Cultural distance & church-planting in Paris

This is a super busy week for me, with the convergence of 3 different groups of visitors in Paris that I'm helping orient to one degree or another.

The previous 2 days, I've been involved with the JET SET group of primarily N Ameri@n ch-pl@anters linked with the Upstre@m Collective. I helped them get from the train station to their hotel, then gave a brief session on Paris worldview & its ministry implications. I also helped preorder a Asian lunch for 30 people & it went well.

Yesterday I also caught a 11:00 a.m. concert @ the Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris of a musical group of home-schooled H.S. students from New Jersey. I know 3 of the students, as well as 2 of the parents and the choir director. I gave some advice via e-mail during the last few months.

This Friday though Sunday, a group of students from Wheaton College will be in Paris. I tried in vain yesterday to order bag lunches for their return trip to London on Sunday. The area around Eglise de la Trinité was one where I've never had as hard a time finding a bakery as I did yesterday. I'll be giving a brief orientation to Paris tomorrow.

Today I'll be attending the DWELL Paris daylong conference about ch-pl@nting in France. It's been interesting having some interaction with the group from the Upstre@m Collective. Many of them are linked with a network of newer ch*rches called Acts 29. Many are ch-planters in places in the U.S.

I have several questions that I would like to get some prelimary answers to today or in the coming season.

Alan Hirsch talks about "cultural distance." That is, how far is a culture or person from a biblical worldview (or sympathy to a biblical worldview).

Many of the 30 with this group work in ch-plants that are doing well. However, only 2 of them work in world-class cities that are in areas more "post-Xian." Most work in areas of the U.S. where there would be a good number of the local population would be sympathetic or informed somewhat to a biblical worldview.

I wonder how much of their successful strategy or methodology would actually work in Paris. For I know that the WillowCr**k initiatives in Paris over the years have pretty much crashed & burned. IMO, this is largely due to Paris having much less of a population sympathetic to their seeker style.

However, I do think I have some things to learn from some of their initiatives, so I'm not coming in as blatantly critical. What can be gleaned from them is worthy to be considered & applied here.

One nugget of gold for me yesterday came from the mouth of Ed Stetzer. He talked about the continuum of presence & proclamation in ch-planting. He said that the more culturally distant a person or culture is from a biblical worldview, the more important presence becomes.