National church in Brazil making progress
Filed Under: Brazil, Brazilian Lutheran Church, Missions, World Missions
The Brazilian Lutheran Church took an important step as a national church body when it held its first biennial general assembly Feb. 3-5 in Dourados, Brazil. Attendees included members of the national church council, delegates from the church's two congregations in Dourados and Gravataí, and the three WELS missionaries serving in Brazil.
Although no large-scale decisions were made at the assembly, delegates discussed future plans and strategy for this fledgling church body of approximately 200 souls. "One of the biggest things was talking about our new church plants for 2009," says Rev. Guy Marquardt, missionary in Brazil since 1995. "We've been spending a lot of time during the last 4-5 years on infrastructure, seminary studies, and getting the national church up and running. Now it's time to be focusing more on establishing new mission starts."
Marquardt says the planting of new missions is an exciting prospect for this church body, which ordained its first seminary graduate in November 2007. "We finally have a national pastor, and another will be ordained hopefully at the end of this year," he says. "So really for the first time some important decisions are starting to be made together between the missionaries and the national church leaders; it's a cooperative effort between both Americans and Brazilians."
In upcoming months, Marquardt says he and the other missionaries will continue to train workers at the pre-seminary and seminary levels, provide support and guidance for the new national pastor, and reach out to new prospects through a Bible study center.
"It's just neat to see the progress being made by the national church," says Marquardt. "To finally be able to work with them as partners, as brothers, and to see these first steps happening is just so rewarding after so many years of working down here. You can see that the national church has a possibility of really starting to spread its wings and go about God's work."
For more information about church-planting efforts in Brazil, or if you know anyone in the region who might be interested in helping with new mission starts, send an e-mail to: WELSbrazil@gmail.com
