EVANGELISM AT RIO'S ST. GEORGE FESTIVAL

For the third year in a row I was able to participate in Rio de Janeiro's annual St. George Festival. St. George was a Roman soldier and Christian who refused to bow down to and worship an image of the deified Roman emperor Diocletian (284-305 A.D.). He paid the ultimate price for his faithfulness to his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, which makes this annual event so ironic!

You see, both Roman Catholics and Spiritists "venerate" St. George to the point of attributing to him supernatural powers such as the ability to answer their prayers. When we arrived at the festival the first thing we saw was a man on stilts and dressed as a clown with his prayer to St. George printed on a sign on his back. Also, due to his military status, St. George is essentially the "patron saint" of the Rio police force and fire department. He is venerated for being a warrior who supposedly will fight for those who put their lives on the line.

In other words, what makes this whole St. George thing so ironic is that people end up doing to St. George what he refused to do (and eventually died for): to worship idols!

After arriving near an outdoor stage where the Catholic Church was holding continuous masses, we faced in the opposite direction so as not to disturb the mass with our bullhorn and began to preach, hand out a great little tract put out by the Baptists here called "How to Have Eternal Life" while holding our two banners high. One of the banners (see above) that I had originally developed to use while preaching to the gay pride parades in Rio and São Paulo had Rom. 1:26-27 and 1 Cor. 6:9-10 on it. Actually, since 1 Cor. 6:9-10 covers a variety of sins - including idolatry - this banner has been a mainstay at most of my preaching events. In the interest of not only giving people the bad news, I made sure I included the following statement at the bottom of this banner: "What's the solution? Abandon your sins and deposit your trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord." The other banner had the Ten Commandments on one side and James 2:10 on the other.

We were a relatively small group of four (three others couldn't participate at the last minute): me, one recent Law School graduate (Alexandre), a Social Work student (Flávia) and an older gentleman from my church (Jorge). While Alexandre and I took turns preaching, whoever wasn't preaching was either holding a banner, handing out tracts and/or talking one-on-one with people.

At one point while Alexandre was preaching I noticed a festival official talking to Flávia. I was thinking, "Oh, here we go again!" You see, last year we had unintentionally stirred up an almost violent reaction on the part of the St. George followers as we preached in front of St. George Catholic Church in the West District of Rio de Janeiro. While preaching against idolatry and several other biblically-erroneous doctrines of the Catholic Church (e.g., purgatory, salvation by faith + works, etc.) we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a sea of red-shirted (St. George's official color) faithful shouting us down, telling us to leave, beginning to push and shove us while lifting up a huge styrofoam sculpture of St. George - on his horse - in front of our banner so that people would be unable to see the text. We were escorted out of the immediate area by municipal guards for safety reasons, but not before being interviewed by two newspaper reporters (and being filmed by a national TV station).

So, when I saw that festival official speaking with Flávia, then being joined by a municipal guard, I knew we were about to be interrupted. Sure enough, the municipal guard (whom I had spoken with last year while preaching in another part of downtown Rio) called me aside to encourage us to leave in light of the anger our presence was already generating among 10-15 men. We were being accused by those men of doing something illegal because we were promoting "religious intolerance," but the guard assured us we were legal. His only concern was for our safety. I told him that I felt it was his duty to protect us as we exercised the

Brazilian equivalent of the First Amendment, but apparently they don't value the right to free speech as highly as U.S. authorities do. Since the other three had never been in a situation like that, I decided to not make those men any angrier than they already were and followed the advice of the guard to move our outreach to the train station, which was about 300 yards away. In fact, many festival goers were arriving from the west side of the city by train, so it was an opportunity to preach to many before or after their participation in the festival, not to mention to many others who were using the trains that holiday.

Besides the thousands who heard our preaching and/or read our banners, to our knowledge at least four people humbly gave their lives to Christ. Our prayer is that the banner verses, the words that were audibly heard via the preaching (or the one-on-one conversations) and the evangelistic tracts would accomplish God's purpose in each life that was reached.

It was a long day for us, and some of us had some aches and pains during and after the event, but we all felt that we had given our all to lift Jesus Christ up - the Truth - in the midst of such an idolatrous event. Thank you, Jesus, for allowing us to preach the gospel to so many!

