Timothée Paton is an evangelist passionate about reaching France with the Gospel. On today’s episode of the Evangelism Podcast, we discusses the current spiritual state of France, noting that while churches have grown in size, the presentation of the gospel message has often been lacking. Timothée shares his vision to bring the clear, simple gospel presentation back to the forefront of church services. Timothée also talks about using short gospel stories and radio spots to effectively communicate the good news. He challenges believers to leave their comfort zones and take the gospel to the “deep end” – the unreached areas of France and the Francophone world. He expresses optimism about the opportunities to reach the French, particularly through the influx of believers from Africa, and calls for more missionaries to minister in the rural, traditionally Catholic regions of the country.

Buy the Book: Leave the Shore: https://amzn.to/3WGhpko

Learn more about Timothée Paton: https://timotheepaton.com/

Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. And today I have a very special guest all the way from France, Timothée Paton, thank you for joining me today.

Timothée Paton (00:16):
Thank you Daniel. It, it’s a joy to be with you. We met once that’s back in Amsterdam, 2023 if I remember. Well,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:27):
Yeah, that was at the everyone conference there with Dr. Billy Wilson. God gave Dr. Wilson from Oral Roberts University a vision to reach everyone on Earth with the gospel before 2033, the 2000 year anniversary of the first day of Pentecost. And so I believe that’s a vision that comes from God. It goes right in line with the Great Commission. And the Great Commission is something that you are very excited about. Tell me a little bit about what God is doing in France right now.

Timothée Paton (01:04):
Well, I got excited probably because my parents got excited about serving in France 60 years ago. I mean, my mom and dad are very similar to yours. They left the comfort of a wealthy or Christian nation and they came to a place where the gospel was not very known. So my parents came, my dad from Glasgow, Scotland, my mom from Birmingham, England, I have none of their accent. And I was born as an MK right here in the central of France where it was tough back in 1964, I was told. And in 2025, it’s still a tough place, but as you know, France like Western Europe is wide open. We can tell people about Jesus anywhere, anytime. So I’m excited. I guess I got excited when I saw that mom and dad found the best thing to do in the world was to tell people in France about Jesus.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:07):
And what are you seeing God do in France through your ministry right now?

Timothée Paton (02:14):
Well, when we got married about three and a half years ago, after many years in Southeast Asia, I realized that I left France in 1999, came back in 2019, and then I realized maybe by going overseas, when you come back, you see what you couldn’t see so well because you were part of the picture. So when you leave the picture and come back into the picture, I realized that churches in France had great services. Churches were bigger than 20 years before almost mega churches in Paris and a few other places. But now realize the worship is good. The church building is top-notch. You could be in California and the service is so good, people are very welcoming. But something interesting had changed from in the nineties, the preaching of the gospel, which used to be in the Assemblies of God, where I was brought up on Sunday afternoon.

(03:24):
Jesus saved only at 3:30 PM on Sunday afternoon. And we prayed for the sick when the service came to the end. But since that gospel meeting has been taken away, we took away the gospel meeting, but we took away the gospel and the meeting. So the preaching of the gospel, the A, B, C, as Bonky used to say the A, B, C was dropped out of the Sunday morning service. So I realized it was time to bring the gospel back. It doesn’t have to be on Sunday afternoon, but it has to be back at the heart of the church. So my wife and I realized that the best thing we can do is to ask pastors in France who invite us to speak. What about if we had a gospel service on Sunday morning? And for some pastors, the two don’t go together Sunday morning gospel service.

(04:24):
And we said, Jesus can save on Sunday morning. And many of them would say, Hey, I mean they wouldn’t say so plainly, but I could read between the lines Sunday morning is a service for God’s people. And I said, well, you’d be surprised if we have a gospel service on Sunday morning. How many people in your church will actually respond when the call is given publicly to turn to Jesus? And we’ve had these gospel services on Sunday. I preach the gospel, people respond, and I love the look on the pastor’s face. And he says, wow, this lady’s been in my church for 20 years. She’s been worshiping where he thinks she’s been worshiping. She’s been singing, now she’s going to worship because she’s born again.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:19):
Amen. And one of the things I really like on your website is you talk about having gospel talk and not making it boring, but making it interesting using stories. Give us some examples of what you would recommend to a pastor to include in a gospel talk on Sunday morning. How do we take it from being just a boring, sometimes condemning presentation of facts to making it dynamic and interesting, using stories in a way that communicate the truth of the good news?

