The new representative starts each conversation with an unusual question.
Gaetan Roy goes to the United Nations building in Geneva with an unusual question: “How can I serve you?”
Roy is not a waiter or a salesperson but the new representative from the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) to the UN. Ever since he first got involved in politics, this is the question he’s led with. Back in 2015, when he went to the German parliament to lobby on behalf of evangelical organizations, he couldn’t get the words of Mark 10:45 out of his mind: I have come to serve, not to be served.
So Roy asked the first politician he met on his first day, “How can I serve you?” He’s continued asking it ever since.
“I thought this was really simple, but I felt God was unrelenting in this regard,” Roy told CT. “If Jesus came to serve and not to be served, then I will do the same by asking diplomats and politicians we engage with how we can serve them.”
With this question, Roy has become one of the primary evangelical voices at the world’s largest intergovernmental organization, speaking on behalf of 600 million believers in more than 120 countries. He takes over from Michael Mutzner, who helped establish the WEA’s office at the UN in 2012, and joins Wissam al-Saliby, director of the WEA’s Geneva office. Al-Saliby focuses on public statements about human rights violations while Roy works behind the scenes, brokering deals and developing official proposals for the UN representatives to consider.
Whether he’s promoting peace in Nigeria or working with the Coalition for Minority Rights in India, Roy said he hopes service will lead the way as he represents evangelical concerns and advances the cause of religious freedom for all.
If Roy’s approach …