CARNIVAL & OTHER OPEN AIR ADVENTURES

After flying all night from Houston, TX to Rio de Janeiro - with intermittent sleep - we arrived at our Brazilian home across the bay from Rio on February 16, 2010. I had a few hours to rest before finally getting my shot at doing some serious evangelism during Rio's world famous - and largest - Carnival. I had intended to preach with Ruben Israel of Bible Believers at Mardi Gras (the U.S. version of Carnival) in New Orleans, but we had to come back to Rio a few days earlier than originally planned due to space limitations on the flights right after Mardi Gras/Carnival.

I understood, after talking with Alexandre, a guy I'm discipling from Candido Mendes University (UCAM), that I'd be preaching with the aid of 2 or 3 guys from the Jews for Jesus Carnival project in the homosexual district of famous Ipanema. However, it became clear that the local Jews for Jesus leaders weren't about to associate their group with a hell fire preacher accompanied by a bullhorn and confrontational banner. So, suddenly, I was on my own. I could have submitted to their approach and been able to don the project t-shirt, but I was anxious to inaugurate my banner - with "You Deserve Hell" and a quote of Rev. 21:8 on one side; a quote of Heb. 10:31 on the other - in sin-soaked Rio de Janeiro. And boy was Rio "sin soaked!"

The first group I encountered in the park just two blocks from the homosexual district was a group of guys (who turned out to be homosexuals) waiting for a bus. I was walking with my banner unfurled and preaching from my bullhorn. It is amazing how people react to the statement "You deserve hell." Even well-meaning, so-called Christians seem to cringe at this biblically true statement (based on such well-known verses as Rom. 6:23 and Rev. 21:8). In my humble opinion, evangelism today is more defined by the culture than by the Bible! Oh, for a return to God's word for our evangelistic training - vs. such emphases as "We need to be connecting with the lost," "You've got to earn the right to be heard" or "That was appropriate for that time period, but this is the 21st century."

Not wanting to take away from legitimate and necessary changes in one's approach (e.g., evangelistic films, the evangelistic use of the Internet, etc.), have people really changed? My Bible tells me that no, people are still sinners under condemnation and in need of a Savior. That's why I still see - and expect to continue to see - a need for confrontational evangelism. Talking about a biblical method that is also one of the most cost-effective ones around! An open air evangelist can literally give thousands of people the bad news they so desperately need to see and hear so that they will either stop to ask him - like they did Peter in Acts 2 - how to be saved or, at least, go their way with God's relentless Word pounding away in their consciences.

Back to Ipanema (Remember the famous Bossa Nova song The Girl from Ipanema?), my homosexual "listeners" began to get a bit too agitated for my tastes. I was getting verbally "assaulted" from all sides to the point of not being able to adequately handle their objections and questions. Meanwhile, a thirty-something woman got into the fray, tearfully asking me for help. What I couldn't figure out was what exactly she needed help with! Finally, amidst all the confusion - complicated by my lack of sleep - I decided to walk to another part of the park. I was initially followed by several homos, who took it upon themselves to "denounce" me to those within earshot. One even hit my banner after trying to grab it and pull it down, but his friends called him off. Another kept unplugging my microphone from my bullhorn while I tried to preach, but I was just grateful he didn't try to cut the cord like some have done with a couple of my open air preacher friends.

I started preaching toward a heterosexual night club and was told I should go home since it was past my bedtime! One indiscreet woman expressed her disapproval of my message by bending over and "flashing" me with her gluteus maximus! A guy kept telling me to preach to his friends - by name - who had cans of beers in their hands. The "flasher" then threw her can of beer in my direction, but was well off the mark.

I decided to move on and preach to the folks waiting at the bus stop on the other side of the park. That group was calm and seemed particularly attentive. When I moved in the direction of the side of the park where I had encountered the homo crowd two guys stopped in front of me to read my banner. I soon discovered that they were Irish, so I had a good time challenging their presuppositions regarding the bible and Jesus Christ - in English! One of them seemed more "in tune" with the things of God, but the other was in blatant rebellion against his Maker.

