The 25 prisoners in the cell we got to are from many different states. Some have committed crimes years ago. Many do not have anyone who comes to visit them, to encourage them, to bring them new sandals, or clothes, or basic hygiene supplies.

When I realized I would be away for several weeks and no one from our church would visit them, I prepared an 8 week plan with the 3-column Bible studies and offered a hygiene kit to those who completed all the lessons. When I got back from Africa seven guys had completed the studies. But there was quite a turnover too. Several men were transferred in or out. Eliel suggested that because it felt like those who completed the studies did them out of a hunger for God, we give everyone hygiene kits. Tuesday we went to the grocery store. Two bars of personal soap, two bars of laundry soap, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and two disposable razors. We also bought a few chocolates and 7 cans of aerosol deodorant as extras for the guys who completed the studies. Thursday we gave them to the prison director. We discovered the aerosol deodorant we bought was in metal canisters. This in not allowed because the guys might use these metal cans to commit suicide. We gave the aerosol spray to the guards. The director said that after we were gone he would call the guys out and hand out the kits one by one to avoid mass confusion. He is a Christian and sympathetic to our cause. He later WhatsApped me and said that was a really good day for those prisoners. They were very happy. Staying as clean as possible is one way these guys try to preserve their eroded dignity.

Thank you to those who pray and give to make this possible.

If God captures the hearts of these guys, and if they catch on to the idea of Discovery Groups, they will go from here to all over Brazil with the gospel.

Then there will be next steps, like forming these groups into gatherings or churches.

I am ready to get to the next steps.

“It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me” (John 6:45 NIV).

“As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people'” (2 Corinthians 6:16 NIV).

Four ways I am learning to help people to learn from God.

1. Discovery Groups and Disciple Making Movements – helps create environments where people can discover how God reveals Himself through His Word.

2. Immanuel Prayer – helps people personally discover Jesus. Since Jesus said He would never leave us or forsake us, where was He during those good and bad times in our lives?

3. Centering Prayer / Spiritual Formation – helps people learn to slow down and to spend personal, intimate time with God. God is polite. He waits until we have time for Him.

4. Coaching – helps people to gain traction with what they feel God is saying to them. When people act on what they feel God is calling them to do, they are more committed to producing the desired results.

I have also discovered the value of two related principles.

5. Lead through relationship, friendship, and influence more than positional authority.

6. Give as much authority as possible to the people who will have to live with the decisions. Organizations have similarities to people. For example, organizations have personalities, and they have cultures. These group personalities and cultures may change when just one person joins or leaves, or when something in the local community changes. It is important that groups learn to hear from God for themselves, and to take ownership of the results of their choices. “Organizational change without ownership is treacherous” (Clinton, R., 2012, A Ministry Philosophy, para. 7).  Giving groups as much freedom as possible helps them to work hard to produce desired results.

We are starting church-planting movements, or disciple-making movements. As people and groups gain an inner certainty that they are connected to God Himself, this is incredibly motivating.

Clinton, R., 2012, The Making of a Leader: Recognizing the Lessons and Stages of Leadership Development. NavPress. Kindle Edition.

“Pastor Ricardo, I need to talk to you.”

A young man in our church really wanted to be a leader. He was coming to the 6 a.m. prayer meeting. He was pressing in. Six months into the process he got an underage girl pregnant. Previous relationships were extremely complex. “What should I do?”

How could I possibly know good council for my friend? Then I had an idea. “Read the book of Ephesians, and let’s meet back here next week. Then you can tell me what God is teaching you.”

The next week he did not show up at my house for more council.

The next week after that he did not show up either.

Three weeks later we had a group training at the church. About 20 young leaders showed up. In the group discussion my friend shared a spontaneous testimony. “Several weeks ago I didn’t know what to do. Pastor Ricardo told me read Ephesians. I learned so much stuff. I learned answers to questions I didn’t even have.” We still have not talked about the specifics about what he learned but he is moving on in God. Today this man is a rising leader in the church. He married the girl and they have a beautiful one-year-old girl.

For me, this is an example of God teaching His people.

Here are a few photos from the backyard of the hotel in São Paulo.

Things felt agitated at the prison this week. There seemed to be an undercurrent of a fight brewing. Eliel felt apprehensive but we carried on as usual. Seven of the guys completed the three-column bible studies.

1) Copy the text out from the bible onto a page.

2) Re-write the story in your own words.

3) Write down what you are going to change in your life because of the story.

They handed us a thick stack of papers that were fully hand-written, all complete pages, of these studies they have done while I was travelling.

It is a miserable existance for the 25 guys in that clammy, sweaty, damp cell but they told me again that if they go to the bigger cell they will get killed. They are accused of crimes the other prisoners don’t accept. Either that, or they are not in factions. If they refuse to join factions, they are vulnerable. If they join, it is kind of a life-time commitment from what I understand. The men get coffee in the morning, and they let me try some. It is horrible. It doesn’t taste like coffee, and they say it is full of medicine to keep them calm. It tastes like bad medicine, and the bad aftertaste lasted the whole time I was there. Disgusting. And when they describe the food they start with “may God forgive me but . . . ” They don’t want to be ungrateful, but it is the same food, cooked the same way, year in and year out. It can feel nauseating. One guy told me, “I used to weigh 110 kilos. Now I am down to 57. One year and 4 months. Look how I can lift my foot up above my other knee. I could never do that before.” I asked him if he planned to keep the weight off. “Oh no. When I get out, in two weeks I’ll be right back to where I was.” I really hope these guys can get in touch with God in a way that really catches their passions so that when they get out it affects their behavior. We need transformations.