Timothée Paton (06:04):
Well, I think stories are the best way to captivate any audience. And we sometimes think stories are for kids in Sunday school so they can hear another Bible story. But everyone is made, it’s in our DNA, people respond. You can see the body language of the congregation actually rise when the preacher says back in 1924, there was the famous Russian clown that would go around the country and people suddenly the body language will change. And I realized that there’s nothing more powerful than a story. I think our sermons are like bonkers, bonkers are in the Second World War. You had these very tight buildings with soldiers, with hide, no windows

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:03):
Made out of concrete, very

Timothée Paton (07:04):
Hard concrete. So it’s good to have the doctrine. It is good to have sound teaching, but if you don’t have windows in your house, you’ll suffocate. And we have too many suffocating sermons from the pulpit. So we need windows to get the light through. But you can’t build a sermon on windows alone. You need some windows. I think Billy Graham had a window, a story every seven or eight minutes to keep the audience captivated, but also to bring the light on the word. So one of the keys of gospel talk, we’ve given it another name since I’m back in France, it’s called Luter. It’s like a circle of people who are together to proclaim the gospel and one of the keys to captivate your audience anywhere in the world. I’ve seen it from Colombia to New Zealand to Finland and France. Wherever you go, whether you have very wealthy people or your stick somewhere in the bush of Africa, everyone responds to a story.

(08:16):
So one of the keys that I teach in these gospel talk sessions is I plead pastors and preachers and missionaries bring stories. I have here myself, hundreds of stories that I’ve cut out of newspapers, magazines, Christian calendars, and I use them. I use maybe two or three in a sermon, and I know that will really bang the nail. So then the truth, and also teach one truth at a time. There’s a Russian proverb that says if try to run after two rabbits, you would lose both of them. So run after one rabbit catch it. And that’s enough for a sermon.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:07):
Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to be disciplined to stick with just one idea. Can you share with us one of your favorite stories? You have hundreds. Give me one or two of your favorite gospel stories that you use.

Timothée Paton (09:23):
Yeah, there’s one I’ve used in many places, this little girl probably in France many years ago when trains were not very common and she heard about trains, she’d never seen a train, maybe a picture of a train. So she said to her, dad, dad, please take me some time to the train station. I know there are trains passing through every day. Please bring me there. So the dad took the little girl, she’s maybe nine years old, and took her to the train station and she was fascinated. She’d never seen a train before. Suddenly a train comes into the station and this very rough looking man surrounded by two policemen, handcuffed, comes out of the train and he’s about to be taken away by a police car. The little girl who’s a believer, she leaves, her dad runs to this man she’s never seen, of course, very terrifying face.

(10:36):
And she looks at him and she says, I’ve got something to tell you. And this man looks to the little girl and says, what do you have to say? And she says, Jesus loves you. She runs back to her dad. The dad is a bit surprised. The man gets into the police car and ends up in jail. And the words of that 9-year-old girl is like a broken record in his mind. Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you. She didn’t give a long sermon, but she brought the whole gospel in those few words, Jesus loves you. A few months later, he’s on his knees, in his cell, in his prison cell, and he cries out to God and he says, God, I need that love that I don’t have in my life. And he became a believer, the power of telling the truth in three words. Jesus loves you.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:38):
That’s a beautiful story. Let me tell you about what I’ve been doing with my stories. I’m like you, I like to collect stories. And so recently I’ve been recording some of my stories as 62nd YouTube short videos, and we’ve been putting them up on YouTube in order to build momentum with the algorithm on YouTube, we’re posting three videos every single day. And so each one is only 60 seconds, but each one is one story with one idea. And then at the end of it, I say, if you want to know more about Jesus, watch the video. I pin down below and I point like this on the video. And right there, there’s a place on YouTube where you can pin a video and it will take them to a longer session on how they can properly be saved. And so we’ve just been doing that the last two months and just this month we’ve had over 30,000 people watch these little stories.

(12:44):
And I think that’s just the very tip of the iceberg of what is possible because I have some friends on YouTube and they get a million views on one video. So you can imagine if you take a gospel story, 60 seconds, just share the story and then give people a quick opportunity to have something that impacts their lives. Just something simple like your story there. Jesus loves you and it can change their life. And so I think that you should go into your cupboard of hundreds of stories that you got there and record some of them so that they can impact more lives. Do them in both French and Spanish. French and English. And English. Yeah. I think there is not many things like that in French. So you will very quickly get a big following.

Timothée Paton (13:43):
Actually, I’ve given a second live to those illustration at a Christian radio called Far

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:51):
And

Timothée Paton (13:51):
Far Fem is in the francophone world.

