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| Deanna and I walked across the street from the guest house where we were staying for a quiet cup of coffee. As we sipped our latte and americano, a cat came and joined us at the extra chair at our table. The cat hoped we enjoyed his hospitality and wondered if we would be helpful. |
| The first-ever senior pastors of Brazilian Vineyard churches was another milestone in Vineyard church-planting history. In many ways, it felt like an extended family gathering as most have worked together for twenty years and have not seen each other for about five years. I found it interesting to compare with the Porto de Moz conference, which felt historical on a different plane. I am looking forward to seeing how these two conferences will develop in the years to come. One of the two conferences was partially sponsored with outside help, while the other was completely covered by participants. I think this is a good use of outside funding if everyone knows the goal is that the participants will eventually find enough value in the event that they find ways to cover the costs. Around twenty years ago, Mark Fields led a project funded by the American Vineyards to sponsor three years of senior pastoral meetings twice a year. Twelve couples were invited, and the goal was spiritual formation and relationship building. If a couple could not attend a meeting, we could not send someone in our place, enhancing the personal relationship factor because human systems change depending on who is present. We usually met for three or four days at a time at Catholic retreat centers out of town, which were sparse but perfect for our purposes. Meetings were minimal, usually teaching on a spiritual discipline like, for example, centering prayer. Then, we would try it out and come back together to share our experiences. The result was a powerful bonding among pastors from various regions of the gigantic country of Brazil and many years of self-supported meetings. Now, after the five-year hiatus, the senior pastor group has grown to those who attended the Atalaia Conference, plus many who could not come for diverse reasons.   These are the eight leaders (plus Clenildo) who compose the Vineyard Brazil national board for the next four years. Milton called them a “Dream team.” Deanna and I will represent this board and the Brazilian church in Nepal at the Global Missions Leaders Conference. Awesome. What I See: * Seven of the eleven leaders in the photo were part of the original Vineyard leaders almost twenty years ago. * Seven of the eleven are from Northern Brazil. * All four women leaders in the photo are from Northern Brazil. Milton, far-right, is the president of the Vineyard Brasil for another four years. Beside him is Elba, who is vice-president. Next is Athila, the pastor of the Central Church in Altamira. Beside Athila is Manga, a pastor from Rio de Janeiro who is in the final stages of a Ph. D. in spiritual formation. Beside Manga are two pastors in white shirts from Southern Brazil who I don’t know that well. In front of them is Edna from Gurupá. Beside them are Angelita and Clenildo. Clenildo resigned from the national board because he preferred to be out on the front lines, helping pastors and introducing people to Jesus. Still, Angelita is on the board, responsible for the mental health of the pastors, and they walk together. On the left are Deanna and I. We are not on the national board, but we are representing them and the Brazilian churches in Nepal at the International Global Missions Partnerships conference in Nepal. One of the themes that came out in the groups I facilitated was how most people understood that everyone had suffered during these past five years, but their specific situation was more. One pastor shared, for instance, that his state in Brazil had a power outage that lasted for forty days. The stores lost all their produce. A gallon of drinking water sold for R$25, about 2-4 hours wages for the working class. He called it “Training for the Apocalypse,” another layer of chronic stress. Chronic stress comes when you are burdened with things over which you have no control. I sensed that hearing and sharing about difficulties from the past five years in an ambiance of abundance felt healing, empowering, and hopeful. We had a great relaxed supper with Milton and Luciana. The month Milton was announced as the national leader of the Association of Vineyard Churches in Brazil, in 2015, his wife Erica was diagnosed with cancer. Two years later, she passed to the other side. I cannot imagine how challenging these last eight years have been, but we are pressing through to another season.  Milton and Luciana Milton told us of how he worked to decrease the power distance between pastors and lay people in his church in Southern Brazil. When new people would come to his church for the first time, they would approach him, “Pastor Milton…”. Milton would hold his hand up and stop them. “I’ll give you one chance. Call me Milton. Do not start by saying pastor.” He told us they would look at him, and he could see their struggle as they addressed him by only saying his first name. But they would finally get it out. Now it is as normal for people to call him by his first name in Southern Brazil as it is for women to be leaders in our churches in Northern Brazil.  Neuma and Timoteo, at the front of this photo, were our first pastors in Santarem once we moved from the PAZ mission compound to immerse in a Brazilian neighborhood in 1994. Timoteo is from a fishing village near Santarem and was pastoring a small church of 20 people. They had a few benches made out of 8″ wide boards with no backrest. Elba committed her life to God in Timoteo’s church while living with us at about 16 years of age. Who could have ever guessed we’d end up as leaders in a different movement at a resort on the ocean 1,500 km to the East almost 30 years later? Near the back of this photo are Cleury and Ricardo, pastors from a farming community near Santarem. They are ranchers and pastors of a church Clenildo and Angelita helped plant.  |
The Vineyard denomination seeks to raise up church-planting movements in every nation.