I made one more attempt to preach to the nightclub on the other side of the park, and to my surprise, encountered two Americans - one from my old stompin' ground of San Diego. They both wanted pictures with me before discovering that I was a fellow American with a banner - in Portuguese - that said "You deserve hell." One told me in a rather crude way that I was courageous (i.e., "Bill, you've got b_ _ _ _!"), while I challenged each to seriously consider their true condition before a holy God and how to remedy it. One of the Americans - an airline pilot - told me he'd meet up with me again somewhere to continue the conversation . . . as he walked off with his Brazilian "date" (i.e., one-night-stand?).

It was already 3:00 a.m. and I could tell I was too tired to keep going, so I packed it up and headed for home. However, my curiosity led me to check out the Lapa area of downtown Rio, which is notorious for being one, big all-night block party during Carnival. Things were all lit up with hundreds of people still going strong at 3:30 in the morning. Next year I know where I'll be going! The Ipanema park was dimly lit, had at any given moment only 75-100 people in it and NO POLICE! The Lapa makes more sense . . . next year!

MISSIONARIES: Why Do We Do What We Do?

Somebody visiting my blog may be wondering what I/we do and why I/we do it. So, without further ado, presenting . . .

THE 8-32 MOVEMENT

Transforming the World with the Truth

8-32's mission is to "Produce change agents in the Brazilian university, workplace and Church via the bold, deep and urgent exposition of the Truth (John 8:32; 14:6)."

8-32's focus is on REACHING students, professionals and unconverted church members with the biblical gospel, DEVELOPING true converts into effective Christian leaders and MOBILIZING these leaders for the worldwide harvest (Matt. 9:35-38; 28:18-20; Mk. 16:15). In addition to evangelism and one-on-one/small-group discipleship, 8-32 seeks to train Christians from these primary target audiences - via the 8-32 Institute - in Christian/biblical worldview, biblical evangelism, apologetics, bible study methods, etc.

Our day-to-day ministry activities may include campus evangelism in Rio de Janeiro, "happy hour" evangelistic meetings with professionals, discipleship of key students and professionals, planning meetings, proclamation of Truth (i.e., open air preaching) in Rio's business district, ministry materials development and experimentation, classroom training, etc. Occasional ministry activities include retreats, training projects, conferences, proclamation of Truth (i.e., open air preaching) at morally questionable events (e.g., Carnival, gay pride parades, religious festivals, night clubs, etc.), short-term missions projects to other regions in Brazil or other countries (especially other Portuguese-speaking nations), etc.

Now, this is what we do, but why do we do it? In the ultimate analysis, we all exist to glorify God, right (Is. 43:7; 1 Cor. 10:31)? There are lots of ways to glorify God, but we are convinced that serving God on the foreign mission field is where we can glorify Him most effectively and efficiently. In other words, we are able to invest the best hours of our day and the best days of our week in the Harvest (Matt. 9:35-38), which is why the Son of God came to earth (Lk. 19:10) in the first place. In addition, we get to hold HIM up through sound teaching and preaching for the edification of His Church. Finally, we get to do all of this in a nation that has been predicted by at least one missions' statesman to become the world's missionary-sending leader: BRAZIL!

So, that's about it. Feel free to comment on what we do and why. God bless!

RIO DE JANEIRO WILL HOST THE 2016 OLYMPICS!

Frankly, I doubted that this would happen. I mean, you have the president of the United States going to Denmark to push his hometown, Chicago. You have Madrid already building two-thirds of its facilities and mobilizing 100,000 people to show their support of their city's Olympic bid.

Now, I live just across the bay from Rio and, apart from some signs here and there, I hadn't picked up much enthusiasm on the part of Rio's residents. But I was wrong, in a BIG way! I was in downtown Rio today (Oct. 2) meeting with my Cândido Mendes University disciple, Alexandre, when my wife calls and tells me both Chicago and Tokyo were out of the running! It was down to Rio and Madrid. She asked me if I was going to Copacabana to preach to the 100,000 residents gathered there to watch, on the beach, the announcement of the winner. Alexandre had to go to a job interview, so I took the Metro (subway) to famous Copacabana Beach!

As soon as I got off the subway, I heard some teens up ahead of me screaming. I knew then what had happened, but I waited until I could get near the beach to confirm, by a street vendor, Rio's selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics. Here's the video Rio used this morning in Copenhagen to try to "sell" the city to the International Olympic Committee (I recommend that you double click on the screen below to take you to full screen on YouTube, where you can watch it in High Quality and/or watch it Full Screen on your computer.)

