The city of Grenoble in the French Alps has seen remarkable church growth in recent years. Over the last two years, no less than five evangelical churches have found themselves looking for new worship spaces, three of them specifically to accommodate their growing congregations.
Another encouraging development is that recent church plants are already seeing full Sunday services. As building size becomes a constraint, the solution, in theory, seems simple enough: move to a larger space. Yet this is where the challenge comes in.
Grenoble has recently updated its Intercommunal Local Urban Development Plan (PLUi), which defines the rules for construction and land use for the next 15 years. Churches frequently face closed doors from the local government when they find suitable spaces, only to be denied zoning or construction permits.
The International Church in Grenoble knows this first-hand, having been in the process of looking for a new building for over eight years and running into these challenges repeatedly.
The local branch of the CNEF (National Council of Evangelicals in France), which represents 19 evangelical churches in Grenoble, recognises that this is not due to malicious intent by the local government and has taken an active step in pursuing dialogue with the authorities. The challenge seems to be that growing churches are just not factored in or expected in the planning. This is an ongoing opportunity for prayer. As evangelicals we believe in sharing our faith and, at the same time, that the Lord is at work in individual hearts to call people to Him. It is therefore an expectation that the church should grow. Please be praying with churches in France that these conversations would go well, that the church would be a positive witness to local actors, and that worship-space accommodations would be provided for the growing church in France.
