Hannah Felsbourg
8 September 2024
Emma Payne is a missionary with the Church Missionary Society. She will be travelling to France on mission in January 2025.
Here she shares about her work, and how she sees God at work through it. Ms Payne’s story is part of a series profiling workers in different areas, engaging in God’s work in the world.
How did you end up in the position that you’re in?
I’ve always had a heart for evangelism in secular spaces, and particularly discipling secular background believers. As I prayed about what long-term ministry could look like and connected with CMS and other missionaries, the opportunity of going to France and being involved in evangelism and discipleship in a secular space became an option. I became convicted of the need for the local Melbourne Church to partner with the church in France. I’m just a normal person, but I thought, “I could do that. I’m willing to go.”
I applied to CMS as part of the discernment process, and CMS and my local sending church agreed that I would be a good fit. I came on board with CMS. The way that works is you apply, go through interviews, do six months of training, and then you spend six months doing partnership raising before you go. A big part of the season I’m in now is connecting with churches and individuals, sharing the vision for France, and inviting people to partner.
How do you see your work fitting in the big picture of God’s work in the world?
France does have a rich history of Christianity, but it’s now a secular space. What was once a central, pivotal point of the Reformation has lost its imagination for God. Part of the way God is at work in his world is sending missionaries from everywhere to everywhere, including back to Europe. In France, the church is small, and it doesn’t have the internal resources to plant the number of churches needed so that local people have access to a church.
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There are some stats from missions’ websites, things like, there are 40 clairvoyants for every one evangelical pastor in France. And I think part of God’s vision for France is: wouldn’t it be amazing if people didn’t just have access to a local tarot card reader, but access to a local church? There are lots of needs around the world, and God’s vision is to see people sent from places like Melbourne, even to places like France.
How do you see God at work through your work?
In Melbourne it’s hard to believe in God. God is not a natural option. It’s even harder to believe in a God that’s good, personal, knowable, and loves us. I connect with a lot of people who believe, if God exists — and that’s a big if — he’s harmful and far away. But the God of the Bible, the God of the Christian faith, is intimately intertwined in our world, knows and loves us, and is good. Even his justice is part of his goodness. Part of how I’ve seen God at work is inviting people, particularly non-Christians, to suspend disbelief just for a moment and imagine what it would be like if the God who shows up in the Bible in the person of Jesus is real.
One of my favourite Bible stories is the story of Jesus calming the storm. Jesus and all his disciples are in the boat and a big storm comes up. What would it be like to sit in the boat with Jesus? A big storm is raging, and you think that he’s sleeping and not doing what you want him to be doing. What would you like to say? Where would you like to be sitting in the boat? Would you like to be sitting near Jesus? Because the end of the story, Jesus wakes up, and with his words, the storm is stilled. Even the disciples say, “Who is this man? Even the wind in the waves obey him.”
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What we know about imagination is that it is real. Our brain does very cool things when we imagine. Even imagining having a conversation with Jesus is what prayer is like. It’s having a conversation with Jesus. And because Jesus is real, I’m just inviting people to imagine what is real. Watching people go from, ‘God isn’t even a possibility,’ to, ‘God and the person Jesus really is a possibility,’ and ‘How can I start to get to know him and to have a relationship with him?’ It’s slow work when people are coming from that far away from religion, but it’s wonderful to watch people take steps towards Jesus and become Christians.
Do you have any stories you can share about this?
I have a music degree and in France I’ll be involved in a ministry with gospel choirs. There’s something in French society that just loves gospel music. There’s a gospel choir that’s linked to a church and it’s central to their evangelism strategy. There was a woman who has been coming to the gospel choir for several years and isn’t someone who would normally come to church. She said, “I wanted to tell you something and thank you so much for the impact you guys are having on my life and for everything that I’ve experienced with the choir. It’s nearly to the point that I’m thinking of converting. I know it will come, but I still have a lot of things to change in my life.”
She sings gospel truths with Christians. She’s getting to know Jesus. She’s taking steps towards him. But it’s a slow process. They talk about a mission experience in Europe being like ploughing concrete. This story delights me because she’s thinking of converting, but it also shows just how big a leap it will be for her. She’s not throwing herself into this without having thought about it. I’ve been praying for her. When she becomes a Christian, I believe she will be in it for life, because it’s been such a big deal for her to convert.
What fruit do you hope to see in your context? What is your dream for this ministry?
I’m hoping to have the opportunity to read the Bible with people. The way the Holy Spirit works is we read the Bible with people and Jesus comes off the page and becomes real for them. I’m hoping that God and the person Jesus become real for people in France who have otherwise lost imagination for him. Part of the key reason that I’m going is there are Christians in France who are existing in a very secular environment, and it’s hard work to be a Christian.
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The primary role of the missionary is to have a ministry of encouragement with what’s already going on in the location that they’re serving. Just encouraging people like, ‘You’re onto something. Jesus is what is good and true and beautiful.’ Helping teach people to pray and having a rich prayer life and opening the Bible with Christians. Helping people in France work out what it looks like to follow Jesus as a French person. I hope the fruit will be people encouraged to stand firm regardless of what other winds and voices are blowing around them.
My hope for missions work generally in France is that more churches get planted. France is a very secular space. And the Constitution and culture in general has tried to suck God religion out of society. But humans were made to worship, and people still have big questions about life, ‘Who do I date? Who should I marry? What do I do with my money? How can I love my kids?’ It seems in France, when people want something spiritual, they’re tapping back into Pagan spirituality. I have a heart to see churches planted so that a spiritually hungry French person has access to a local group of Christians who can point them to Jesus, not only a local clairvoyant, median or tarot card reader.
What encourages you in your work?
I love having light bulb conversations with people, when the Holy Spirit is so kind as to use me in a conversation with someone to help them follow Jesus in the context that they’re in. Watching people smile and their eyes light up and go ‘Oh yeah.’ Anytime a non-Christian says, ‘Could you explain the Bible to me?’ or, ‘Could you explain the gospel?’ it’s just absolutely delightful to say, ‘Yeah, actually I can, and it would be my absolute privilege to share about who the person Jesus is with you today.’
Read more: ‘Showing God’s love in hard places’: The ministry that captivated Stephen
One of the benefits of the six-month home assignment I’m doing now is that I get to have the most amazing conversations with people about how God is at work in their life. This woman came up to me, burst into tears, and said, “I’ve always wanted to be a missionary in France, but I can’t go. But you can, and I would love to support you.” What has been of great encouragement to me recently is that people are genuinely excited by partnering with the church in France.
What’s one thing you’d like Christians in Melbourne to know about your work?
God is not limited by space and time. I would want people in in Melbourne to know that they genuinely can be involved in ministering in France without even getting on a plane. When you pray for church planting in France, you are part of the church planting team. When you give to a missionary, you really are on the team. We think of partnering with a missionary like you’re walking into the MCG, and you walk in the gate that takes you straight to the member stand and you get front row seats as to what God is doing around his world.
But I think it’s actually even better than that. When you’re partnering with a missionary, you walk straight to the locker room and onto the field and you’re actually part of the game, and you have a really key role to play in that. God is doing amazing and marvellous things around his world. There are also all these people who don’t know Jesus, and there isn’t a church on the corner that they can just walk into to find out. There are missionaries going to these spaces, and when you partner with them, you’re involved in what’s going on. That’s spiritually significant.
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