Sample Personality Profile/Feature

Several have asked for a model of a personality feature, so I'm posting here one which I just wrote for the next issue of FGBC World. It's about 640 words long.

Griffiths and Molliards to Initiate a New Ministry in France

After 40 years in the printing business as employee, manager, owner, and CEO, Michel Molliard is embarking on a new venture with Grace Brethren missionaries Dave and Sue Griffith to expand God’s work through the Grace Brethren in France.

Molliard, 59, retired in 2007 from his business, and is now serving his second two-year term as president of the Union of French Grace Brethren Churches, which he helped co-found in 1985. He and his wife, Dominique, have been married for 34 years and are parents of four young adults, the youngest of which is 21.

Molliard became a believer in Jesus Christ at age 30. He says he was going through an “existential depression” and went to a doctor for a prescription. The doctor, who was a believer, treated him, but also witnessed to his faith.

The doctor’s wife, who was in the habit of inviting CEOs of local businesses for dinner, invited Molliard and his family to dinner, and also invited an evangelist, who gave a presentation of the gospel. About three months later, Molliard committed his life to Christ.

As a new believer, he knew he needed to learn more about the Bible. Shortly thereafter he met Grace Brethren International Missions’ Kent Good. “I want to be trained to serve God and to be an evangelist,” he told Good.

Good could hardly believe his ears. He had been praying for a year for someone to train. “You are the answer,” he told the burly French businessman.

So Molliard became part of a group that was trained in the Bible and mission at the Chateau St. Alban. Missionaries Tom Julien and Kent Good were directing a four-year training program at the time. Molliard committed to the training, completed it, and became an elder in the Grace Brethren church at Chalon in 1983. Several years later he helped co-found the Union of French Grace Brethren churches.

Dave and Sue Griffith relocated this summer to the town of Tournus, just north of the Chateau St. Albain, where they and the Molliards will join together to initiate a new ministry.

There are currently six established Grace Brethren churches in France. Dijon is in the north and Lyon is in the south. In between, clustered around the chateau, are four smaller churches.

The Griffiths and the Molliards were seeking God about the best place to launch a new ministry that would enable those four churches to pool their resources, share talent, and join together in a renewed evangelism and outreach effort.

They went to three towns, praying on each site. All four individuals agreed that Tournus should be the place. So they made a recommendation which was submitted to the French ministerium and also to GBIM, as represented by GBIM regional director Paul Klawitter.

The French ministerium includes 17 elders who meet once a quarter. In addition, they have an annual congress of churches, which is held annually on Ascension Day in May at the chateau and is attended by about 200 people.

How can Grace Brethren churches and people pray for this new effort in France?

Molliard asks for prayer that his family and the Griffiths be effective as a team, with good personal chemistry. In addition, they ask for wisdom in developing momentum for evangelism among the French churches in the region, as part of their goal is to help mobilize existing Christians. They also desire to help reinvigorate the chateau ministry and the four churches around it.

Florent Varak, pastor of the Lyon church, explains that the chateau will welcome a Word of Life team this fall so the chateau may be used as an evangelistic base for youth ministry. The projected plan is to hold yearly camps in the month of August.

“We need humble hearts and a willingness to cooperate,” says Molliard. “We all want to see this.”


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