My good news day

Since Easter, JR Woodward has made an excelent job on gathering so good people to post daily on good news for their city, since then we have been had very good articles with very good insights from different perspectives.
Today is my Good News day (besides my birthday also), so you can read it and comment.
These series will bring more people to post until Pentecost.

No panic nor ignorance

As a father, I have got very concern about this swine flu and tried to read everything I could about this virus propagation and its coming to Brazil, I could read two very interesting posts, the first from Tall Skinny Kiwi "Swine flu and a calm, reasonable, rational Church" and the second from Eugene Cho "our church’s response to the H1N1 - swine flu", though I am very sorry for all that are mourning for their loved ones died or are so concerned by their sons with flu, it seems there are a panic that spread in a higher pace than the virus.

Thinking about panic, I remembered a very wierd day here in Sao Paulo it happened last year, in an earlier day, a mob organization attacked some police stations in our city and around, I remember that we started this day shocked by the news, but listening that this organization would do even more at this day, so at my office we started to receive some news from friends that mobsters attacked train stations and shot buses, so we started to think that things got out of control and we heard that police advised to get home early and not to stay out after eight at night, with those spreading news we got very concerned with friends out at office to, my company dismissed all employes to go home early, I could return home at 2:00PM with a 6 o'clock traffic. at 7PM, downtown was empty.

Nothing happened! I thought it was the weirdest situation I experienced at my city, a one of the biggest cities of the world was emptied because of panic, and I could see how panic is powerfull to change behaviour of a hole population!

And that is what I could reflect on these two posts, as long as all media is spreading information about H1N1, people get concern and searches for more information for H1N1, in the middle of all moviment, we should have voices of reason to makes people think about what is really happening and to make the best behavior to stay healthy.

No panic with no irresponsability.

Great conversations with Spencer Burke in São Paulo!

As shared in last post, we had great moments when we received the visitation of Spencer Burke here in São Paulo. It all started with an interview we made with him on March and after, we started to talk about a possibility of doing Soularize here in São Paulo, so we received him from May 15th until 18th when he could take good pictures, and have a good idea of the emergent conversation in Brazil, also we could foster great conversations with friends and could promote a gathering last Saturday on Projeto 242.

If you would like to know how it was, we have streamed mostly of the Saturday gathering and we have them recorded, our session was both in English and in Portuguese, so you might listen and see what happened on video:

Morning Sessions

Afternoon Sessions

Also, we have it recorded on Renovatio Cafe's Podcast:

Morning Session

Afternoon Session

I hope this might help to open brazilian doors for more conversation with great guys abroad we have been known and read in this emergent world.

Spencer Burke in Sao Paulo

We are looking forward to receive Spencer Burke and spent the next days with him, this idea begun with his interview made for Renovatio Cafe and from tomorrow until Sunday we have a quick time to learn from each other and let brazilian people know about him.
As I am not so used for these kind of things I have spent very rushed days, but I am very excited to have him with us. I believe his energy and good spirit will contagiate many people will be there.
I hope to stream our gathering with him in the main page of Renovatio Café on Saturday from 10:00 until 4:00 (Brazilia time), feel free to check it out!

Renovatio café - Now you can read it!

As promised, we opened last week a section of English articles for you friends abroad! We have opened it with two objectives in mind:

To let you know what is going here, we will have brazilian bloggers posting in English to let you know our context, how we found the books we have read, it is, the think I try to do here

To let friends participate in our efforts in Brazil posting their messages to encourage our work on brazilian emerging church

We have already an Article from Gustavo K-fe about Brazilian context of the emerging church. You can visit at this link http://www.renovatiocafe.com/index.php/English/, or visiting Renovatio Cafe and choosing "English Content" menu, RSSs files for English Content are also available.

With Lights off for Earth!

