‘Open door’ in France

French evangelical churches have a ‘wide open’ door in some of the deprived ‘banlieues’ of the country, a leading pastor says.

Matthieu Sanders, the lead pastor of the Central Paris Evangelical Baptist Church said: ‘Evangelical churches, often with a large second or third-generation immigrant population, have been growing rapidly in [what might be called] “sensitive” surburbs. They often provide a unique witness in that they bring, to be clear, whites, blacks, Arabs and Asians together in a way that very few institutions - even schools - are often unable.

‘There are a lot of “ethnic churches” associated with a particular background, but, by and large, Evangelical churches are fairly good examples of successful integration and collaboration between different social/ethnic groups.’