PARIS (BP) – At first, Adam Moore was a little skeptical about one of the Olympics outreach strategies in which his mission team was participating.
Moore, the teaching and sending pastor at Peninsula Baptist Church in Mooresville, N.C., led a team of 18 members of his church to minister in Paris for a week. One of the places they served was called “The Living Room,” an open seating area hosted by a local church with coffee, water, air conditioning and live streaming of the Olympics.
“Is anybody going to stop into that?” Moore wondered.
He was quickly proven wrong, as the venue welcomed several visitors during Moore’s time in Paris,
“That has led to probably at least 10 long, lengthy Gospel conversations through individuals just showing up,” Moore said.
“The Living Room” is an example of how Baptists in Paris, in partnership with the International Mission Board, are creating attractive spaces to show hospitality to residents and tourists, and then engaging those visitors with conversations about Jesus Christ.
Another project in Paris is the work of French artist Estienne Rylle, who has launched a contemporary gallery called “Hymnal: Humanity Gathered” at La Baptisse in the first Baptist church in Paris, Rylle said.
“It’s what we want to propose to visitors, ‘Come and enjoy the place of solace we created with art,’” Rylle said.
The exhibit also offers a coffee shop and place of refreshment for visitors, inspired by Jesus’ request of the Samaritan woman, “Give me a drink.”
“There is something very powerful for me in this sentence,” Rylle said.
Rylle pitched the project, with contributions from several French artists, as a “monastery of the third millennium,” a place of prayer and contemplation – a cultural experience. He hopes visitors will be prompted to consider spiritual matters as they contemplate the art, and Christians can then provide answers that may spark further reflection.
While some of Moore’s team staffed “The Living Room” each day, others went out into the city handing out flyers and inviting people to the location. They also distributed hundreds of Bibles with an Olympic-themed cover.
Moore said two of the high school students on his team encountered an “ardent atheist,” but one who admitted that he had a lot of questions about Christianity’s truth claims. The man acknowledged being bothered by concepts like eternity and judgment, wondering what that meant if such matters were true.
“They were able to spend a long time talking with him, sharing the entirety of the Gospel with him, answering questions, pointing him to Christ,” Moore said.
He said his team also saw a number of Chinese individuals who were visiting Paris profess faith in Christ during their stay.
The Paris trip for Peninsula Baptist Church was part of an ongoing partnership the congregation has with IMB staff in the city. The Olympics, Moore said, brought a lot of different people to Paris and made it more normal for Americans and other international visitors to be present and engaging with people.
He said his team was pleased with how receptive many people were to having spiritual conversations.
“As they talk through life and other things, it’s been good to be able to move that toward the Gospel,” Moore said. “We’ve seen that be pretty fruitful so far.”
Tim Ellsworth is associate vice president for university communications at Union University in Jackson, Tenn. BP reports on missions, ministry and witness advanced through the Cooperative Program and on news related to Southern Baptists’ concerns nationally and globally.