Mission workers are facing new challenges as they find ways to work together as an international community to start healthy churches.
The number of participants involved in the mission discussions increased exponentially with the introduction of social media and Google Translate. No longer are the missionaries or mission leaders the only information providers and question-answerers.
Embracing the challenges and finding ways toward collaboration, shared leadership, and consensus is helpful. And fun.
Deanna and I are enroute to an International Vineyard Missions Conference in Nepal. National coordinators from several nations will be there. Deanna and I are representing Brazil. David Ruis will be there from Canada.
I love this 14-lane highway by our hotel in Sao Paulo. We are waiting for our flight to Istanbul tomorrow and then Kathmandu.
A New Season The day I got home after the Atalaia Pastor’s Conference, my app reminded me that I was entering into my 3rd thousand-day stretch of at least 30 minutes of Centering Prayer each morning. It’s a new season. How blessed is the man whose strength is in You, In whose heart are the highways to Zion! Passing through the valley of Baca [Weeping], they make it a spring; The early rain also covers it with blessings. They go from strength to strength, Every one of them appears before God in Zion (Ps. 84:5-7). |
 “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature” (Rm. 1:20a). Once you get away from social media and the news and spend time soaking in the biblical story, it is easy to see that God created the perfect environment to raise up leaders. The farther you move from the news and social media toward meditating on God and His Word, the clearer it is. This is why the prophets in the Old Testament were never part of mainstream culture. They were always fringe people. God desires to have a relationship with men and women, to teach them to steward His awesome creation. Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and [] let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.” So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen. 1:26-28). The problem comes in when people desire to be in control. It started with Adam and Eve and continued with the early people building their own Garden of Eden in the Tower of Babylon. The story repeats over and over, but there are always a few who choose to walk with God. The chaos, scariness, and unpredictability of the world systems run off their backs like water off a duck. They actually thrive in those environments. This is the story of the Bible, the story of the ages, and God’s invitation to you. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life (Rev. 21:23-27). |
Luana dedicates her baby. Luana was one of our daughter’s friends. Family traditions are challenging and slow to change. In our neighborhood, many families have traditions of single parents who raise children with different fathers. Healthy local churches may provide communities that create a safe refuge for families as they work toward transformation.
The pastors retreat was at a resort near Belem.
Debriefing
Deanna and I went for an early morning walk every day. We sometimes met Steve Dolan out for his morning run. He took this photo for us.
| To help someone requires two prerequisites and a capacity to live in the moment. Imagine you’re hiking with a small group, and you meet up with another hiker along the trail. You start talking and decide to walk for a few days together. The first morning along the trail, you’re surprised when you wake up at sunrise, and the new person already has the fire going by the lake and the coffee made. Later, when you and your friends are struggling with tangled fishing lines, the experienced hiker you just met comes over, helps you get untangled, teaches you to tie on lures, and, from a distance, smiles as you land excitedly land a fish. A few days later, the new person heads off in another direction, and everyone misses the cheerful, helpful presence. Months later, you see a picture of the person on the news. They are one of the richest people in your country and have been on a sabbatical to get some alone time. How could you become a helpful, cheerful presence wherever you are as you walk with God on this earth? 1. Two PrerequisitesThe other feels a need for helpThe other thinks you are Jesus told his disciples to go to people who were ready to receive their help and to move on from those who were not ready (Luke 10). The goal is mutual servant leadership. Some people have difficulty transitioning to a peer relationship. They either want to keep being the ones who are wiser and more powerful than you, or they want to keep being the receivers. Developing the capacity to help others transition to peer relationships is a rare gift. The author of Genesis thought transitioning to peer relationships was an important concept. We risk doing others, including our children, a disservice if we help them before they sense they need help.“For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:26). 2. Discern why others want your help. Are people obligated to receive your help, or is it optional? When I, as a foreigner in our marginalized neighborhood in Brazil, offer to help someone, they may accept for many different reasons. Some people may accept a servant leader’s invitation to an organization as a way to climb an organizational ladder. The disciples thought they would become high-status leaders, and Judas was even ready to move past Jesus for increased personal gain (Matt. 20:20-24). Mixed motives were not a surprise for Jesus. He engaged with people and tried to move them along on the way to servant leadership. Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled (John 6:26). 3. In My Experience, You don’t know who is ready for your help until you ask them. For example, I have seen hardened criminals who welcomed my help and others who did not. The benefit of starting with peers is that they will have less ulterior motives.“You shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8b). In Summary: Look for people with felt needs. Engage with them to see if they will accept your help or advice. Start with peers, and start where you are. Expect to move on to serve other social and cultural spheres. One of the signs of a mature servant leader is that they developed the capacity to raise up and release other servant leaders (Greenleaf, 1998, p. 55). “But Jesus called them to Himself and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:25-28). References Greenleaf, R. K. (1998). The Power of Servant-Leadership (p. 55). Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition. |
| Pastors Conference The Brazilian church leadership team organized a Brazilian National Pastor’s conference in Atalaia, a place along the ocean three hours South of Belem. This is the first time they held the conference at this location. The theme was pastoral care.   |
Baby Lucas continues to improve. Slowly. Please keep praying. He is ready to be done with the hospital and wants to go home.
