Evangelical Voices
For those of you who were not in Paris this summer, we are pleased to highlight ministry activities carried out by some of Impact France’s partners.
For a full summary, please visit the page of Ensemble 2024, a precious initiative that helped the coordination of the major christians efforts during the Olympics.
Sports
Sport et Foi – Lyon and Sport et Foi Grenoble
Throughout the week, a variety of events took place across Grenoble and Lyon, each designed to touch different aspects of community life with:
- Festival Activities: fairs and children’s games were organized in multiple districts, bringing joy and a sense of community to families and residents.
- Sports Activities: soccer, volleyball, basketball and hiking were more than just physical activities; they became platforms for fostering teamwork, unity, and mutual respect among participants, echoing the values of perseverance and endurance that are at the core of Christian faith.
- Social Actions: the commitment to social welfare was evident through participation in local “maraudes” (food distributions), food bank support, and other charitable activities. These actions were practical demonstrations of Christ’s love, providing tangible help to those in need.
- Worship and Prayer: the inter-church worship concert and prayer meetings brought together believers from across Grenoble, creating a powerful space for communal worship and spiritual reflection. These gatherings were moments of deep connection, where the collective voice of the church rose in praise and supplication.
- Evangelism and Sharing: The distribution of New Testaments, accompanied by athlete testimonies, film screenings, and personal stories shared at various events, were central to the outreach efforts. These acts of sharing the Gospel were instrumental in spreading the message of hope and salvation.
- Recording of a podcast about disabilities, broadcast by Phare FM. These recordings touched the participants and helped them to change the way they look at disabled people (to see disabled people more clearly as God sees them).
Festivals and Kids Games
Grain de Blé organised the first Sports Festival in April with several churches in Nantes, followed by a training session for trainers the day after the Festival. May and June were also devoted to team training and the organisation of several Festivals and 1 Kids Games (in the Paris region with the churches of Noisy le Grand, Champ sur Marne, Mennecy and Plaisir).
In July, they supported a church (in Le Mée sur Seine) for 4 days of Kids Games, with 60 children registered for the whole week. Following these events, a regular club will be set up in the neighborhood in October, offering several dates throughout the year. Follow-up work is essential to maintain the link and bear fruitful witness.
Grain de Blé also participated in the ‘Rise’ project (from 16 July), training several teams who were then sent out all over France to evangelise before and during the Olympic Games.
Following all of this, they will be continuing equipping other churches who are asking to be trained.
Christian Surfers designed, printed and shipped the Surfers Bible in time for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, with 1,000 copies to Tahiti, French Polynesia, where the Olympic Surfing event took place, and we received 3,500 copies here in mainland France.
This third edition of the special New Testament included 15 testimonies of life-changing
stories of pro and everyday surfers on the adventure of following Christ. The exciting
feature of this third edition was the addition of QR codes at the bottom of each story and
included in the intro to the different books of the Bible. These QR codes link to
complementary online content including expanded interviews, videos of the surfers
profiled, and Bible reading plans and commentary on the YouVersion app.
Christian Surfers also organized several events during the Olympics that took place in Tahiti and in three coastal sites in mainland France, with a significant population of surfers. The Christian Surfers teams on the ground were able to connect with surfers relationally, through early morning surf sessions, evening film screenings, stands, live streaming and replays of the Olympic Surf contest on a big screen, live music, a food truck, and an Open House serving coffee at a beach front church. Many of the resulting conversations went deep enough to offer each participant one of these brand-new Bibles.
The Arts
More than 33 artists from all over the world, representing a multitude of musical styles, came together to offer an unforgettable week at the Paris Praise Festival 2024. The festival featured 9 evening concerts in 8 different venues, including an exceptional evening on Friday 2 August with two simultaneous concerts in two different venues in Paris, attracting two different audiences. The venues were packed to capacity, testifying to the public’s enthusiasm for the event.
Evangelism
RISE GO CAMP from 15 to 20 July 2024 in Jambville, organised by Les Fabricants de joie / Kingkid
Rise Go Camp was a boost camp that took place in Paris and brought together 350 campers from all over the world: Canada, Taiwan, Spain, UK, Colombia, China, Portugal, Poland…The aim was to form teams so that they could reach out to each other in a relevant and dynamic way, and work in unity. A range of training courses were offered, including festival tool training. The week ended with a major festival.
After the camp ended on July 20, the teams served as part of RISE OUTREACH, throughout France, in various fields in partnership with churches and local associations to organise sports activities (Olympics, Festival, Kids Games, etc.), events (broadcasting of competitions on the big screen, street shows, barbecues, etc.), solidarity activities (cleaning up parks, renovating buildings, etc.), and activities for children (Quartier Libre programme, games, fairs, etc.).
During the Olympic Games, the Alliance Biblique Française published and distributed 200,000 New Testaments entitled ‘More precious than gold’, specially designed for the Paris Olympics, to 200 churches and Christian organisations. It was published in two languages (Bible Nouvelle Français courant for French and the Good News Translation for English) to reach not only the French, but also foreign tourists interested in it. Testimonies of Olympic athletes were included as part of the Bible, and separate page with QR Codes was inserted to enable people to read the Bible in other languages.
Social Actions
Anti-human trafficking activities during the Olympic Games
The associations Alliance de l’Espérance (Lyon), Porteurs d’Espoir (Paris) Pozo de Vida (Mexico) and 27 Million carried out a series of actions against human trafficking during the Olympics, to prevent it and raise awareness.
It started with a day of street golf on the theme of children’s rights, with a 10-hole course starting at the nearest park and finishing at the Porteurs d’Espoir headquarters. Many children and their parents enjoyed the game! On Sunday, there was joint worship between the various associations, followed in the afternoon by an awareness-raising activity for young people with the testimony of Bernadette, a survivor and now director of Alliance de l’Espérance. Her testimony touched those present, some of whom were victims themselves.
There were also activities in the park for children with games, and a time for sharing the love of Christ around a meal with victims of human trafficking. Distribution of awareness-raising material against human trafficking and to the public at Sacré Coeur, the Louvre, by the Olympic Flame, Centre Georges Pompidou and the Eiffel Tower with the presentation of video testimonials from victims of sex trafficking around the world (including one from the director of Alliance de l’Espérance) with the support of Greenhouse volunteer team from Dunamis Europe sharing the message of hope of our Christ.
Finally, there was an outreach with Porteurs d’Espoir and Mosaïk Écoute et Partage to share the love of Christ of men and women in prostiution in the Bois de Boulogne during the Olympics.
The Paralympic Games
For more information about what’s coming up for the Paralympics, please visit Ensemble 2024’s event page.
Prayer Themes and Resources
As summer comes to an end, join the Paris Ensemble initiative and Love France and pray over Paris for the Olympics!
New partner projects this month
Institut Biblique de Genève – Training and development
Les Cèdres – Training and development
He’s alive! – Arts, Culture, Music and Sports
For a full listing of all recent projects and more, click here!