Annie and I consider ourselves to be incredibly blessed to be a part of what God is doing in Brazil. Like I shared in our last update, we are finally starting to get some traction as we work towards planting churches in Brazil and in South America. For the last two years, we have worked with our incredible friends here to lay the groundwork for future growth.
At times, it has seemed like there was nothing happening. That is always the nature of laying a foundation. Foundations are not sexy and they are not glamorous. Without a proper foundation, though, growth is not going to be healthy or sustainable.
In this post, I wanted to give you some of the nitty-gritty of church planting and missions. The ministry trips and conferences are awesome but what about the rest of the time? First of all, we are on staff of C3 Church, Curitiba. I am one of the pastors and the church treasurer. I make sure the bills get paid and the money is properly administrated. The church gives us a small offering each month which helps but would not be nearly enough to live on.
Annie and I lead a connect group. We have a number of great small groups in the church. Ours is an English speaking group. We have five young couples that are a part of our group. I also do some specific teaching throughout the year that is open to everyone. I just finished a four week study on Paul’s letter to the Romans.
I have the privilege of working very closely with Pastor Ronald as we plan the services and events at C3 Curitiba. I am also part of the preaching team and get to speak at least once a month. Annie and I are also working very closely with our new campus in Curitiba. Pastors Erick and Vanessa have a great core team of three other couples. We are there for encouragement, coaching, occasional preaching, and anything else they might need. C3 Ecoville meets on Saturday nights so we are there on Saturday and at C3 Curitiba on Sunday nights.
One of the biggest needs that we are addressing in Brazil is the lack of good leadership
resources in Portuguese. The C3 Church Global website is full of incredible articles, courses, and other helpful materials. The problem is that everything is in English. We have taken some of their resources and many that we have written ourselves and translated them into Portuguese. We have spent a lot of time in this process of creating new resources and translating existing ones.
Within the next month, a C3 Brazil website should be up and running. We will load these materials on there for our pastors and provide information for churches that might be looking for a relationship with C3 Church. Some of the stuff that we will be making available are a First Steps Class for new believers, Connect Group leader’s training, and various other leadership courses. We will make available both written materials and videos that have been sub-titled in Portuguese.
Please continue to pray for us as we seek to serve the Church in Brazil. At the end of May, C3 Church, Santos, will be planting a new C3 Church just outside of São Paulo. A great young couple, Sidnei and Raquel, are going to be leading that new church and we are so excited for them. We will be up there for the launch! There is also another small church in Recife, in Northeastern Brazil that we are working with. They want to connect with us and become a C3 Church. I was up there with Pastor Ronald last year. Annie and I will be traveling back to Recife later this year.
As always, your prayers and financial support mean so much to us. Thank you for your love for us and for caring about what God is doing in South America. If you would like to get involved, just click here. Obrigado!
