Lessons from Brazil - Part 2

After the LORD humbled my heart and gave me ears to hear, what I experienced Saturday made the whole trip worthwhile. Here’s how it happened…

We arrived in Cururupu Friday night. This was going to be our staging area for the next two days before we set off on a whirlwind tour of Maranhao searching for churches to partner with. This night we were able to sit in on the last night of one Richie’s seminary classes for the local pastors there.

ASIDE: Richie Allen is the missionary we were working with. He started LINC-UP missions in order to help churches in the states partner directly with churches in Brazil. It is a fascinating model and seems to be very effective. He works in cooperation with the IMB although he is not funded by them. One of his primary works is to train the local pastor in Bible study and theology. This Friday he was teaching them about expository preaching… and locative prepositions in Greek.

Friday, night was our first chance to see the local church worship. I was too busy taking in all the sights and sounds to really focus on God. LORD, forgive me! This night my mind was more analytical and scientific. I was too busy processing information to notice what was really going on.

That night we were all so tired from all the traveling that we just went straight to sleep without any real reflection. Besides Saturday was going to be a busy day.

Saturday morning we rose early, took a cold shower, ate a breakfast consisting of fruit, and a cheese and bologna sandwich… and NO tap water! Richie repeatedly harped on how dangerous the water was to drink. By God’s grace, the lady who owned our hotel also owned a store across the street where we were able to buy cold, bottled water every day. I had $50 worth of spending money which converted to about 85 reiz (pronounced hay-eye). I think I spent every bit of it on bottled water. I must be half camel.

Anyway, we started off to a little town to see a very interesting church. This church was startes some years ago by another missionary. He quickly had 40 converts and they started building a place for them to gather. The missionary solicited money from churches in the US and scheduled teams to come and help construct this new building. Well, when the money ran out and the missionary moved on all this church had was four half-built walls with no floor, no roof, and no doors or windows. For years this group of people had no understanding of how to finish the job.

Fast forward to Richie’s arrival. When he found this struggling church they only had two people who remained from the original missionary’s work. Richie began the long, difficult process of discipling the leader and helping them build the church… not the building, the CHURCH. Riche taught them how to evangelize the lost and make disciples. He told them they did not need to depend on US money and resources. They started growing and working.

When we arrived last week, the building had been completed. They did it themselves with just a little bit of help from outside churches. They raised the money. Most importantly, Joal, the pastor who had been one of the two to persevere through the lean years, had grown his church spiritually. When we asked them how we could help them, his answer was, “Help us grow in God’s word.” They didn’t want our money. They didn’t want us to do their work of evangelizing their community. They wanted us to finish the great commission, teaching them to obey all that God has taught us in his word.

Here is what I learned: Finishing the great commission is just as important as starting it.

Every mission trip I have been on has been very short-sighted and focused on spreading the gospel to as many people as possible in a short time. This is not bad at all! But this is only the beginning of the great commission. Jesus gave the great commission to the church, and in Southern Baptist polity that means the local church. So, it is each church’s responsibility to obey all of the great commission. Sending money to the cooperative program is essential. Sending mission teams to spread the gospel to people who have not heard it is essential. But this is where most churches end the great commission. We need to finish the great commission. We start strong, but we end weak.

If the Church in Brazil is going to survive past one generation then we must make disciples teaching them to grow up in their faith and do all that God commands in his word. We must train Brazilians to reach Brazilians. We must train their pastors to preach the word. We must help them disciple their children. We must finish the great commission.

I will have more on the really cool happenings of Sunday night in tomorrow’s post.