Raphael Anzenberger has been raising up evangelists throughout the French speaking world. On today’s podcast we talk about his Ph.D research on the incubation of evangelists and about a polycentric approach to missions. You will hear his exciting insights about how God is moving in Francophone Africa, French-speaking Canada, and in France.
Website: https://anzenberger.net/
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Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Raphael Anzenberger has been raising up evangelist throughout the French speaking world. On today’s evangelism podcast. We talk about his PhD research on the incubation of evangelist and about a polycentric approach to missions. You will hear his exciting insights about how God is moving in Francophone Africa, French speaking, Canada, and in France,
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:37):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host missionary and evangelist Daniel King. Welcome
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:02):
To the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest Raphael Anzenberger. He is from France, and he has been working for God in the Francophone countries. Thank you so much for being with me today.
Raphael Anzenberger (01:19):
Thank you for having me on the program.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:21):
And so let’s start by talking about what God is doing in the French speaking world, especially in the area of evangelism.
Raphael Anzenberger (01:31):
So French speaking world, for those who are not too familiar with it’s 320 million people, it’s spending over three continents, Europe, of course Africa and in Canada and also the Pacific islands. And for the longest time we’ve been perceived rightly so as a mission field, but today I’m happy to report that we are known also as a mission force and no longer as a mission field because God has has been gracious to us in raising a new generation of evangelists who are bringing the gospel into an unreached people group in Asia in places where it’s not possible to travel there with a missionary visa.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:16):
So talk to us about where there are centers of French speaking people around the world, especially in some of the, the, the African nations and, and where is French? The language that is, is spoken.
Raphael Anzenberger (02:30):
So those, those centers, those AP centers where evangelists go out starting from Africa, you have two centers, Abijah of course, ivory coast. Then you have Kinsa then moving to Europe Geneva, Paris, and brussel, and then moving to Canada Montreal. So those would be the places and the cities where you will encounter evangelist ministry, evangelistic ministry, raising evangelist, and then sending them out into the harvest.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:02):
Now you completed your doctoral research and you looked at the incubation of evangelists. Tell us kind of the focus of your research and then what you discovered.
Raphael Anzenberger (03:16):
So the idea is that how do we multiply more evangelists for the harvest? Right when I joined the ministry back 20 years ago there was four of us evangelists for the whole French speaking world. When we did the math 320 million divided by four, we said, well, there’s room for a couple more. And we’d recited to raise a hundred evangelists within 10 years, very aggressive goal, right? And for that, we had to come up with an, an incubator a two year incubator by which we could raise up a cohort of 10 a year amount to a hundred after 10 years. And that program was very successful. And it was really God’s grace on that. We, we took best practices from different programs, but we tailor it Danielle, especially for what I call pro evangelists among professionals, right?
Raphael Anzenberger (04:08):
We have professional evangelists who are making that a full time ministry, but what we were interesting in raising those a hundred is also looking how we raise evangelists among professionals, teachers people in the fashion industry, in politics, in government and so forth. And I must tell you, Danielle, that those evangelists among professionals are sometime even better more enthused than some of the professional evangelists that, that we are. And it was really excited to see this new generation of, of evangelists coming up through the program and, and then making inroads being recognized by the local church or ministries and being really released into the harvest. And as I was mentioning before, we, we also had the privilege of seeing some of our young evangelists, especially female evangelists, going to places like Afghanistan and north, north Africa, very, very scary places for women to go. And today they’re raising evangelists in those countries and replicating some of the things that we have put together in this incubator.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:14):
Talk to me about the incubation process. If someone has a heart for evangelism, they feel like that maybe God would use them in that area. How do you bring them to the point where they are bold in sharing their faith and preaching the gospel and even training others in evangelism?
Raphael Anzenberger (05:34):
So the program basically runs with, with three core biblical values. The first year is dedicated to godly character. Okay. ish, Barza great. Evangelist German in Germany said, I evangelist all character is Anina. So an evangelist without a character is a criminal <laugh>. So, so evangelist often they come through our incubators and, and they, they want to talk about technique and methodology. And well, we start from a vanish point that if they’re evangelist, they’re leading people to Christ. Anyway, the number one danger is themselves. They have to root their life in godly character. So the first year is dedicated towards this life of prayer, life of faith, spiritual disciplines, building godly character in your life. And then once we move into the second year, then we look at the second core value of the program, which is doxological motivations. What is this?
