By Daniel Khoroshchak —
Every 10 days, a new evangelical church opens in France, showing that the nation that prided itself on secularism and atheism is NOT exempt from the trend towards Gen Z revival sweeping the West.
“Something is happening in this country,” says reporter Elena Pompei. “Evangelical churches are popping up everywhere. They’re attracting more and more young people. How did this small Christian minority become of the fastest growing faith groups in France?”
An estimated 1M believers comprise France’s evangelical community, up from 50,000 in 1950.
Noemie Suzanne was one of those swept up in the fires of revival.
“My dad used to make fun of God and the Bible,” says the content creator. “When I was about 10, I made a promise I would never set foot in a church.”
Her disavowal came under pressure when she got a boyfriend who was a believer when she was 15.
At 17, she got pregnant and decided to abort. Once inside the clinic, she hesitated. She doubted her decision and, strangely, prayed.
“Two days later, after that very heartfelt prayer, I miscarried,” Noemie says. “There was no one around me. Then I felt a warmth, I felt love, I felt peace. I was outside of time.
“It was truly an experience that marked me, that shook me for life,” she adds. “That’s how I knew that God existed and that I needed to seek him.”
Her quest to know God started in the Catholic church but ended in the evangelical church.
“I heard the Gospel songs,” she remembers. “I decided to accept Jesus in my life.”
Not long after, she was baptized.
“When I came out of the waters, I felt as if my whole life, all of my burdens, everything I was carrying, had been left in the water.”
There are large churches in auditoriums and small churches that occupy store fronts. There are churches with dynamic, Pentecostal style worship and churches with staunch Bible teaching, running the gamut like in the United States.
They are booming among Gen Z, which has been the generation to become disenchanted with the hopelessness of atheism’s scientific utopia because of its downside: hopelessness. Gen Z, in France as elsewhere, is more Christian than Boomers.
“The surge in evangelical followers isn’t happening in a vacuum,” says Pompei. “All across Europe, young people are leading a quiet revival of faith in Christianity.”
Powering the revival are the immigrants, who being their faith from Africa and share it in France. These churches fund themselves with tithes and offerings from congregants.
At an estimated 3% of the population, evangelicals are NOT a strong political force in France, as they are in the United States and Brazil.
Much of the evangelization of France occurs online.
Source: ENTR en.