(13:54):
It’s actually the fastest growing Christian radio in the world outside of the US I was told by the director, and it’s an amazing tool. There’s 16 people working full-time in the town of Ulus in France. And one day I said, look, I’ve got these stories. As you say, lying in those envelopes is hundreds of cuttings by theme Easter forgiveness mission, the cross give your life to Christ, which I’ve used for sermons. But I’ve said I will have to leave 400 years preaching those anecdotes and I don’t have 400 years, so I want to give him a second life. So every day, three times a day, they are broadcast. And as you say, it’s very short. It’s 75 seconds, one minute, 15 seconds. And it’s one idea, one story no more with a punchline, inviting people who are listening to the radio to actually respond to the love of Christ.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:01):
Wow. I wonder how many radio spots have you produced? I

Timothée Paton (15:08):
We’ve done 139.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:11):
Wow.

Timothée Paton (15:12):
And they are aired on this Christian radio, which can be heard anywhere in France, but also on the internet. And actually the Christian radio I find, which started 35 years ago as probably a gospel, Christian radio has become very a lot of teaching as if everyone in France was already a believer, it’s oh 0.5%. I’m like, when everyone is a believer, maybe we can put so much Christian content on the airwaves. But since France is mainly resistant to the gospel, they don’t know anything about the plan of salvation. I don’t want to broadcast anything else but the A, B, and C, I won’t even go into D and F. I just want to stick to those three letters. And I’m very happy that they take those one minute, 15 second Christian messages. And sometimes it seems to be like it’s a bit the odd and the odd one in the Christian radio, but actually it should be the other way. We should just be preaching the A, B, C till everyone gets the message.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:31):
Yeah, you are the evangelist. We need more good evangelists on Christian radio. And you actually have a book that you have written. The name of it is Leave the Shore’s. Tell us a little bit about why you chose that title and what someone can find in the book.

Timothée Paton (16:53):
Good. If you hold on, I’ll get you a copy. It’s right there on the shelf.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:04):
Yeah, I found the book on Amazon. And so when I post this podcast, I’m going to put a link to where someone can get a copy of the book. And is that one in French, the one you just showed me?

Timothée Paton (17:21):
Yeah, that’s the latest one in French.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:23):
And then I saw you also have it in English.

Timothée Paton (17:26):
It’s in English. Leave the shore. It’s seen about 20 languages. Some are not fully printed yet, and we just look for new languages and the publisher can keep all the money. The whole idea is to get it out, no copyright, no royalties. Our passion is to get people out of the shore into the deep end.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:51):
Wow. Alright. Well tell us a little bit about the book and the main message.

Timothée Paton (17:59):
Yeah, the book is a challenge to get believers away from the shore. Remember when Jesus met Peter for the first time, he was cleaning his nets. He was discouraged, the two men had never met, but Jesus tells him from Peter’s boat, get back into the boat, bring your nets and let’s cast the nets in the deep end. The deep end is anywhere in the world where people are still waiting to hear the gospel message. For the first time, two thirds of the world have had some knowledge of Christianity. But one third, that’s 2 billion people, not 2 million. It’s not an M, it’s a B. 2 billion people are waiting for the message of the gospel. What gets me sometime is that we translate the Bible in a new English version in a new French, in a new Spanish version with a better cover, with a nicer design.

(19:06):
I was just praying with my wife yesterday for the people of Maldive in the Indian Ocean, a place where people go on holiday. After 2000 years, only 25 books of the Bible have been translated 25 books out of 66 up to 2000 years. For me, it’s a disgrace, it’s an injustice. And maldive is the deep end and we are called to help those who are translating join the Wcl Bible translators who are in the deep end. They’ve left the shore of the us, Australia, maybe a nice place, and they’ve gone to the deep end to translate the Bible for those people who are still waiting for the complete old and New Testament. So for me, the deep end are those places in the world where people are still waiting and you can stay on the shore for the rest of your life going from one conference to another, enjoying Christian music the whole day, just casting your net on the shore, don’t cast your net on the shore, you’ll catch some shelves, maybe some dead fish.