Yeah! Yesterday, we also took our lights off for Earth Hour!
We turned our lights off, eat our dinner while I could explain my doughter why we were doing such thing. After, I told her a story about the little light that went out searching for darkness and were not able to find it, I could relate it to Jesus teaching about being the Light of the world and we all prayed to be such a light to spread peace, love and happiness everywhere we were.
Earth Hour were not so spreaded here in Brazil, but it was a beggining, and was a great opportunity to reflect about our use of resources and our responsibility as christians to take care of this world.

Tag - Earth Hour; light of the world

Renovatio Cafe

I am so glad to break this long silence to share a very good news! We have just launched Renovatio Cafe website!
We had long ago planned to launch a site to gather the emergent community here in Brazil, to inspirate emergent brazilians to create good national content and to promote emergent gatherings in our country.
We have lots of blogs talking about emergent and missional churches, discussing about their delusion on modern church, but unfortunately, we have so rare emergent communities here! I believe this site could be a good tool to empower people to plant new communities here.
Until then, we will gather people to write brazilan content, but we will also work to translate good contents available abroad, also, we are working to have some good talks with emergent leaders abroad as a matter to inspirate others leaders here, if you are interest to help us in those matters we would appreciate a lot!
For a while, most of our articles are portuguese written, we have also some files available in English though, further, we plan to have also English content available to our friends abroad, I think it would be awsome to let you know what's going on here!
I count on your prayers!

*A revolução já começou - Revolution has already begun!

Children at streets

Miséria S/A by Flipe SO
When I ever talk with someone abroad and they are interested to know how Brazil is like, they use to ask me regarding Homeless Children, when I was in LA and San Francisco where I could find homeless people, but no one children with them, I could realize how different it is outside Brazil.
Yesterday, I found at newspaper that our city had finished the first serious research about Homeless children, I could find some facts regarding this very sad situation in São Paulo:

There are 1842 children living at streets, 1040 live outside their home to get some money

55.9% sell candies at street crossings, 21.6% perform some kind of service like washing windscreen, polishing shoes or juggling at traffic lights and 15,6% begging

As people pity situation of very small children at streets, most of the beggers are smaller children

Work at streets and begging, at general, generates US$ 12 Million dollars a year, 4 out of 10 cars use to give some kind of tip. Social work people associates directly success at working and begging on streets to perpetuate this kind of situation here.

Children leave home because of violence and abuse, they don't like also public shelters because those places do not provide many things to do

Questions from Netherlands

In a meme played by Paul Abspoel, I asked him to interview me too, here are his questions:
1. The Church in Europe and North America is going through difficult times. What about the Church in South America in general and Brazil in particular?
In fact, church in South America is growing. In Brazil, churches that have the highest growing rates are the ones that started from last 20 years through a massive use of media, practicing a charismatic kind of lithurgy and comitted to signs, healings and prosperity. Though, leadership has been compromised by unethical behaviour and also because their assets have been growing besides their churches. Because of this, evangelical church have been lacking credibility. Due to this very quick movement, we are presenting a sourge of a pos-evangelical generation in Brazil too, a great challenge to people who are attaining to a more conservative theology here.
2. What do you like most about kids and why? Is this a quality that we can still have or strive for as grown-ups?
I love my children and the possibility of living with them, I have a doutgher of 7 and a son of 2, being their dad has been a wonderfull oportunity to learn and to see life so differently. What I like them most are their quality of being happy as long as they are awaked, they don't wait so much to have fun from a situation and I believe this is the think we have dislearned in our growing up, our concerns has taken our happiness away from us. When being with my children I learn again I should laught and smile much more.
3. Did you ever hear God or Jesus speaking to you in an audible voice? If so, please tell us about this experience. If not – how do you understand God’s will for your life?
There was once, in the middle of night I waked up to go to bathroom and a verse of the Bible came to my head "As a father have mercy on his child our Lord have mercy on the people that fear Him", it cames from nothing! This kind of thing happened also once before and I think I was remembered by God that He was with me in all my concerns mainly related to church planting and personal career.
As this not happens everyday, I try to move myself on the will of God asking him a lot what to do and guiding myself through the common sense that is feeded by Bible and prayer.
4. If you could suddenly have a talent / gift that you don’t have right now, what talent or gift would that be and how would you use it?
I recognize there is some people that are extra-sensitive, they feel through Holy Spirit some needs of people and tell things from God that fit very well to people situation, they are called prophets and though we have bunches of people acting as prophets without having such gifts we have to recognize that this gift exists but are not so common. I would like to have such gifts to help people directly in their needs.

