Lessons from Brazil - Part 5

Tuesday

This was our final full day in Brazil and we were going to meet with our last church in Penalva. The four of us in our group from AL had a pretty good feeling about the church in Turiacu where we spent Monday. So, going to Penalva, I did not have huge expectations. My mind was fairly settled that we would be in Turiacu.

Well, if God didn’t go and mess up my plans with his sovereign, perfect plan : ) The bottom line is that by the time we were ready to leave Penalva that night we had a complete change of heart and decided to partner with the church there instead of Turiacu. Proverbs 16:9 was at it again. I am so thankful for God’s grace in gently leading me where He wants me to go. And I am also thankful for the guys with me who displayed wisdom and discernment in helping me see God’s path. God is so cool.

Well, here is how it all unfolded.

Tuesday morning we drove into Penalva and had lunch at a local bar-b-cue place. And by the way the food there was really good! I am such a picky eater and turn green at the smell of mayonnaise that I was deathly afraid of what we would be eating on this trip. But the food was fantastic! The strangest things we ate were chicken hearts and cow tongue. They were not that bad! I have definitely had worse at my high school cafeteria.

After lunch we had a few hours to kill before our meeting with the leaders of the church, so some of us decided to explore the city on foot. Let me take this opportunity to say that the weather was really nice. Now, everyone that knows me knows that I am happiest in arctic conditions, but considering we were only a few miles from the equator I was pretty comfortable. It was hot during the day, but in the afternoon there was a refreshing breeze blowing. And at night, I am almost ashamed to say, but we had A/C in our rooms. It was awesome.

Anyway, walking around the city gave us a chance to really get a feel for the people there. Everyone was curious about us. When kids would come up to us they would always start laughing. I was about to get a complex until someone told us that they have never seen or heard people from the US. Not only is our skin lighter, but we talk funny. I felt a little better knowing it wasn’t just my fat belly and balding head.

Also, it is not a good idea to call ourselves “Americans.” I don’t remember all the reasons we were told but it has something to do with the fact that SOUTH America does actually exist as a continent and they don’t appreciate the seemingly arrogant assumption that we own the exclusive right to the “American” label.

After walking for a couple of hours we got ready for our meeting with the pastors. Going into this meeting I was still thinking about the church at Turiacu. (I love typing “Turiacu” and I really love saying “Turiacu” pronounced ‘tuhr-ee-ah-soo’… try it you’ll like it too) I decided to be respectful and attentive in the meeting and let the other guys from Florida ask all the questions since they would probably choose this church.

But as soon as the introductions began and these lay leaders and their pastor began to share their hearts for Christ and the work there, my heart began to soften. I was truly amazed at what God was doing with people who had such a passion and zeal for God but none of the resources we have here.

We learned that this church had actually been around for 30 years (I think!). They had their own building, which was very nice. And they even had 5 preaching points they were involved in. A preaching point is what we would call a church plant. They had people in the church go into the surrounding villages and start sharing the gospel. Eventually they would start meeting in someone’s home teaching a Bible study.

They have FIVE of them! That is crazy cool.

They have a children’s ministry and youth ministry and a women’s ministry.

After a little while I started wondering why we were even meeting with them. I mean we could probably learn a thing or two from them.

Then we realized. They don’t know the Bible. They are faithful to Christ, but they have never been discipled or trained. One of the preaching points was being led by a woman… a young woman… a teenager. She was 19 years old. She said she was teaching the study because there were no more available men in their church to do it. The people in her group were asking all sorts of questions about salvation, and she wanted to help them. So, she took her concordance and found every reference to being saved she could find and they would read those verses. That’s all she knew to do.

Here was a church was was practicing evangelism but had no one to help them grow in Christlike maturity.

After this meeting we walked through the town again with our whole group. Ken, Andy, Chad and I got to talking and we all agreed that this church had tugged on our hearts. We decided to strongly consider this place and to pay close attention during the worship service at the church to see how we could help these people.

God was changing our direction again… to Him be the glory! We went into that worship service really excited about the potential of this church. As we evaluated the needs of the church with the resources and abilities we four have and our churches have to offer, this seemed like a great fit.

And then… my sinful nature tried to take over.

All week I had been praying for humility. I had been trying to be submissive to the LORD’s leading. I had been trying to be Christlike.

But when the service started, all of that went out the window. My arrogant, condescending, self-righteousness took over and I started judging this church.

I was judging the heart of the pastor. I was judging the sincerity of the people as they sang. I was judging the little girls who were dancing during the service.

My desire to evaluate turned sinful and I was seeking to condemn this church simply because I didn’t think they were holy enough.

When the service was over and our group was comparing notes. We all saw the same things, and while I certainly cannot judge what was in the hearts of my cohorts, we were all seeing the same things. And it just didn’t seem like the pastor was interested in being there. The people seemed relatively unresponsive in worship.

After such a great meeting in the afternoon, this was a downer.

We didn’t want to overreact, so we decided to sleep on it. We didn’t have too much time though because Richie was hoping we could give him an answer before we left Brazil.

That night the grace of Christ rescued me again. Thank you, LORD! I was so convicted over my judgmental heart. Instead of seeing their need and being heart-broken over it, I judged them for not being holy enough to deserve my love and effort. Ugh! God reminded me that this is why He sent us here. This church needs the gospel. Oh sure, people are getting saved by the gospel, but they need to be taught how to live by the gospel; how to reproduce godliness; how to grow into Christlikeness.

Jesus said He came for the sick. And here I am acting like I am so much holier than these ‘sick’ people.

I repented of my arrogance and pleaded for God’s mercy.

The next morning at breakfast we were discussing the situation. We HAD to decide something. And it is so cool how God works. The night before we all had our reservations for different reasons, but by the morning God had made it clear to all of us that Penalva was the place for us. We knew it. We were unanimous and excited in that that decision.

As we each shared our thoughts and how we arrived at this decision, it was so cool to see that God showed each of us the same thing: This church has need that our group of churches is uniquely qualified to meet. And He gave us a passion to meet their needs.

The bottom line is that we are committing to partner with the church in Penalva for the next 3-5 years. We will send a team at least 2 times a year. We will focus our efforts on training the church there to reproduce itself. Our goal is to see Brazilians reaching Brazilians with the gospel. Our primary goal is not to send evangelistic teams that will do all the evangelizing. If we only send teams to evangelize their community, then we will actually stunt the growth of the church. Their greatest need is for us to help them be a New Testament church. So that’s what we will do.

And by making this kind of investment in missions, we will see a greater long term return in the growth of the Kingdom.