‘Are You Ready to Open Your Doors … And Your Toilets?’
French evangelicals are working together to show people Jesus at 2024 Olympic Games.
For many people who live in Paris, the Summer Olympics are going to be kind of a problem. In fact, though the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad are not scheduled to start until the end of July, Parisians were already bracing themselves this spring.
Metro ticket prices will double, for example, and some have questioned whether the system can handle the expected influx of 16 million people. Student housing has been requisitioned to accommodate staff planning the Olympics. There is concern about the river Seine, the buildings, the work required to make the city accessible for Paralympic athletes, and even vulnerability to a terrorist attack.
French support for the Olympics has fallen 11 points in the last two years; in the region around the capital, only one out of five people now say that having the Olympics in Paris is “a very good thing.” Forty-four percent say it’s bad or very bad.
Matthew Glock is not one of them.
“I see the Olympics being a catalyst,” said Glock, an American church planter who has lived in France for more than 30 years. “It will allow churches and associations to come together and work together for the good of the city.”
Glock has been at the forefront of organizing evangelical Christians so that they can coordinate their efforts “to radiate the love of Jesus Christ in word and deed” during one of the world’s largest sporting events.
There are more than 70 evangelical churches in Paris, not counting groups that meet in homes. Only about 1 percent of the population of France is evangelical, but that’s still more than 745,000 people.
Ensemble2024 launched late last year to bring them together. The evangelical umbrella group works with about 20 groups, ...