We formed two smaller groups, and about 12 of the 25 guys participated. One guy, Cesar, confided in me with our group listening. “Most people believe in God, they just don’t believe that He cares about our daily activities or prayers. They don’t think He interacts personally with us.”

This is a good spiritual observation, and I wonder if Cesar is a Person of Peace.

He hit the nail on the head. He defined a our work. We need to set up situations where interested people can connect with God in a way that feels true to them, where they sense God connecting back.

Think about it. Who wants to sign up for a religious system just because your friends are doing this, or because it is a healthy lifestyle, or out of desperation? But we long for what is real and true.

If there was a clear and easy difference between praying to God and praying to an idol, how would idol worship prosper in the old days? How would good luck charms, witchcraft, the love of money, and false religions prosper today?

On that day of judgment they will abandon the gold and silver idols they made for themselves to worship. They will leave their gods to the rodents and bats (Isaiah 2:20).

What these prisoners need is to truly sense an interaction with a living God who cares and who wants relationship.

Prayer is really important.

All the people we talked to who are having success with Discovery Groups say that prayer is really important. We need God’s Kingdom to break into our normal zones.

Please pray that the Kingdom of God will break into this jail cell in Marabá, in power.

Pray for Cesar. And for Wolverine. And António Marcos, Rodrigo, and João. These guys are from all over Brazil. They have the potential to bring the gospel to some dark places. Let’s pray they really sense God’s presence this week.

May Your Kingdom come, and Your will be done, on this earth as it is in heaven.

Bruna (Ivanildo and Mônica’s 17 year old daughter) and Adriana (red muscle shirt) came to my door looking for balloons, or paint, or something. The Sunday School leader had not shown up, and it was time for the Kid’s Day event to start. I was amazed at their resourcefulness and outer calm as they created plan B.

Dia Das Crianças (Kid’s Day) is a statutory holiday in Brazil, with lots of advertising in the malls, and schools. Churches usually have special events. Miriam, the Sunday School leader, had just recently moved to another neighborhood across the river. She was stuck on the local bus system for a long time and this made her really late for the event.

102 children came, and most of them from difficult situations.

Lohanny, Adriana, and Ana got the Kid’s Day event going with some lively worship songs. Bruna was in this leadership team too, getting supplies, and planning next steps, as leaders do.

Miriam has graduated from being a youth to a young mom and leader.

Other young people manned the sound booth and ran countless errands.

Recently I had lunch with a friend who has been working for years to launch an aviation ministry in the Amazon.

“In my observation the church is working hard at bringing the gospel to the river people of the Amazon Basin who live within one day’s boat ride of the major cities here. And then it kind of stops.”

I opened Google Earth, and drew a circle that has a 100 mile radius / 160 km radius around each major city, thinking that an average river boat might get that far in one day. Outside of these circles my friend says there is significantly less knowledge of the gospel.

These places are hard to get to, hard to live in, and you might wonder if it is worth it.

“How small do you think a community is before the people no longer matter? What if there are 2 or 3 families living way up a creek? Do they count?”

I remember flying over the jungle with Luke Huber, in his ultra-light. We lifted off the river, flew over a stretch of jungle. Hidden in the jungle was a creek with a few stilt houses. Luke yelled at me over the roar of the engine,“I didn’t know people were living out here. We need to get out here with the gospel.”

I thought, “Really? You just get a boat and show up at somebody’s place with the gospel?” Since I was new to Brazil I filed my thoughts away on a back shelf. As time went on I realized we actually can do this. Many people receive us and our message gratefully. The bottle-neck for us became how to train the workers. With great effort we got to some remote locations to start a church with a key family and developed a support network for that little group. The key family learns from the teacher who lives in the city, and the others learn from the key family.

Two challenges we encounter are:

1. How to maintain a sufficient support links to a city church.
2. If the key family moves to another location the church often ceases to exist.

This is where Discovery Bible Studies may really shine. 

In a Discovery Group (1) everyone changes something in their lives each week because of the gospel, and (2) everyone has a spiritual conversation in a natural way each week with an acquaintance. Weekly the Discoverers (disciples) share their experiences with each other. Imagine the potential. These people get to experience the joy of a daily, personal walk with God. This is different than hearing someone teach and trying to obey that person’s council about how it works. This is more about everyone connecting with God and interacting with what they are learning.

Jesus says the bottle-neck is laborers. In my experience laborers don’t usually have all the finances and the big picture figured out. They are the disciplined people who get up early, put their work boots on, make their lunch, and go do what they can all day long.

When He [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matthew 9:36-38).

We know that in God’s economy spreading the gospel to everyone in the Amazon is within reach. I suspect God has many people willing to give their lives to a career that is deeply satisfying. Imagine the books and stories that will come from the group that reaches into these remote locations.

So for you, if you are interested . . . are you willing to bring your loaves and sardines to Jesus?

Imagine if this was true, if it really was this simple. What if, in a act of obedience, we brought our little selves to Jesus, believing that He could do amazingly impossible things?

1. What would be your next step? And if the Lord encouraged you on, what would be your next step after that? What would you have to actually do?

2. What is the risk? What would it cost you?

3. What is the potential gain, in this world and in the next?

4. Are you willing to take your next step?

In Manaus we gave an introduction to Discovery Groups, and to Immanuel Prayer. Many in this group feel wounded from other church groups. Thinking in terms of Pilgrim’s Progress, is this along the journey for all of us? Is this your story, by any chance? I remember hearing that the Vineyard started in Los Angeles with wounded Christians, people who have been hurt by other Christians or church people. Is this a normal way for great movements to start? When these early Vineyard people started moving in the gifts of the Spirit, I remember John Wimber calling them wounded healers.