By Kristen Sosebee
“We can’t control the results, but we can measure our faithfulness,” said Jason Harris, team leader for the International Mission Board’s Paris team, explaining their strategy for gospel outreach during the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.
Part of that strategy includes facilitating and mobilizing more than 300 short-term volunteers to hit the streets of Paris sharing the gospel.
The team Harris leads in Paris is young and growing. No team members have been there longer than a few years. They are united around a common vision to make Christ known among Europeans and a long-term goal to plant five churches in Paris over the next five years.
Harris explained that short-term volunteers are vital to sharing the gospel broadly and making connections that will catalyze their local church-planting strategy and lead to longevity.
Each week of Olympics outreach, volunteers are focused on sharing the gospel within specific geographical and cultural segments of Paris. They are using a number of creative strategies as entry points for evangelism and have invited local French churches to work alongside them.
“My prayer has been that the outreach for the Olympics would be a launching point for church planting in the city,” Harris said.
Ultimately, the harvest is in God’s hands. They have already witnessed God drawing people to Himself through volunteer efforts this summer.
Zach Beasley, campus minister at Alabama State University and Tuskegee University — two historically black colleges in Alabama — led a team of six students to join a week of pre-Olympic outreach to Paris in May.
One thing the students didn’t expect was the spiritual darkness they felt almost immediately on arrival in the “City of Light.” Beasley said more than anything this trip has motivated them to pray for missionaries and their long-term presence on the mission field.
“We realized to really make a lasting impact, you have to be there for years,” Beasley said. “It takes years for boundaries to be broken down and relationships built.”
The team from Alabama spent eight days passing out water bottles, prayer walking, distributing flyers, and doing spiritual surveys.
“The work we did with the local church was very familiar to our students. It’s the same thing we do on campus, going out and sharing the gospel,” Beasley said. “We collaborate and build the local church, and I loved seeing that reiterated here for our students.”
At the end of the week, Beasley and his team were excited to see many people they had given flyers to show up for an outreach event at a local church.
“We were praying they would come, and they actually did,” Beasley said.
IMB missionary Diane In came to Paris from a nearby country where she lives to help with the Olympic outreach. She joined a group of 90 volunteers partnering with local Chinese-French churches. On their first day, they handed out more than 1,000 portions of Scripture in French, had 300 gospel conversations, and saw several professions of faith.
The missionary shared how she has seen God provide divine appointments for the gospel. At the end of one day, In and one volunteer – a Chinese pastor from the U.S. – sat next to some members of the Chinese press on their way back to the hotel. The pastor gave one of the men a custom-designed pin and shared the gospel with him. On their way out of the station, they ran into two more members of the Chinese press – a man and a woman – who were lost and asked for directions. As the pastor gave directions to the woman, In pulled out another pin and shared the gospel with the man.
Brant Bauman, a digital engagement strategist for the IMB, gave an exciting update on the first round of virtual volunteers and their strategy to extend on-the-ground evangelism.
Bauman said digital responders around the world are getting exactly the kind of interaction they have been hoping and praying for. Volunteers are serving on a week-long virtual mission trip where they’ll be on call to answer chat requests.
“It’s a strange thing to say, but the volume on my computer is turned up and there is a little chime that goes off roughly every 30 seconds,” Bauman said. “Normally that would drive anyone mad, but not tonight, because that is the sound of new people responding to our online ads and reaching out to us. Better yet it’s the sound of doors being opened and the gospel being proclaimed by so many digital responders scattered all over the world.”
Bauman added that despite challenging discussions, team members are excited and bold in their interactions. “We have already seen countless prayers responded to, quite a few spiritual conversations and gospel shares, and some that have expressed a desire to meet up face-to-face and find a church.”
Harris asked for prayer as their team begins to follow up with new contacts in Paris.
“The number of connections made could be really challenging to follow up with effectively,” he said. “Pray that, ultimately, people become disciples of Jesus and don’t just hear the gospel once.”
Kristen Sosebee writes for the IMB.
Photos:
https://www.imb.org/image/olympicvolunteers1/
https://www.imb.org/image/olympicvolunteers2/
https://www.imb.org/image/olympicvolunteers3/
https://www.imb.org/image/olympicvolunteers4/
