The following is from an email that our teammate, Kevin Blume, sent out tonight. I think that this will give you an idea of the kinds of things we are doing in Porto Alegre to reach out to people. When Kevin has pictures of this dinner I will post them for you to see.
In our house church we have been emphasizing the importance of sharing the Good News with our friends and family. One of the reasons our mission team felt led to move from a more traditional church type setting (meeting once a week in a big building) to a network of house churches (meeting in homes three times per month with a big celebration, with all of the house churches together, the last Sunday of every month) was because in our 5 years of being here we rarely saw any one attracted to the big worship style, big events (bring a friend day, etc.) or big building. People might come for a big, well marketed event but would rarely, if ever, step back into the church building. But, when we opened up our homes for cook-outs, suppers, watching soccer games, going to or playing soccer games, etc and invited our not yet Christian friends they would usually show up. The people in our city have a fear of something that looks and feel "churchy" to them. Our team saw these things and realized that the Spirit was asking us to change what we were doing to meet the people where they are and show them Christ in our everyday lives.
Our team has adopted a saying of 'Stop asking God to bless what you are doing and start doing what He is blessing.' We are applying this throughout our various house churches.
Our house church is made up of people from Uruguay, Bolivia, Honduras and obviously Brasil and the United States. It's fun to listen to our group get together for any event (house church, small group, cook-out, whatever) because you will almost always hear conversations in English, Spanish or Portuguese. We have bi-racial, bi-country and bi-lingual couples. It really is a mixture of God's family. Building on this unique situation, we have decided to have an International dinner that will be a Matthew party. If you remember the story in the gospels, Matthew, immediately after leaving his tax collection booth and following Jesus, invited his lost friends to a dinner the very night he met Jesus to break bread with this unique man. He wanted to share this exciting person with all of his friends.
This is what we are planning for tomorrow night. Each family will bring a dish from their country of origin and a friend. We told our house church that you would not be allowed to come in if you didn't bring food and a guest. Okay, so maybe we didn't read that part in the Bible but it helps us, in a lighthearted but serious way remind ourselves that this is an evangelism supper. Let's just say that Benay is worried about having enough space in our home. What a great problem to have.
As of right now, we already have commitments from a lady from Peru, a family from Germany as well as Russia. The kids have also been inviting their friends. We are teaching and learning together that church is the people and not the place. What better way to introduce our not yet Christian friends to Christ than a very informal supper together. To be honest, most of our friends who have made a decision for Christ since we've been here were introduced to Him through a supper, soccer game, our kids, etc. It's good to be reminded that everyone can and should evangelize, and this supper will be a non threatening way for our church family to do it.
I know that when these people come and are a part of our group they will want to come back. I believe that. The Spirit of God moves strongly in our house church. We laugh all the time and we love being Christ to new people and to each other.
We ask that you pray for our supper tomorrow night. That those who don't know Christ will be introduced (through actions, words and observing) to him. We ask that you pray for this to be a good first or second step, towards Christ, in the lives of those who will be here with us.
We will try to post photos sometime in the next few days.
Thank you in advance for your strong prayers for this dinner, our family and this ministry here in Porto Alegre.
Peace in Christ,
Kevin
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