In front of the Municipal Market
Baptist church in Sao Paulo
The Jehovah Witnesses
With Flat Stanley
Yesterday I returned, along with eleven others, from the Kentucky Baptist Convention's (KBC) Sao Paulo, Brazil vision trip. The purpose of the trip was to educate and connect KBC churches with opportunities in Brazil. We worked with International Mission Board (IMB) missionaries and Brazilian Baptist churches. Here are four observations I learned from one week in Sao Paulo:
1). The city is huge. Spread out, 20+ million residents, and diverse. The opportunities are limitless in any part of the city. There's never a shortage of people. The IMB missionaries said there's a need for 1,300+ new churches. Overwhelming is an understatement.
2). Sao Paulo has major challenges. The housing is dense - apartments everywhere - favelas taking over the city. Poverty, crime, gangs, and drugs all go together and Sao Paulo is no exception.
3). The IMB mission team is small. There are five "units" for 20+ million people - about fifteen people are trying to be a catalyst for reaching the city. This is where the partnership with KBC churches comes in. Basically, the laborers are few.
4). The city is lost. Brazilians love Jesus, but the picture of Christ they think of is different than the Scriptures. One of the IMB workers described it aptly as "peeling off the layers to get to the real Jesus." Roman Catholicism is entrenched in their culture. I found the people to be open to discussing spiritual topics, but Biblical Christianity can easily be included with the mixture of religious beliefs.
1). The city is huge. Spread out, 20+ million residents, and diverse. The opportunities are limitless in any part of the city. There's never a shortage of people. The IMB missionaries said there's a need for 1,300+ new churches. Overwhelming is an understatement.
2). Sao Paulo has major challenges. The housing is dense - apartments everywhere - favelas taking over the city. Poverty, crime, gangs, and drugs all go together and Sao Paulo is no exception.
3). The IMB mission team is small. There are five "units" for 20+ million people - about fifteen people are trying to be a catalyst for reaching the city. This is where the partnership with KBC churches comes in. Basically, the laborers are few.
4). The city is lost. Brazilians love Jesus, but the picture of Christ they think of is different than the Scriptures. One of the IMB workers described it aptly as "peeling off the layers to get to the real Jesus." Roman Catholicism is entrenched in their culture. I found the people to be open to discussing spiritual topics, but Biblical Christianity can easily be included with the mixture of religious beliefs.
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