Church-Planting Conference in Chile

Edna, Leão, Claudio, Clenildo, and Deanna

Edna and Leão are the senior pastors in Gurupá and the supervisors of the Xingu River churches.

Claudio is the national director of the Association of Vineyard Churches in Chile.

Clenildo is the pastor of all the pastors in the Northern Region of Brazil.

Deanna is awesome.

Edna spoke at one of the main sessions.

The church that hosted the conference has a round concept. The preaching and worship happen in the middle of a round room, so you always have your back to many people, and you kind of keep turning around as you talk. The worship team all face the center of the room as they lead from the perimeter of the inner circle. The chairs are close, about three or four rows deep, all around the center. There are five monitors hanging from the ceiling. Everything is live-streamed.

One hundred and fifty church planters and potential church planters participated in the conference, and many more were online.

Edna showed a before and after photo of the church in Souzel, demonstrating what happened there when they started doing Discovery Group evangelism.

One of the stories Edna shared was about Lene. The church in Souzel went through a situation and came into disrepute in the city due to a previous pastor. Lene struggled with mental health and traveled 13 hours by boat to Gurupá to spend some months with Edna and Leão to get healing. Eventually, Lene and her husband Vincent became the pastors in Souzel. They were at a loss as to how to reactivate an almost vacant church. Edna suggested Discovery Groups. “Do you think that will work here?” “Try it and see.” 

A short time later, Lene was walking to church one Sunday. She had her head down and was preoccupied thinking about what she was going to preach and the order of the weekly celebration service. (Edna walked around on the stage at the church-planting conference in Chile with her head down, pretending to be thinking as she demonstrated how Lene was walking to church). Lene suddenly became aware of many motorcycles, all parked close together by the church, and she distractedly thought, “Why are all these motorbikes here?” Then she saw a bunch of cars parked in front of the church. “Why are all these cars here?” When she walked into the church, it was packed.

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The church-planting conference was organized with three main sessions, each preceded by 15 minutes of testimonies. And three workshops on Saturday afternoon. Our little team was responsible for all the main sessions, the workshops, and we split up to preach in four churches on Sunday.

Deanna shared a story during the testimony time at a main session at the conference.

A Dream

We gave Lene and Vicent a ride for four hours to her daughter’s house after the pastor’s conference in Atalaia in August 2023. During the long car ride, we had time to talk about many things. Lene told us, “I had a dream one night. In the dream, God told me, ‘You will reach your vision/goal of 1,000 churches. I will give it to you.” Then she woke up. The dream was very vivid but puzzling. Lene thought, “I didn’t know I had a goal of 1,000 churches.” As she pondered it, she vaguely remembered that someone said I (Rick) had a vision for 1,000 churches. So she called Edna, who disciples her and asked her about what the dream might mean. “Yes, that is our vision. Rick talked about it, and Clenildo, and now we are all in. You are now part of this vision.”

An Opportunity

Edna also shared that her city of Gurupá is on the fringe of a large Amazon Region known as Marajó. “The Region of Marajó has 14 cities. Just one of those cities, Breves, has 500 (five hundred) communities and villages surrounding it.” Edna works in the public education sector of Gurupá, so discussing logistics is part of their work. Most of those communities of only accessible by boat. Edna and Leão want to reach the Marajó Region with communities of people who are connected to God.