Part 2: The Internship - What Exactly Are the Procopios Doing, Anyway?

This is part 2 of a 3-part series. For part 1, click here.

2) What Does the Internship Entail, and What Are Its Future Goals?

This is the second question I'm asked. The internship began in October; since then, what have we been doing, and what will we do in the future?

In July 2012 I was contacted by Acts 29 Europe pastor Philip Moore to join him in a new Centre de formation régional des implanteurs (CFRI), a training center for hopeful church planters in France. The goal of this 2-year training is to equip these future planters with the resources they will need not only to plant a Gospel-centered church, but to do so in a way that is contextualized to the country of France and to the particular area in which the planters find themselves. This training takes place in Lagny-sur-Marne, a town about 25 minutes east of Paris.

The CFRI is tightly linked with a project, “Une pour dix mille”, led by the CNEF (Centre national des évangéliques de France, France’s association of evangelical churches); this project would be called “One For Ten Thousand” in English.

The goal of this project is very simple: reduce the huge gap between the number of churches in France and the French population by planting one church for every ten thousand people living here (see previous post for information on the current numbers). It is an ambitious project which will require a large amount of work, time, and—of course—couples to plant churches.

At the beginning of 2012 the church in Lagny-sur-Marne launched a church plant in nearby Val d'Europe, a relatively new city that as yet had not a single evangelical church. This new church now runs between 30 and 40 people at the Sunday services held once a month, all crammed into a member's living room. We are actively searching for a larger location in the city center, which will allow us to have more frequent services and welcome more newcomers from the town. In addition, we run regular home groups which meet twice a month or more, during which we study the Bible and learn to live out the Gospel in the context of everyday life. 

So the first step is following the training at the CFRI in Lagny-sur-Marne, which consists of a half-day per week of face-to-face training with four other future planters, as well as active "on-the-ground" work in the church plant in Val d'Europe. Loanne and I are both active in separate home groups, one of which is an English-speaking group which I co-lead. The objective is to see firsthand what a church plant entails in France—its challenges, its legal boundaries (the laws in France for religious associations are particularly strict) and, of course, the possible fruit we pray it will bear. 

Our hope is that, Lord willing, we will begin a church plant of our own soon after the training is over, in a city still to be determined. But in order to even begin to think about that, we must raise support...