This cashew fruit tree is right beside our house. We pick the fruit and hold it by the cashew nut seed to eat it. Sun-ripened cashew fruit is so delicious I don’t know how to describe it. It is super-rich in vitamin C. It has no seed inside, like apples or peaches, but is more like a big strawberry. It has a choke-cherry effect of dryness. Why most people don’t like them is a mystery to me, as I can easily eat five at a time. The seeds are toxic and will leave a big rash on your leg if you put them in your jeans pocket. When you roast the seeds, they spit off boiling flaming-oil sparks that leave blisters on your arms if you are not careful, and the smoke will burn your eyes and lungs. When we prepare the nuts for eating, we stir them over a fire in the yard with a long stick. Mostly we eat the fruit and throw the nuts away.
Trying to discern between preferences and godliness is a big deal in Christian communities and may be the reason for the strange saying I learned in Bible School in the 1980s. “The biggest obstacle to the next move of God is the last move of God.” I will share a few anecdotes and make a suggestion.
In 2017 Deanna and I traveled with some Brazilian leaders to Ethiopia to learn how they were using Discovery Groups to plant churches. At one of the last places we stopped, we were in a room with a group of denominational leaders. They told us they had struggled to plant 400 churches for many years. “First, we had to buy the land. Then help build the buildings. They help with the roof, and then chairs. Plus, we had to resolve so many problems. It wasn’t easy. Now we get to do the fun stuff. We teach people how to connect to Jesus and how the Holy Spirit will lead them. And we have planted 1,500 churches in the last three years…” As they told us how they practiced Discovery Groups for evangelism and discipleship, they pulled out a denominational manual they had developed. The Brazilian pastors we were with expected to be given one of their manuals as a model to follow. Finally, they asked for a copy. “Oh no. We can give you some principles, but you need to go and make it work among your people. This is not a formula. It is a way of helping people learn to follow God.” That meeting and statement became one of the trip’s highlights and stood in contrast to other church-growth formulaic strategies.
A missionary friend told me of a time he was living in a remote Brazilian community. He noticed empty water bottles and plastic bags littering the river and trails where they walked. As he was meeting with the church leaders, he suggested to the group that they do a community clean-up project. One of the prominent community leaders was enthusiastic. “That is a great idea! We could get shirts printed for all of us before we do the campaign.” As he spoke, he was eating candy and throwing wrappers on the ground in the clearing where they were sitting. My friend shook his head. “I don’t think you get it.” As he talked to me, I thought, “That is strange how some people like to wear the same shirts as others in a group. It is different for me.”
I grew up in the East Aldergrove Mennonite Brethren church, and I still consider them one of the great world-class churches. My mom was a little girl when her family moved to help with the church plant, and she remained a member for 75 years until she passed into heaven. Dad joined when he got married. This group wrestled with preferences vs godliness. A big deal was the switch from German to English services. Then the old guard didn’t want the young folks raising their hands or clapping during worship. Over time, I saw a cultural change as they wrestled with following Jesus and putting spiritual values and practices ahead of personal preferences. Over time they changed their language, worship style, and even their name to Ross Road Community Church. I was surprised to see ashtrays outside their main doors when I came home from the Yukon to see my parents. Smoking and drinking were significant issues when I was a teenager. Someone from their leadership explained, “When smoking was in style, we thought it was unhealthy and worldly. We were against it. But when smoking became unpopular, we wanted to be a welcome presence to people who felt rejected by society. We got ashtrays.”
Ask God to help you be aware the next time you feel critical of others, especially other Christians.
Rather than share your perspective with a third party, try to befriend the person to whom you feel critical and try to understand their perspective or motivation.
This same principle may apply to your children. Take them out for coffee individually, and ask them, “It’s been a long time since I was your age. What’s it like?“
Look for the fruit of what is happening.
Your thoughts?