5. Why on earth did God make mosquitoes?
Great question! It might be to have frogs feeded.

Thank you Paul for your very wise questions.
If you would like to be interviewed by me, find below the rules of this meme:

1. Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Day to be champions

Today was a great day to sports in Brazil, first at Volleyball World League, we beated Russia (3 v 1) and we won the World League for our seventh time (fifith year in a row). It is amazing to see that we have been producing generations and generations of very good volleyball players, just to remember, we have been won the World League for the last five years, and we won also the last World cup and the golden medal at Athens Olympic champeonship.

But we had another championship final to watch, it was the Copa America final against Argentina (our biggest sport rival), our team made bad matches in this cup, our best players preferred to be on their vacations (Kaka, Ronaldinho Gaucho and Ronaldo), we started Copa America with a desasterous match when we were defeated by Mexico, but we were keeping a somewhat regular results until we got to final, but Argentina won all their matches, they sent their best players to won this cup. So I thought Argentina would won Brazil easily, but the unexpected happened, Júlio Baptista could score a first goal between the first 5 minutes, we got another goal at first half and another in second half. It is the second Copa America we won Argentina at final in a row! Though I love the Argentinean people and I have very good Argentinean friends, it is just delicious to beat Argentina and even in this kind of situation!
Tag - copa america; Volleyball World League

Like a Lion

Don't ask me how they got to it:

They started as a great worship ministry of a baptist church in Minas Gerais, their first two CDs were so beautifull, many churches in Brazil used to sing their songs while they shared profits of CDs sold with children mission in India. It was like 10 years ago.
Today they turned out to be a huge worship ministry, they use to fill parks with hundreds of thousands on their shows at streets, and the scene was from one of their latest shows.
Tag - worship ministry; Lion

The Shape of things to come

This is my 2nd post I should have posted earlier, but I had not. I finished "The Shape of things to come" reading in January and published a detailed revision in my Brazilian Blog (it took 4 posts to publish an overall idea of the book and a revision of the writers purposes of an Incarnational, Missianic and Apostolic church). I think it would be useless to have such a detailed approach of this book here, once this book was well accepted in international emerging church community and you will find better reviews like mine in blogosphere. Though, I would like to share what those ideas means in our brazilian field.
The importance of this book besides, Emerging Church, is that it paves a good way of what our churches should seek when emerge. After reading both, I think Emerging Church as a very good report of how churches have been emerged in US an UK while, this book describe the basis below Emerging Churches practices.
Actually I am starting Michael Frost's "Exiles" reading, after read all Alan Hirsch's "The Forgotten Ways". It is clear to note that all three book's ideas are constructed on a thesis that while the Christendom mode of society is shadowing, our mode of church is shadowing by the same way, thus we need a new kind of church out of the dominance box that started when Constantine declared Christianism as the official religion of all Rome. I think that is important to have clear that church has not started from these ideas on, I had already saw some early brazilian criticism to Emerging Church that they considered Christian Church as lost from Constantine until now, off course based on misread emerging church books and purposes.
I think that the Christendom mode detailed by Hircsh and Frost applies very much to evangelical church in Brazil, it has been very Attrational, reflected, for instance, by use of media with preching all day in christian Radio and TVs as a way to invite people to attend services and being blessed, all strategies you see is related to have people coming to the church bounds to be part of them; our church has been very dualistic, when they build a kind of paralell christian world where the label "gospel" tells what would be good for christian people to use and has been also very hierachic when the first thing that all churches do, is to establish who owns the power and a very well career plan of how to get it. With our evangelical growth we started to have a kind or post-evangelical people frustrated by evangelical church promises not fullfilled.
We have a great challenge to break this kind of religion culture, though people are very free to express their spirituality here, their have been more exposed to express that through spiritualism. They have been exposed nightly to those ideas on TV Soap Operas besides post modernism ideas. But when they go search for spirituality out of spiritualism and budhism they will appeal to a church closed to Catholic culture (a church even more attrational, dualistic and hierarchic), where most of people got the idea of religion when growing up. Yes, they will remain frustrated as long as they find another way of doing church.
Hirsch and Frost ideas are indeed great solutions to our day, church as it is now will remain just beside our culture, we will need just good people dare enough to have this kind of thinking outside the box and starting making difference. The fact is that we have seen lots of discussions about emerging churches in Brazil, but we have not seen any practical idea because we have seen only discussions. We need concrete examples of emerging communities to foster other examples, so far we have few ones and not enough to establish a good idea of what an emerging church should be in Brazil.
I think this book should be a good source to give us a way to begin.