(20:24):
No one is called to stay on the shore. We are called to get into the boat. And I want to speak to people who might have one foot in the boat and one foot on the shore get both feet in the boat. Jesus is not coming on the beach to meet you. He’s waiting for you to meet him in the boat and bring your nets. Everyone has a net. Everyone has gifts and talents. I speak on radio, but I wouldn’t know how to build the walls of an orphanage. In Africa, we have different nets. Use your nets. Don’t compare your net with someone else. Bring your nets, your gift, your talents. Don’t spend your life cleaning your nets. Some people say, when my life is better, when I’ve read the whole Bible, when I’ve been two years to Bible school, when my nets are just right, then I can join Jesus in the deep end of mission. Well, that’s not the way it works. Come with your weakness, with your struggles, with your past, with your difficulties. But by all means, bring your net. Don’t leave your net on the shore. Bring it with Jesus in the deep end.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:44):
Amen. That’s powerful. Let’s talk about the challenges and opportunities of ministering in France. Some people have said that Europe is now a post-Christian nation. I like to say no, it is a pre-Christian nation. It is wide open and ready for a new move of God. And I was watching the news just recently and it was so beautiful to see the ceremony where they reopened the Notre Dame Cathedral

Timothée Paton (22:22):
Because

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:22):
For hundreds of years, Notre Dame has been the symbol of Christianity in France. And it was so tragic when it burned down, but now they have restored it. And the Bible says that God makes all things new. And in some ways I see it as a prophetic picture that in the past Christianity was very strong in France and now not so much, but Satan has tried to destroy it. Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy. But Jesus says, I have come to give life and life more abundantly. And in the same way that Notre Dame has been rebuilt, I believe that God wants to rebuild the Church of France to be strong, to be full of the fire of the Holy Spirit, to see miracles once again to send out missionaries around the world. Once again, what do you see working on the ground? What are the great challenges? And then what do you see are the great opportunities that God has for not just France, but all of the Francophone countries, francophone Africa and other places around the world that have been so influenced by French culture?

Timothée Paton (23:46):
Well, interesting you mentioned Francophone Africa. I mean almost half of Africa speaks French.

(23:55):
I think the Africans coming from the Congo, from KaVo, from Cameroon, from Togo, Binna, Congo, they’re coming over to France 60 years after the independence. And most of them are strong believers in Jesus. So the churches in France have been shaken. I’m talking about many the Protestant, evangelical Pentecostal churches everywhere across the country are being blessed by very strong. They know what they believe. Sometimes the French Christians have only Christian as a name, but they don’t really know what they believe. They don’t really read the Bible. But those Africans, they know what they believe and they won’t give in and they won’t be afraid to stand up publicly for Jesus. And what’s very good, because in France there’s no way you can say anything about someone with dark skin that’s against the law. So the best thing is when you have thousands of Africans who’ve come to France and they go for the march for Jesus, which is once a year in Paris, Mar Ur, 90% of the crowd is made up of Africans who live in France and no one dares to say anything.

(25:20):
Being black in France is the best thing because you can have a black gospel choir singing the gospel, gospel music, black gospel music. It’s probably the best tool to reach French people. They might not believe in God, but they have a lot of respect for the Martin Luther King and the civil rights back in America. So when you have a gospel choir singing, it’s probably one of the best ways to reach French people. So I’m telling if you have a black gospel choir, whether you’re from Chicago, LA or Detroit, come over to France with your choir, you’ll be invited everywhere you will go where it’s difficult for me as a white man born in France to go. So there are great ways to reach the French people in rural France. It’s still very, very dark. I mean, yesterday my wife and I went back to where I was born, exactly to the day 52 years ago.

(26:34):
We went, it’s bang in the middle of France. It’s a little place called Ghana. You’ve got Ghana in West Africa and you’ve got Ghana as a little town right in the central of France. That’s where my parents started the ministry back in the early sixties. I was born there, but I was born again at the age of four in Ghana. So I went back memory lane yesterday with my wife and she’s very nice. She goes where I love to go back to, and she was born in Hong Kong, I was born in Ghana, but she comes to my world and I hope one day I can go to her world over there on the other side of Asia. But we went to this church, an old Catholic church a few miles away from Ghana. And I realized that not much has changed in a thousand years.

(27:30):
And I saw those leaflets on the way out, how to pray for the dead with the dead, how to have a better relationship with the Virgin Mary. And I said to myself, those rural places in France, which is a large section of the country, is still untouched with the message of the gospel. So I ran from my car, picked up a few gospels of John, slipped him in that church because we saw no Bible, no gospel. And that’s the way it is. In a lot of villages in France, people have a religion, but they don’t yet know the gospel. They’ve never read. Most French people have never opened the Bible. So we see great things. We see big churches. A new evangelical church is birthed every 10 days in France,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:29):
But

Timothée Paton (28:30):
France is big. France is almost 70 million people. It’s the largest country alongside Germany, the largest country in Europe. So it’s good news, a new church every 10 days. We don’t tell you those who close. But in rural France where we live, my wife and I since early January this year, we realized not much has changed. So if you want to leave the shore of America, bring your nets to places like Central France where people have a religion. There’s a Catholic church in every single village, but most people have no knowledge of the gospel. People are very suspicious. We went for a restaurant for my birthday yesterday. I always have a gospel in my pocket and I don’t just give it like that. I bring the price. I want people to realize the price of the booklet I’m giving them, and I gave it to the waiter on the way out when we paid.

