desert. Along with a small, faithful handful of local French ministry workers and some other non-French IFES staffworkers, these Aussies had spent more than a decade within the French cultural context trying to assist with preaching, teaching and reaching out to a highly secular majority on the campuses of major French cities like Toulon, Toulouse, Strasbourg and (of course) Paris.
In partnership with their French colleagues, they had laboured at the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace and training French students to read the Bible, to lead Bible discussions and to share the hope they had in Christ as Lord and Saviour with their unsaved friends
. With quite limited success they had taken every opportunity to encourage French ministry trainees to consider continuing as GBU staffworkers in full-time Christian service with university students (instead of automatically joining the non-religious professional workforce)...
That's how it would have happened in Australia, after all - the natural step from doing a ministry apprenticeship to thinking about applying for future full-time Christian service. Particularly in Sydney where I went to uni., I watched goodly handfuls of ministry trainees (who, like those in France, served in Christian groups to reach university students with the good news of Jesus) often continue on to study full-time at Bible colleges. Colleges like SMBC in Croydon, or Morling at Macquarie Park, or Moore at Newtown (where I was until end 2017)
. From finishing theological study in Sydney, many of these ex-apprentices then proceeded into full-time Christian ministry roles back in Australian university settings.
An example.
Of the cohort I started/finished with (Moore 2014-2017), I can immediately tell you of 5 College couples and another 3 single girls who all went on to be staffworkers with uni. Christian groups after completing theological studies. That is 8 ministry worker "units" from just one year group at Moore - of whom only 3 units stayed to serve in Sydney. (The other 5 are working for student groups in Melbourne, Wagga, Toowoomba and Auckland.)
But not so for their French counterparts...
My 1st visit to France in 2009 saw God opening doors for me to join a GBU summer team in Paris.
We...
* ran a week-long mission, Bible-stands outside campus property (French universities were unlike Australian ones in that religious clubs & societies have not been not permitted on the campus)
* invited students to share what they believed (or didn't believe) about Jesus
* invited them to evangelistic events where the good news was discussed (e.g. talking religious themes during a "Life Is Beautiful" movie night) or outright preached.
Our mission team was half-international and half-French, with at least seven of the French team members having done a minimum of 1 year as a ministry trainee (un stage Relai, or Relay apprenticeship like the Relay program in the UK, MTS or HGP here, etc.). Yet of those 7 Relai trainees, only one, Fabrice, applied for further study at Bible college and has ended up in full-time ministry (to date).
That's a comparatively discouraging retention rate compared to what we Sydneysiders might observe with our ministry apprentices here in my city. Fabrice - the only one out of 7 apprentices to continue into full-time French/Francophone ministry.
Compared to 8 newly-graduated Moore College couples or singles who most likely started as MTS apprentices before going into English-speaking student ministry.
It does seem such a natural progression to the Christians of urban Sydney like me; many of us owe at least some growth in our personal Christian faith to such ministry apprentices and staffworkers as encouraged us in our involvement with EU at Sydney Uni. (the Howies, or HGP trainees). Or with CBS/FOCUS at UNSW (MTS-ers). Or with ECU at the Cumberland campus in Lidcombe (also called MTS-ers). Or with CU/FOCUS at Macquarie (also called MTS-ers).. .. ..
But back in 2009, as I hope you can see, in Paris it was just not happening the same way.
________________
So - has much changed in the spiritual desert between 2009 and 2018?
You will be thankful, as I was, to learn how the tide has somewhat turned since my first visit to Paris 9 years ago.
In September 2018, just last month, I flew to Paris direct from Dubai. From one desert to another...
Once again, I joined a GBU team (not a summer one, but run in a similar fashion).
Once again, we...
* ran a week-long mission (though I could only join in for one day this time),
doing Bible-stands outside (or sometimes, on) campus property
* invited students to share what they believed (or didn't believe) about Jesus
* invited them to evangelistic events where the good news was discussed (e.g. talking religious themes during a "Gran Torino" movie night)
or outright preached.
But this year
- those on the mission team were mostly French or native-French-speaking!
And - a great praise point!! - at least three of the French participants were pursuing full-time ministry as staffworkers with the national GBU movement.
Aside from their obvious passion to see French university students hear the gospel of Jesus, it was so encouraging for me to see these 3 ex-Relai trainees in action. Three ex-apprentices who had moved on into further service with the GBU in different locations around France. And such a contrast to 2009 (when all one saw - apart from Fabrice - was Relai trainees doing their 1-2 years of apprenticeship without going any further towards full-time Christian service).
That said, it's still a bit of a desert for these GBU staffworkers (and for other such friends, their French GBU colleagues in places like Nancy and Clermont-Ferrand).
Their financial status (from prayer newsletters I receive) is a bit like mine was most of this year. Living from month to month.
If they aren't fully funded to serve Christian students in the cities or regions where they live, they'll either have to give it all up, or work more in secular jobs that detract from the time they desire to spend teaching/discipling/training up the next generation of French believers.
And the French funding base is a lot weaker and smaller than anything I've heard about in Sydney.
To use Isaiah's words - they need
"..water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,"
in order that they might declare God's praise (ISA. 43:20-21).
________________
Dubai?
It would be tough to survive in the desert places of the United Arab Emirates without the running water and the air-conditioning its cities have.
Pretty much impossible for me.
Paris?
It's tough to survive as a French believer, let alone as a French Christian in full-time service with the GBU, anywhere in the spiritual desert of France - without continued encouragement.
Or without the necessary financial support.
Is it really any more possible for them?
Which is why I want to pray for them.
All the more now that there are more French GBU staffworkers than there ever were back in 2009.
And why I would ask prayer from you, too.
For them in France.
But not only for them; there are other local staffworkers in similarly gospel-poor nations like Japan and Italy and Spain...
Will you pray?
For God to mercifully provide the needs of His chosen people,
in places so much tougher to serve than here in Australia?
"Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
The wild beasts will honour me,
the jackals and the ostriches,
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
the people whom I formed for myself
that they might declare my praise."
ISAIAH 43:19-21
L/T.
04 November, 2018
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