Raphael Anzenberger (06:36):
Doxological motivation is that we don’t want them to build an empire. We don’t want them to think about themselves taking a selfie with a big crowd behind staging themselves as the savior with the messianic syndrome. We want to see doxological motivations. The reason why they would enter into the ministry is to partner with others in bringing more people to Christ, bringing people like Christ for Christ and to Christ. So we’re looking for, as we are questioning their motif, why do you want to, why do you wanna be an evangelist? Do you want to build your own ministry or do you wanna be part of God’s great family of evangelists and then last third core value of the program towards the end of the incubation is kingdom vision. And here we help them understand and reflect on what cause is calling them towards some think about starting a ministry among street homeless people.
Raphael Anzenberger (07:35):
And because of our network, then we, we put them in link with others who are also doing the same kind of things this way. They can build synergies and it could be kingdom mindset versus empire mindset. So those three core values, you know, Golic character doxological motivation and kingdom vision are, are, are the three pieces that make this incubation fruit. And at the end, we wanna see them thrive as evangelist. And then they come in the back end of it, providing ongoing training and ongoing spiritual formation so that they continue to last in the ministry. Also, one thing we asked them to do Danielle is to look for other evangelists. And that’s the power of multiplication very quickly in the program. We said, do identify emerging evangelists around you, even if you’re 23, 25, look for 10 years younger than you and start walking with them.
Raphael Anzenberger (08:29):
And I’ve seen this girl Daniel incredible story. She was 22 years old when she joined our program. And she said, you know, I’m, I’m coming from Switzerland. I’m an alien people don’t understand what I’m speaking. They think I’m weird. And it said, okay, what is your problem? Say, well, I’m, I’m the first time I, I shared, I, I had a dramatic encounter with Jesus. And the first time I shared that with my friends, 20 wanted to receive him in their heart. And I went to my pastor and he said, you’re weird. I don’t know what to do with you. And can you help me? I said, yeah, I think you’re an evangelist. Welcome to the tribe. Right? As soon as she was into the program, she was already replicating everything. We taught her to 50 younger evangelists who were between 15 and 20 years old. And so the power of multiplication, that’s what we tell them. An evangelist said, CWAs, a famous mythologist is not concerned about the crowd that is able to gather is concerned about the number of vacations vocations that he’s able to rise in his lifetime. And for that, I’m, I’m thankful for Billy Graham and, and repel out and all those organizations who, who sought not just to portray what an evangelist is and should be, but also raise up new generations of evangelists.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:47):
Let’s talk about Europe. Some people have said that Europe is a post-Christian continent, but I think that God still has great love for Europe. What do you see God wants to do in on the continent of Europe?
Raphael Anzenberger (10:02):
Well, my people might be surprised to, to know that in France, we are opening a church every seven days. It’s, it’s quite it’s quite phenomenal in Spain. They’re opening up a church every three days. So <laugh> contrary to some people perceiving Europe as a, as a, as a, as a cemetery for mission for missionaries. It is actually a strong mission force. And we’re seeing fast, rapid multiplication of churches and disciples. Even in the us we get a lot of requests to bring European evangelists to do evangelism in the us because we are very familiar and at ease with the secular society, right? This been where we’ve been for the last 20 years in Europe. We’re not scared to go with people who are against Christians. We love atheist. We love to debate with them. We love to win them for Christ. And in a sense it’s a joy to see friends like John Lennox, for instance, who is continuing being invited in the us to, to tackle university lecturers or trying to kill Christianity. And, and Europeans who’ve been there for 50 years and we know how to tackle them. So are very much encouraged by what’s going on in Europe.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:23):
You have used a term, which I find very intriguing polycentric missions. Tell me, what do you mean by that in how is that affecting what God is doing in the world?
