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REVIVAL EVANGELISM |
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Revival in
Brazil
Thousands of people becoming Christians every day. Magazines, TV
broadcasts and Newspaper commenting about the growth of the Church. Social
changes starting to happen through the church. There are more evangelical
Christians in Brazil today than in all of Europe (source: Friday Fax - friday_fax@ibm.net). How did it start? How can this experience be an encouragement for other
countries? This is what we share in this article. Brazil was colonized by Portugal, and the Catholic Church arrived with the first Portuguese expedition in 1500. With the growth of this church Brazil was considered the country with the largest Catholic population in the world. Concerned with the growing poverty and social unbalance of the
population, the Catholic leaders became strongly involved with social and
political matters. Their speech became increasingly philosophical, and the
Word of God was not preached anymore by most of them. The motto
"Option for the Poor" was very well known, emphasizing the
efforts of the Catholic leaders towards the social needs of the country.
However, political and ideological discourses from the pulpit were not
able to feed people's hearts. Thousands of people started leaving the
Church every year to Spiritism, New Age cults, or to go nowhere. The Reformed Church arrived in Brazil about 140 years ago, through historical denominations like Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist. For many years they faced very strong opposition from the Catholics. After 65 years, the Pentecostals arrived through the Assemblies of God, and had a phenomenal growth mainly amongst the poor population. It was ironic that the poor people being reached were mostly those who had left the Catholic Church. With the poor population attending the Pentecostal churches, and the historical denominations reaching mainly middle-class people, there was a gap for those who had difficulties coping with the formalism of the traditional churches, and the legalism of the Pentecostal denominations. In the midst of this scenario, the "independent" churches, or fellowships appeared. With a very lively worship style, a fresh vision and a light and flexible structure, they attracted a great flow of people coming from traditional churches and unbelievers who were converted.
Visiting Brazil with some British leaders few years ago, I was asked:
"Do you think that what is happening in Brazil today is
revival?" I understand the reason for their question. They saw how
the country is struggling with social and moral issues. Being there, if
you turn the TV on, you see that pornography is a big problem, and New age
is growing alongside the growth of the Church. Therefore if you consider
the traditional definition of revival, perhaps we will find difficult to
fit it to the Brazilian scenario. There is not a general awareness of sin
amongst society, and we still don't have a great impact of Jesus'
personality upon the whole community. When we talk about past revivals, usually we have a date, a place and the name of someone related to it. We say "The Welsh Revival of 1904, started at Moriah Chapel, with Evan Roberts", or "The Lewis Revival of 1949, started in Barvas, with Duncam Campbel". But when we talk about what God is doing in countries like Brazil, Korea, Argentina and many African countries, it's difficult to find a specific date, place or someone's name for that. We can just say things like: "In the last 15 years approximately, the Church in Brazil has been growing faster." There is a process going on in these countries. The churches over there
are changing, there is a progressive response to the work of the Holy
Spirit, and God is saving the people. About 10 years ago we began to have amongst Brazilian churches the same manifestations of the Holy Spirit that we have been having in the UK. People falling in the Spirit, sometimes shaking, and even some very unusual signs like people receiving golden fillings in their teeth (thousands for many months), golden dust falling over the believers, aromatic oil dripping from peoples hands in prayer meetings, etc. However, it was just part of the process God was developing within the Church. It led the Church to go outside with boldness, praying for and with unbelievers everywhere, and bringing friends neighbors and relatives to Christian meetings. Hundreds started to be saved every day. Although we don't see multitudes being saved in the UK yet, we recognize that the same process that we saw in Brazil is happening here. We have the presence of God being manifested from north to south, and a growing willingness to go to the lost. News of increasing numbers of people being saved is coming from many places, usually through Alpha Courses, Kids' Churches, house groups or outreach events. We believe that God is opening the heavens over the UK, and it will get faster and faster. It doesn't matter so much what is our understanding of revival. What we want to see is people getting saved, isn't it? We don't have to wait for a special day. Perhaps this time is the day called today. Let's use every opportunity God is giving the Church right now to proclaim the gospel, and make His love know. "Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season..." 2Tim 4:2. Source: www.inthenameofjesus.org
and www.gonations.org |
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