(29:36):
We do pay missionaries, pay for the mill. And I said to her, this book is the oldest book in print. It’s almost 2000 years. In about 20 years time, this book will be 2000 years old. So that raises a little bit of interest. I say this is the most translated book in the whole world. People will do anything to get this book in some countries. And this book is part of a large book that my wife and I read every single day. We start the day with this book. So I don’t just give it as a gospel tract too quick,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:19):
You the value.

Timothée Paton (30:21):
I elevate the value. I want people to realize how precious this book is. But I could see on that woman’s face, there’s something on the faces of most French people when you give the gospel is very cautious. Don’t get me into your thing. Very, very aware of cults. I think the French people are more afraid of a cult and they think we belong to one of those than they are of the atomic bomb. So you can sit on their faces. So we need to pray for France and we need missionaries to come to those rural areas that have had Christianity, but not really the gospel.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (31:14):
Amen. Well, let’s take a moment right now to pray for France. Would you pray and let’s pray together and agree together for God to send missionaries and for France to come to Jesus.

Timothée Paton (31:29):
Yeah. Father, we thank you that you love this nation, A nation that has known revivals in the past. But we know that people like John Calvin, Jean Calva was born in France and others who brought the Bible back at the center of society. And we know that France centuries ago went through a genocide when the Protestants were either slotted by the millions in France or escaped to places like Switzerland, Holland, South Africa. Though we pray that the gospel would come back. People have had religion. People have seen a church in their village their whole life. Even when they walk through the doors of a church, they don’t always hear the salvation message. Lord, I pray that you will bring new workers to France. This nation is waiting to hear the true message that changes lives. Lord, the country is open. It’s easy to get in. And I pray that you’ll bring gospel choirs from America to tour across this nation singing the gospel. And I preferred missionaries to come in to learn the language and to love the French culture and to become French to win the French. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:14):
Amen. Powerful. Well, brother, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast. If someone is listening and they have a heart for France and they want to find out more about your ministry or maybe find your book or maybe support your ministry, I’m sure you need more support. What is your website? What is a good way for someone to find out more about you?

Timothée Paton (33:45):
Yeah, well my name, so www dot t mo Payton in one word, forget the accent. The English people will be happy about that. Timothy Peyton,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:59):
Can you spell it for those who are listening?

Timothée Paton (34:02):
Yeah. So Timothy OTE is T-I-M-O-T-H-E-E, Peyton, PATO n.com. And you can find the book and you can write. And if you do come to France, if you leave the shore with your net to France, you will never, never be out of a job. People are waiting and people want to hear the gospel, but they want to see a demonstration as well. They want to see signs and wonders. And I have a feeling, and I just finished, I was just telling my wife when I saw the look on the face of the waitress yesterday, I said to myself, what about if I had given her a word of knowledge, personal word from God? And that’s what we need. We need signs and wonders. We need the gifts of the spirit to shake the unbelief of the French people.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:03):
Amen. Well, may it be so I pray that God would raise up mighty missionaries and ministers and people who are filled with the Holy Spirit have all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, words of knowledge, miracles, signs, and wonders. In Jesus’ name.

Timothée Paton (35:19):
Amen. Amen. Thank you.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:22):
Well, thank you brother so much for speaking with me on the Evangelism podcast. It is so wonderful. I love your heart. I love what you’re doing. It’s so beautiful to see and how you’re continuing on the mission that God gave your parents and now you and your wife are doing it. It’s so beautiful to see. Thank

Timothée Paton (35:42):
You. Thank you. See you soon. See you in France.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:46):
Yes sir.

Timothée Paton (35:46):
Anytime.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:49):
Bye-Bye.

Subscribe to The Evangelism Podcast on Apple iTunes

Listen to The Evangelism Podcast on Spotify

Subscribe to The Evangelism Podcast on Google Podcasts

Listen to The Evangelism Podcast on Amazon Audible

The Evangelism Podcast is also available oniHeartRadio