Porto Alegre/Inter-Nation Coming Unglued!

I have written in the past about the 2 professional soccer clubs that are in Porto Alegre; Grêmio and Sports Club Internacional. Today, in Japan, SC Internacional won the FIFA Club World Cup against Barcelona! That means that they are the best team in the world (out of all the club teams-and there are a ton)! Barcelona has been considered the team to beat for quite some time. They have a lot of talent and experience and, not to mention, the best player in the world - Ronaldinho.

Today, however, belonged to Inter-Nation! I have been a fan on Internacional since before we moved to Porto Alegre (for over 5 years). To see this happen is really something special. When the game ended, the city came unglued! People have been shouting and running in the streets! All of the car horns and firecrackers make it seem like we are in a war zone. It is crazy!

Anyway, I just thought that I would give you a little cultural blurb today. I wouldn't expect the celebration to lighten up anytime soon; even with the 100 degree weather we are expecting. The celebration actually started last night (just because we were playing in the game). Every 15 minutes or so throughout the night we heard fireworks and firecrackers going off. It was a lot of fun for Elisa (sense the sarcasm)!

Transitioning in Faith

Our church family is in a time of transition. A little over a year ago our team started coming to the point where we realized that some changes needed to be made in our ministries in order to not only reach out to the "not-yet" Christians of the Porto Alegre area in a more effective way, but to leave a self-sufficient, growing and maturing church family. In September of last year we started researching different ways to minister to the people of this city. After several months of prayer and research we made a unified decision to put all of our emphasis on our small groups. We call our small groups Growth Groups. The reason for this name is that they are designed to grow! They are evangelistic groups. Our decision to put our emphasis on our groups goes a huge step further. We have been in a transition to move our evangelistic Growth Groups to a point where they can become House Churches.

Our small groups, or Growth Groups, have really been a great blessing to our Christian family in Porto Alegre. The Lord has chosen to use these groups to knock down the walls and barriers that exist between the "lost" and His family. In our time of study and prayer we have seen the Lord bringing us back to His church in the 1st century. We really want to take a step forward by looking at what the early Christians did in homes. We believe that the Lord has given us a vision that will allow His word to be taken to all people in Porto Alegre.

This past Sunday (December 3rd) Kevin, Paul and I shared our vision with our church family. With God's grace and our trusting in His guiding we will give more people the opportunity to have a relationship with Christ than we ever thought possible. Below is my part of the 3 part sermon that Kevin, Paul and I gave. I hope that it helps you understand a little bit about where we are coming from.

When Jesus chose his first disciples, he chose several fishermen. He said to them, “Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men…” In the year 2000, our mission team, had this commandment in mind when we decided to come to Porto Alegre and start a church. We wanted, and still want, to be fishers of men. This is a task that all of us should take seriously – bringing other people to a relationship with Christ. So today, we want to use this analogy of fishing to explain to you where our church has been and where we want to go in the future.

There are two common ways to fish. One way is with a pole, line, hook and bait. The object here would be to put the bait on the hook, hang it in the water and hope that a fish is attracted to the bait, takes a bite and gets stuck on the hook. This way of fishing demonstrates the way that our church has tried to “fish” up to this point. We have tried to attract people to our church and a relationship with Christ. How do you make a church attractive to people? You have a nice, comfortable building, quality worship services, diverse activities for all ages, special events, a relaxed, comfortable environment, etc. During these last three years, we have worked hard to implement these types of programs and activities, trying to attract more and more people. Many events brought large crowds to the building, but few of those people ever came back.

In 2005, after the 2^nd anniversary of the Igreja de Cristo do Sul, we began to take a look at the results of our 1^st two years of existence here in Porto Alegre. We had done various special events like Friend’s Day, Kid’s Day, Women’s retreats, Youth retreats, Men’s retreats, Lets Start Talking, and VBS. Literally thousands of people entered our building through these events, and five people became Christians because of these activities. Today, only one of these people continues to come to this church. However, in this same time, people also became Christians not because of the special events, but because of their relationships with members of this church. In the end of 2005, there were 17 new brothers that became Christians because their friends or family talked to them about Jesus. Today, eleven of these people continue to come to this church. While we were happy because of the growth or progress that was made, we felt that God wanted and continues to want all of us to allow Him to do much more to reach the lost of this city through each one of us. We began to look for reasons for this slow progress. We could say that the people in Rio Grande do Sul are more resistant. They don’t open up their lives easily to new things. One thing that we began to realize is that many people here don’t feel a need for a “church” and so they aren’t even looking for one. The fish, so to speak, aren’t even hungry for the bait that’s in the water. However, we do see that people are hungry for something in their lives. They are searching for answers and we know that those answers are found in Jesus.

So, we began to think. We began to look at the way that we were “fishing”. We began to question “Is this the only way to establish a church here in Porto Alegre?” “Could there be a better way?” We began to study about the reasons that we do the things that we do and research other ways to “fish”. We prayed, and asked God to lead us and give us courage to make changes, if they needed to be made. We also have asked you to read and study the first example of church that we have in the book of Acts, and to pray for God to give you a vision of what this church could be in the future. In the meeting last month, you said that you wanted to see more emphases in the Lord’s Supper, more flexibility in the hours of activities, and more training for Brazilian leadership. Someone said, you have noted that we grow through prayer and that the church needs to have less religion and more spiritual flexibility. It needs to be a church that doesn’t depend on American funds and that it needs to better use its own resources. It needs to utilize more vehicles to promote unity like sports, theatre and music. You said that church can happen in a house or in any location. You said that we need to have a clearer purpose.

We want you to know that we have listened very carefully to you and have used your suggestions, along with our own experiences and study to come up with a new plan for this church. Above all, we want you to know that we feel the leading of the Holy Spirit in our decisions. Making changes takes courage, and we don’t take our responsibility as leaders lightly. We have prayed that God would lead us and he has and we continue to pray that you will have open and receptive hearts to the new vision that we are going to share with you today.