Ask Greg Robinson how he went from Birmingham to Paris, and he’ll tell you God led him around the world to get there.
Robinson, now on stateside assignment with the International Mission Board (IMB), served in Paris among the Chinese immigrant population from 1999 to 2003, but before that served a four-year term in Taiwan.
He and his wife, Jodie, who is Chinese, find that God has woven their diverse backgrounds and experience together perfectly to accommodate relationship-building with the far-flung Asian community in France’s capital city.
“In Taiwan, there’s a homogenous feeling among the people, but in Paris, they come from everywhere — Southeast Asia, mainland China and Eastern Europe,” Robinson said. “They are not in any way one group or entity.”
Robinson said he, his wife and two daughters occasionally find themselves speaking with Asian families in several languages — Robinson speaking Mandarin Chinese, his wife speaking Cantonese and the girls speaking French and English.
But what sends their minds reeling more than the multiple languages the people use, Robinson said, is trying to grasp the innumerable worldviews they bring with them.
“They are hard, hard working people trying to make that next dollar,” Robinson said. “But many of them hold to their home country’s religions — from China’s belief that science is God to Southeast Asia’s belief in more gods than you could ever count.”
But God is dealing with the Chinese population in Paris through the relationships the Robinsons are building with Asian students there.
“It’s harder to reach the blue-collar workers, because they are naturally suspicious,” Robinson said. “But we find the students are receptive to the idea of meeting in small groups to discuss Bible stories in the name of learning English.”
It’s a nontraditional approach — meeting in McDonald’s, praying with their eyes open, meeting in homes rather than church buildings. But the approach is leading to nontraditional miracles, such as the four new Chinese believers Robinson baptized in his bathtub in Paris.
Small group meetings and strong relationships work, Robinson said — a strategy other members of his team in Paris see growing new believers all the time.
Dennis Barton, IMB strategy associate for France and Belgium, said New Testament-style house churches are “writing Acts 29” today, picking up right where the first church written about in Acts left off.
It’s a tactic that’s spreading the gospel in France in a way the 29 IMB workers in Paris (41 total in the nation) can see taking hold.
“The gap between the population growth and the spreading of the gospel in France was growing wider and wider, so we realized we couldn’t do business as usual anymore,” Barton said.
They began their decidedly urban approach, he said, by praying for a “person of peace” in each people group they met in Paris, a city where one out of every five people is a first-generation immigrant.
When that person accepts Christ, he or she builds an instant bridge to the people not only in that pocket of Parisians but also in that person’s home country, Barton said.
Many are in Paris only for a time and plan to return one day to their native lands, making the city a gateway to countless people groups.
“The house church is not an end in itself — it’s God’s plan to win France. We disciple believers to be obedient to Christ so they can immediately start to evangelize. The borders are open to them — a highway back to their own country. If we’re intentional with our ministry, then they are,” Barton said.
“There is a greater spiritual sensitivity now than ever, and I’m convinced God is going to do incredible things.”
For instance, there are more spiritists in Paris than there are clergy in the whole country, Barton said — an encouraging reality, indicating the French are searching for answers.
“They’re thirsty, they’re just going to the wrong well,” he said.
Tony and Jamie Lynn, IMB missionaries to the West African population of Paris, spend their days walking the streets of the capital city seeking out those thirsty people — the butcher, the fruit vendor, the grocer on the sidewalk.
And many times their seeking leads them right to the root of the unquenched thirst — the Muslim housing projects.
“Since the West African Muslims are not well-integrated into society, their Islam gives a sense of community,” Tony Lynn said. “They lean on each other.”
To draw them to Christ means to draw them away from the support of their community in Paris, as well as from their villages back home, who most likely first collected the money to send them to France.
“Most are the finest men of character from their villages in Africa, sent to earn money for those left back at home,” Tony Lynn said.
One man’s spiritual thirst even competed directly with the physical thirsts of his family and friends back home.
“He was sent to earn enough money to pay off a water tower built for his village, and while he worked he kept the picture of that tower hanging on his wall to remind him why he was there,” Tony Lynn said. But when the Lynns go into the projects, they find these men still willing to accept copies of the “Jesus” film and to talk about faith.
“We find bluntness about what we’re doing works best in reaching the Muslims who work there,” Tony Lynn said. “Most say ‘You talk of God — you are a good person,’ but when you mention Jesus Christ, it becomes a different story.”
The people are quick to embrace the Lynns but slow to embrace Christianity, he said.
There’s a hard-to-combat belief that they don’t have a need for Christ, as well as a huge fear of alienation.
But they both agree there’s also an open door from God in the West African community. They have already witnessed some devout Muslims relinquish Islamic beliefs for salvation in Christ.
It’s an answer to prayer, especially after Tony had a bout with skin cancer in 1998 while the couple was on the field in the Niger republic of West Africa, sending them back home indefinitely.
“We were told we couldn’t return to work in Africa after I was healed, because I wouldn’t be able to get the follow-up care I needed,” Tony Lynn said.
But the Lord knew all along that their experience with French-speaking Muslim West Africans would be the missing piece to the puzzle the IMB team in Paris would need, Jamie Lynn said.
“We started the adventure of serving God together not knowing where it would lead,” she said. “And God has blessed us beyond belief.”
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