When I got to the beach, WOW! There were people all over the place, dancing, singing, yelling, smiling. I was thinking, "Okay, how do I play off this and preach to these people?" So I started off telling people that it was God who gave this BIG present to Rio de Janeiro, and all of us would benefit by having the Olympics in Rio. But then I challenged them to think how they were going to thank God for His gift. Were they going to continue doing the same old things, or were they going to get right with Him? Were they going to abandon their sins, or were they going to continue in their rebellion?

I only had one heckler - an older woman - who chided me on "raining on their parade" while not being tolerant of those holding beliefs in other ways, other religions. I replied that Jesus is the ONLY way and that was why I needed to be there preaching this. She said I was forcing my beliefs on them, and I asked, "How?" "By using that bullhorn! You're forcing people to believe what you believe with that thing!" I replied that I was on a public sidewalk in a high-trafficked area, so how was I forcing anybody to believe anything? This drew a small crowd (Hecklers are actually a blessing in disguise, because people are kind of like sharks: When they "smell" blood, they flock to the source to see what's going on!), which I continued preaching to.

Later I noticed one man being particularly attentive. When he approached me to take an evangelistic tract, I stopped preaching long enough for him to ask me if I taught the things I was preaching about anywhere. I told him I didn't pastor a church, so I didn't have a set place where I taught. However, I gave him my phone number if he wanted to set up a time to talk more. We'll see.

Why am I grateful for Rio's selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics? Because Rio will receive the world, and that means there will be tens (or hundreds?) of thousands to reach with the gospel, not to mention millions of Brazilians! I envision this as a tremendous opportunity for the spread of the gospel and, unlike Beijing, the gospel will be able to go out unhindered. I expect there to be an effort on the part of the Church from around the world to organize and execute an evangelistic campaign to reach athletes and fans from both open and closed countries.

May we be ready to take full advantage of this unique opportunity - for the glory of God!

"Stick & Stir" Videos!

These could be the most important 14 minutes of your time that you've ever invested in something. Watch this video N-O-W!!!

The following video is possibly the most important video you will ever watch on YouTube! If you have always assumed you've been a Christian, is it possible that you've been mistaken? Paul counseled the Corinthian church to, in 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you--unless indeed you fail the test?"

Adventures in Evangelism

Wow! I can't believe it's been 45 days since my last post! Oh well - here goes! Better late than never. 

I am committing myself to posting on, at least, a biweekly basis in the future. My goal is to do weekly updates, but I will commit in the beginning to - at least - biweekly ones. A good friend and supporter of ours commented recently on a frivolous e-mail I sent out to all of our ministry partners (financial supporters) and e-letter recipients . . . that he would much prefer to get ministry news from us rather than seemingly irrelevant e-mails. As the recent presidential election approached, he had also asked to not receive any more e-mails questioning the moral qualifications and standards of one of the candidates (Guess who!) in the interest of receiving more ministry info. Although I like to influence people - in a positive way, of course - via what I consider to be relevant e-mails, I have heard his "cry" and will give more attention to his request via weekly and biweekly posts, based on e-mails I will send out to my list.

You know, when you haven't made a commitment to update people regularly on how God is using you, several things can (and in my case, do) happen. First, you forget the details. At an age when, as my mother calls them, "senior moments" are becoming more and more frequent, I realize I cannot afford not to record what has happened as close to the events as possible. Of course, it helps to have a wife with a tremendous capacity to remember details, but I need to tell her those details first for her to be able to remember them, right? But, the safest route is to write them down.

Another result of not updating people regularly, thus forcing one to record those updates regularly, is that an opportunity is lost to bless regularly the people who most deserve to know what's going on: those who have made a commitment to invest regularly in your ministry.

One more thing that happens as a result of not updating people regularly on your ministry is that you forget what God has done! As I read the Old and New Testaments, I see narrative texts. Why has God chosen to not just give us commands and leave it at that? I believe it is because these accounts are meant to be a perpetual reminder of how He worked in and through His people. They served as a reminder to those in and through whom He had worked, not to mention to future generations. These accounts are more than simple stories. They were put there to motivate us to continue in our faithfulness to a miracle-working God!

Okay, so enough introduction. Let's get down to business. Let's talk about Adventures in Evangelism! Amen!