Tag - brazilian church; emerging church; the shape of things to come; Alan Hirsch; Michael Frost

March for Jesus in Brazil

I were out of it!
The first edition of March for Jesus in Brazil were set up the same day of March for Jesus in US (The Jesus day), but as this march required a lot of work in our already chaotic transit, this event were transferred to our holliday of Corpus Christi. Actually, Corpus Christi is a Catholic holliday, but March for Jesus is very evangelical and were transferred to this day just for a matter of convenience. But the funny think is that, this holliday in Sao Paulo hosted two huge movements in city, March for Jesus on Thursday and the Gay Pride Parade on the follow Sunday.
We have this kind of schedule from last four to five years, and this my first doubt about March for Jesus movement when they face it like a competition against the Parade to be made on the follow Sunday. You evangelicals abroad know what I mean! The organizers were yelling that March for Jesus would take 6 million people to streets when they knew that Gay Pride Parade would take 3 million. Actually March for Jesus took 3,5 million people to streets while Gay Pride took the same 3 million.
As you might noted I am very skeptic about this movement, above all criticism we have about this movement is to think that if you take 3,5 million sincere people to streets in the name of Jesus, you wold expect also a very different kind of society and city here in the day by day after the march. Unfortunately this is not the case, worse, the junk that is accumulated after this movement is as huge, that is not a good witness to people that lives around.
Latelly I have seen this movement as a kind of purified Carnaval that people cannot play because of Carnaval sinful nature. But I have know a fact that made this even worse and I wrote about in my Brazilian Blog.
The couple that used to lead this movement (an apostle and a bishop) are arrested in Miami because of money smuggling and false witness, they entered US with US$ 56000 and declared US$ 10000 (US Police were already with an eye on them). But all followers of their church are convicted they are innocent and this march was used to claim for their inocence. That was not right for me, that was some reason that I am completely out of this kind of think.
I think that every movement for Jesus should have a greater impact on city and on society, a day by day with sincere followers of Jesus will have great impact, and we still need this a lot here.

Tag - March for Jesus; Jesus day

Not Abandoned

I took a look earlier today at this blog and got ashamed because I could almost see a year of postings here! I have postings about World Cup Yet! Wow! Time really goes very fast!
I would not like to ramble again how lazy I have been at this blog, but whenever I think about some folks that have been followed my so little posts here, I forget all my thoughts about closing this blog. I ever get so happy when I recieve your thoughts about my posts.
My Portuguese blog has been nice, I have just completed 500 posts there, people are liking discussions and I think my blog have been a good reference in our beggining emerging church community.
I think it would be useless to just link my site with a translator, a mere translation would not do all you need to know, there somethings in my blog that need to be explained to people abroad, that is why this blog exists.
Well, in my effort to not let this blog abandoned, I think I am indebted with you to post about three items that I though about sharing here in this year:

My findings about "The shape of things to come"

March for Jesus in Brazil

My trip to California last month

I hope to post them all until the end of this week.