Raphael Anzenberger (11:36):
So when we talked about missions going back to the 19 20th century, it was a movement that was primarily centered first on Europe. And then later on in the 20th century, especially after 1950 solidly anchored in the us. And what you would see is, is missionaries being raised and then doing missions out of Europe or out of the us to the ends of the earth right now, west pretty much the paradigm all the way to the end of the 20th century. And what happened is that after years and decades and centuries of missions into majority world countries, those churches who received the gospel through those missionaries decided to bring back the gospel where it was first sent from. So we’ve seen for instance, Africa having a heart to do missions in Europe. We’ve seen people in Brazil, in Argentina, Costa Rica having a heart to bring the gospel to Asia.
Raphael Anzenberger (12:47):
We’ve seen people in Asia having the heart to bring the gospel in Canada. And so today we are seeing the emergence of those centers of missions anchored in the majority world and without any complex, and they raise the funds, they train the missionaries and they send them out into places that were once sending centers for missions. And I find that very exciting to collaborate with my friends from Nigeria, from Zaa, from Singapore, the Philippines, you know that Danielle, I don’t know if, if people know that, but the country who is sending the most missionaries per Christians in a country is Jordan in the middle east. And I’m finding that absolutely astounding that those who were once on the recipient end of missions, decide today to be the ones who are sending their sons and daughters. So that Christ may be known all the way even to Europe.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:53):
Yeah. It used to be that the west would send missionaries to the rest, but now we see the best going to the rest and the best are being raised up all over the world. God is moving so much in the, the global south, and I’m so thankful for their passion for God and in their heart for evangelism. And you are actually moving soon to one of the, the biggest, greatest mission fields that there is my wife is from Canada. And, and so we have been praying for French speaking, Canada for Quebec, and very low percentage of Christians, but tell us what you are hoping that God will do in Canada.
Raphael Anzenberger (14:36):
Well, thank you for asking about that. Danielle it’s I’ve been ministering in, in French speaking, Canada which basically is, is, is all the four provinces on the east, but all the provinces on the west and the central side. And it’s been Catholic because it was French and then attached to France versus English picking Canada. There was more Protestant with the collapse of the Catholic church and all the scandals. People got mad with the church. Did you know that the past year they destroyed 750 churches?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:12):
I mean, yeah, my, my wife is from Warrenville Alberta and there was a beautiful Catholic church right in the middle of the town last year, someone burned it down and I was looking at the, the comments and some people were saying, oh, that’s horrible. But then there were so many comments that people say, yes, that church deserved it because of what they have done. It’s, it’s a tragedy.
Raphael Anzenberger (15:32):
It is. It is. I mean, if in France, if people would even, even if, if people wanted to destroy churches, atheists would come and say, well, you can’t do that is part of our historical landmarks, but in Quebec, I mean, they send bulldozers, they flip churches into apartment complex without anyone actually seeing that as being wrong. Which tells you that I think it’s one of the most advanced secular society that I’ve known and I’m traveling quite extensively. I, I remember seeing just not long ago, an interview of a guy in the streets of Montreal asking young people who Jesus is, and, and they, they had blank <laugh> they were looking at Jesus who I said, Jesus of Nazareth. No don’t know the dude. Where does he live? I thought, I thought it was a joke. I thought it was a cameras, you know, filming somewhere. It was not actually religion. Christian religion has been eradicated even transforming the national Christian days of celebration to first nations or, or other kinds of terminology, a systemic eradication of Christian languages. The first one that I’ve seen that somewhere that is done so well in French speaking Canada, but the good news is, is that people still all come to Christ because I don’t care how much secularized society is. Jesus can still reach out to them.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:05):
Well, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast. If someone wants to connect with you, find out more about your ministry, maybe find out more about how to preach the gospel in the French speaking world. What is your website? What’s a good way for people to connect with you
Raphael Anzenberger (17:22):
So they can find me on my website Ze burger that’s net they can find us on social media. I’ll be happy to, to link them with those ministries in a French speaking world that are thriving and get connected. Thank you. So for me on the program and praying for this next assignment, I’m excited about what’s gonna come up.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:44):
Can, can we finish by just saying a prayer for the French speaking world that God would move and could you pray in French?
Raphael Anzenberger (17:53):
Prayer in French
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:28):
Amen. Thank, thank you. Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus, and I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the evangelism podcast on apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review, you will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with king ministries? Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts it on your heart to do more, of course you can do more, but please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much. And God bless you
Evangelism Podcast Host (19:48):
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