French Churches Unite to Train Next Generation
Around 2012, the biggest Charis church in France planted two more churches, and today, their network has grown into 4 developed churches plus 4 budding church plants.
God has really grown our movement in France, but it definitely took a lot of work to get there. (And it still requires plenty of work to maintain it!) All of this growth was only made possible because of the many volunteers who made countless sacrifices. After seeing their 14 years of faithful service, the churches realized it was time to recruit the next generation volunteers. The volunteers have run the good race and fought the good fight, but now it’s time to refresh the volunteer teams.
But the churches realized that the next generation needed to be trained. There was a shared need among their churches, so they collaborated to meet that need together. As a result, they formed an 18-month leadership training program that enrolled 90 participants.
The training program was designed with three objectives:
Empower the new generation: The French culture can be pretty cynical. People generally like to step away from being involved, so the new generation needed to be empowered.
Develop good character: If people will be volunteering in church, they need to be of good character and have a good attitude about biblical serving.
Instill good doctrine: The volunteers in any ministry often come from very different backgrounds. They needed to install a common denominator of sound doctrine.
The training started in February 2024 that will train participants in six modules: three focused on doctrine, and three focused on personal character. And each participant’s training will conclude with an internship where they’ll be able to develop new skills in their area of focus.
As the president of the French Charis union, Jérémie Biancheri said, “This is the first time in a long time we’ve been able to have such a mutual training like this. The last time we did it was at the Chateau 20 years back, so we are very happy about this.”
Because they collaborated, these French churches went so much further together than any of them could have gone alone, securing a dependable volunteer base for years to come.