The Paris Olympic Outreach had a huge impact on the people who went and the churches who sent them. In this blog Pastor Brad Henderson from Bible Baptist Church in Newark, Ohio, and Jason Lange, Assimilation and Sunday School Pastor at Cherry Street Baptist Church in Springfield, Missouri, tell about their experiences at the Olympics.

Brad Henderson

As I was handing out Gospel tracts at the exit of the main Subway station leading to the

Eiffel Tower, I can remember two very distinct things. First was the courage and boldness of the six other individuals from Bible Baptist Church who had come to Paris to “preach the Gospel” to the nations. Completely surrounded by mobs of people from all around the world, they compassionately and persistently handed out tracts, seeking to engage in Gospel conversations.   They were actively living out the many months of prayers for lost people to come to Christ.  The second thing I remembered was how the Holy Spriit kept impressing on my heart and mind Matthew 9:37b “The harvest truly in plenteous, but the laborers are few”.  We were only seven people in the middle of thousands who needed Jesus.

This trip grew our faith in God, love for one another, and for the church body in prayer for our team members. These things were clearly seen when we presented a report to the Bible Baptist Church body. Our Sunday evening service was packed, many tears of joy were shed, and much praise was given to the Lord for all that He had done.

The impact on the Bible Baptist church was immense.   It is my prayer that this impact continues to cultivate a deeper burden for the Gospel to reach the world.  This impact can be summarized in four statements:

  1. The work of missions is deeper and greater than we can ever understand.
  2. We need to be intentional in making disciples so they can go to the nations and make more disciples.
  3. We need to faithfully teach solid Bible doctrine, but also need to teach people how to share it simply.
  4. We need to train people in evangelism so they can know what the Gospel is and how to share it boldly.

The following are a few comments from those that went from BBC:

“Working with and seeing our missionaries in action helped me gain a better understanding of their love for Christ and passion for people and greatly encouraged me and taught me our need to support them better and pray for them more.” – MF

“After seeing the masses of people who don’t know Christ has really convicted me. I can’t look at my job, resources and time the same way.” – DW

“I was fearful about witnessing to people in Paris, but it was amazing how the Holy Spirit enabled me with great boldness to share the Gospel to people from many different countries.” – JH

“As a young lady with a call to missions on my life, this trip further confirmed this call and fueled my compassion for the European people.”  – NR

Jason Lange

Paris 2024 was profoundly impactful to our group in two specific areas. The first was the reality of the multiplication principle. We partnered with other local church members and missionaries to distribute over 16,000 tracts during our week. That task appears overwhelming if presented to an individual, but our group’s sensitivity was heightened to what can be accomplished when a few committed people collaborate giving their best efforts.

Our tract distribution endeavors led to the second impactful experience…street witnessing encounters. Our group prepared, prayed, and participated in personally engaging people with the Gospel. Our group spoke with lost people from France, Iraq, Moldova, Eritrea, China, and several other countries, sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with them. Many of these conversations were with people who acknowledged they were hearing the Gospel for the first time. Our group’s hearts were challenged to continue the work of giving lost people the Gospel.

We are extremely grateful for the opportunity to have participated in this evangelistic outreach and look forward to Heaven to see the harvest of souls it yielded.

Only in Eternity Will We Know the Impact of the Paris Olympic Outreach

Thank You for Praying, Giving and Going