Campus Evangelism

Several encounters come to mind as I reflect back on my campus evangelism over this past semester. In this post I will highlight only one, saving the others for future posts - assuming my memory won't fail me!

Each week I meet individually - outside of our group times, of course - with at least eight of the nine guys I'm discipling, representing 3 different universities here in the Greater Rio de Janeiro area. One of those guys is Eric, a third-year Law School student at one of Brazil's most prestigious Law Schools (note: One can enter Law School right out of high school here, as in most other countries around the world. The same goes for Med School!). Eric also uses Ray Comfort's The Evidence Bible, and I've noticed its influence on him when we're sharing our faith together.

On this particular occasion, we got talking to two freshmen - a guy and a girl. It turned out the girl was from out of state and had a Protestant church upbringing. A girl involved in our ministry by the name of Francine "just happened" to come by, so we introduced her to the freshman and I believe they are meeting regularly for bible study/discipleship now.

The guy was a whole other story! He proudly stated that he was a Spiritist (Brazil is the largest Spiritist nation in the world. Spiritism promotes reincarnation, self-redemption, good works and contact with the spirits of dead relatives.). He took issue with the Christian assertion that a a loving God would send people to hell who had never had a chance to come to Jesus. I assured him that God would never send anyone to hell for not having heard of Jesus. He would send them to hell because they had sinned and broken His laws. He tried to argue his point more, but seemed somewhat satisfied when I told him about the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20), that God has sent his followers into all the world to preach the gospel. Then I tried to "turn the tables" on him and told him that we were not just concerned about those who had never heard of Christ, but we were concerned about his soul too. He smiled and said we needn't worry about him, that he was "okay." I asked, "Really?" He tried to justify himself, affirming that God was a loving, forgiving God. 

I reminded him that his wishful thinking regarding Jesus - that He only emphasized love and forgiveness - was not based on the Gospel accounts. I told him that the Gospels only mention God's love for humanity in 6 verses, while mentioning His wrath, coming judgement, hell and condemnation in 163 verses! In other words, this latter subject is apparently of great concern to God. It should be to us as well. In fact, the Book of Acts, which gives us various examples of the Early Church's first evangelistic sermons, does not mention God's love once! It's something worth thinking about.

Upon seeing that he had no biblical basis for his erroneous view of God, the student began to take issue with the trustworthiness of the New Testament. When I pointed out to him that his motivation for questioning the veracity of the Bible was rooted in his desire to flee its implications, he returned to his earlier argument about his view of Jesus being different and that he just couldn't accept another view. As he left for class, I reminded him that if his view was wrong, he was going to pay dearly for all eternity. He flashed a nervous smile over his shoulder and entered his classroom. 

Now, some might say I had totally blown it! Think about it! I didn't try to convince him that Jesus offered, as one well-known pastor promises, "Your Best Life Now!" I didn't "close the sale" by trying to get him to "invite Jesus into his heart" at the end of our conversation! I didn't emphasize God's love! Oops!

What I did do was try to plough up the rocky soil of his heart in order to sow the seed of the gospel. As a preacher/friend of mine by the name of Michael Venyah puts it:

Remember James 4:6: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble”. If you needed to build a garden for starving people, in a place where the ground was concrete, gently working the ground would do no good; you would need to use a backhoe and a jackhammer and exert force in order to break up the hard ground. But to plant the garden in soft soil, you wouldn’t need a backhoe and jackhammer, just a spade, seed and water, which you could use gently. The Holy Ghost preached hard through me because, as the hearts of all the sinners listening were hardened through their choice to stay in sin, He was resisting them. But, after being cut to the heart by the hard Holy Ghost preaching, when that young man chose to humble himself, the Spirit of God presented grace.

So, sometimes we need to be confrontational even in our personal evangelism. God wants His truth to penetrate hearts, but those hearts need to be softened by means of God's ordained tool: His Law - and the consequences of breaking it. This is the biblical way, not to mention the way of evangelists throughout the centuries. Somehow the Church decided to try to improve on God's way in the 20th Century, only emphasizing God's love vs. God's holiness and justice. What we see today is something like 80%+ of Americans claiming to be born-again Christians! There is no way! This is the product of what Ray Comfort calls modern evangelism. May we return to our roots, the roots of biblical evangelism! Amen!