Being a Missionary to One of The Most Secular Countries in the World

Hello everyone.  For those of you who don't know me, my name is Christiana Gunn and I currently work at Techmission. I wanted to share with everyone what is happening in my life.  On July 20th I became an official missionary with Avant Ministries to the country of France.  Of all the places in the world for God to send me, this is the one place I did not want to go.  However, in His divine wisdom He has changed my heart to one that longs to see the people of France sparked with the fire of God.  This is not going to be an easy task for our team of nine, which is charged with starting a mature, reproducing church in Paris in the time span of five years, but we know God is with us and has paved the way.

Currently I am in deputation and the process of support raising is underway (well, I started 5 days ago). Approximatley %4 of the $4000 a month needed has come in, and it takes 90% to leave for the field. The goal is for the team to have all members there by next July.  We start team training early next Spring in faith that some of our team members will be able to leave directly afterwards. 

Please pray:

That God will bring the funds in for me and all of our team members.

That the Spirit will go before us and prepare the hearts of the French people.

That a movement of prayer for France will erupt in the churches of the US.

French Revolution

By Chris Lewis, February 2007

French students marched against riot police in Toulouse last year, as protests escalated nationwide over a new labor law. PHOTO: AP/REMY GABALDA

In the spring of 1945, U.S. infantryman H. Curt Ball rode the first assault wave that crashed ashore on Okinawa during World War II. Entrenched in a rice patty during the South Pacific's bloodiest battle, the enemy engaged Ball in an explosive "game of catch" - until one hand grenade landed next to him.

A year earlier, on the faraway shores of occupied France, the capture of another famous beachhead had turned the tide for the Allies. Today, the D-Day invasion at Normandy is marked by scrolling rows of silent white crosses, staked into 172 acres entombing 10,000 of Ball's comrades.

Not that Ball ever visited this memorial. Decades later, on business trips to France, the veteran avoided reminiscing about a war prolonged, in his eyes, by spineless Vichy French collaborators and obstinate French resistance leaders. Ball still has souvenir shrapnel in his shoulder. And in his mind, the French haven't changed - from General de Gaulle's 1966 NATO pullout (his ordering American troops to leave French soil prompted U.S. President Johnson to ask, "Does that include those in it?") to President Chirac's anti-war stance on Iraq.

"The French are not my favorite people," says Ball, in his stern Texas drawl. "God loves ‘em - I don't know why."

All this to say: heaven help the poor missionary who approaches Ball about funding a church-planting team ... to France. With a mission that borrows its name from a French word, to boot. As Avant forwards its avant-garde church-planting strategy to France, you'd expect Ball to say, "You're not getting a single ‘freedom fry' of my support."


That didn't faze Avant missionary Ken Witcher, who's leading a Short-Cycle Church-Planting team to France this year. Emboldened by their "Aggie connection" as Texas A&M alums, Witcher asked Ball for a monthly donation ... and he said "yes."

"I feel like the French had their chance," said Ball from his Houston-area home. "But the Great Commission doesn't say we can pick and choose which country to go to. They all need to hear the Good News."

Mission strategists and demographers are forecasting a faith renaissance in secular Europe, positioning France for what Witcher calls a gospel "reclamation." Less than 1 percent of France's 60 million are evangelical Christian.

"We're about to see a big move in Europe. I believe God is going to reach hundreds of thousands of French in the next decade," Witcher says - through a grass-roots stirring of new French believers.

This is the heart of Avant's Short-Cycle Church Planting: equipping young nationals to rapidly launch reproducing churches. Short-Cycle is a focused, five-year strategy employed by synergized teams - three of which are preparing to deploy to France.

The question is whether a spiritual "French revolution" will marshal supporters like Ball, who still resents that France didn't protect its Christian heritage any better than defending its Maginot Line against Hitler's advancing Third Reich.

The new battle line: It's on the home front, where a "10/40"-focused North American Church is still recalibrating its worldview to see France as "unreached."

"France is at a turning point. There's a ripening here," said David Rowley, president of France Mission in Paris. "The older generation, steeped in Catholicism and institutional tradition, is moving off the scene. Now is the time to present the gospel to the younger generation. It's a powerful moment to be in Europe."

So, is the Church ready for France? Is France ready for Short-Cycle?