The Southern Cone of Brazil
The Southern Cone is a geographic region in South America located east of the Andes Mountains and south of the Tropic of Capricorn that encompasses Argentina, Uruguay and Southern Brazil. It’s people are primarily of European descent and are considered to be mostly least-reached.
Southern Brazil’s culture is distinctively unique in Brazil. This is due to the heavy influx of Italian and German immigrants into the region in the 19th century. It is also the region that boasts the highest percentage of Atheist and Agnostics, similar to Uruguay and Argentina.
A Very Full Week of Ministry!
It has been an incredibly full week of ministry here in Porto Alegre:
- Catalyst Community #1: We led a 3 day Catalyst Community that was inspirational, informative, and life changing for many of the pastors in attendance. Catalyst Community #1 focuses on leadership development, because the number one hindrance to starting new churches is not having enough leaders!
- Bethany Denominational Training: I was also invited to train pastors from the Bethany denomination in Porto Alegre. The training focussed on being intentional at apprenticing new leaders in their churches. We can’t tell people how to do ministry, we have to engage them in a relational process and show them. It requires life on life, it requires time, and it models how Jesus trained the disciples.
- Local Church Leadership Team: Our Catalyst Community was hosted by my friend Matteos and his church. What an amazing team they have! I had the opportunity to train their team on developing a culture of leadership multiplication. Matteos has a big dream to start new churches, and it is going to require his team to train up new leaders in each of their ministry areas.
This is actually a two week trip. Next week we will be in Floranopolis, Brazil to do it all over again! Pray for us.
A Glimpse of What Happened at CC#1
- We had leaders from 8 churches in attendance. When we combined their two year strategic plans at the end of t1he week we had a community goal to multiply that to 53 new churches in 2 years! Pray for their God sized dreams!
- One of the leaders from our host church came up to me and shared that God had touched his heart this week. He knew that God was calling him to start a new church! We celebrated and talked about next steps.
- One of the hindrances to raising up leaders is overcoming the fear that they might be better than you are. One pastor confessed he had intentionally held leaders back and suppressed the opportunities they were given for this very reason. He is now committed to training those leaders to be the best they can be and releasing them to lead.
- An older pastor at the conference made the decision to spend his time training up younger men to take over for him. He committed to apprenticing 3 leaders to become pastors in the next 2 years. He would give one of them his church and start two new churches with the others. His role would then transition to mentoring those 3 pastors.
Let’s Meet July 17th at 9AM
One of our primary goals with Catalyst Community is to create a sense of community among the various churches in attendance. When churches are willing to work together as a network, in spite of their denomination differences, they can accomplish so much more for the Kingdom of God. The pastors here this week felt that sense of community, and they wanted to develop it!
They were intrigued with the idea that they could keep their denominational identity and still work together as a network. They began talking about specific communities that they wanted to reach and how they could collaborate to start new churches together there. Some of the churches in their 2 year community dream are collaborative efforts! So what’s next for these guys? They are meeting July 17th to keep the momentum going and to continue to explore how they can accomplish more for the Kingdom of God by working together.
“What You Do Is So Important!”
Several times this week I was told, “Matt, what you do is so important for us.” Our team was able to inspire, equip, activate faith, and create community! IT WAS VERY IMPORTANT!
I received that message, but now I pass it on to you. WHAT YOU DO IN SUPPORTING THIS MINISTRY IS SO IMPORTANT. I get to see and experience it first hand! We give hope to struggling pastors, we remind them why they do what they do, we renew their call to mission, we give them a community of pastors to do it with, and we equip them with the tools they need to start and accelerate church planting movements. It’s truly amazing what WE (you and me) get to be a part of through Taking New Ground!
THANK YOU!
