Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Blumenau. Andrew writes:
We had a tremendous day on Saturday, over in Blumenau. We last visited in early June; since then there has been rapid growth in numbers, with 25 or 26 now gathering regularly. The age range has not changed much though: apart from two mothers of group members, in their fifties, the average age must be around 22 or 23, with many of them still in their teens. Some have been converted in the group, but most are from traditional, Pentecostal or G12 churches where they have become utterly disillusioned with shallow and erroneous teaching. They are strong Calvinists, in a fairly intellectual and aggressive way, as you might expect from people of this age who have gained their doctrinal understanding principally from trawling the internet.
There are other factors at work, of course. Certainly within the churches, including the Pentecostal and G12 ones, the fact that many of these young people are of the long-hair, black clothes and body-piercing tribe doesn’t go down too well. Not only are their doctrines weird, but they look weird. So they are out of the churches. I have no doubt that they have not always been wonderful in their tact and Christian grace, whether in their espousal of unconditional election or nose rings, but they are a good group at heart, with a tremendous need of, and hunger for, the Word.
While many Brazilian evangelicals would react strongly against the doctrine and appearance of these young people, they are getting on with the big issues of the kingdom – love to neighbour, practical care for the poor and needy, spreading the gospel. Sadly for many evangelicals, as we know personally to our cost, adherence to fundamentalism’s code book is more important than the righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit of Romans 14:17.
To return to the group and their needs: the Calvinism accessible in Portuguese on the net and in general dominant in the reformed movement here is highly polemic, oriented in terms of systematic theology, with very little Biblical exposition. The reformed movement in fact is not reformed at all, if by reformed we mean the practice of the reformers, who opened the scriptures week by week in their churches. We need polemics, we need systematics, but the basic diet of the people is to be the Bible and the Bible alone. And this group is a prime example of the problem. They are believers, they are Calvinists, and yet they have never, ever heard a real Bible exposition.
I wasn’t sure what to do on Saturday, and had brought various notes with me. But as the conversation progressed, I felt that we had to open up a central gospel passage. Those who know me well will have guessed: Psalm 2, the manifesto.
The study took around 2 hours. Heaps of questions. Sidetracks – both valuable and useless – the paper chase approach to preaching and the obsession with the Five Points were very visible and not helpful. Enthusiastic and very noisy interruptions. Exclamations in youth and surfer slang, “Que animal, cara!” (What a beast, man!) Tears (yes, really) as the beauty of the gospel presented in the passage hit home.
We love this group. They need the Word. They need the tools to get into the Word for themselves. They need teachers.
We are doing what we can to bring the word, and to try to give some support and training to the group members who do most of the teaching. We are going to aim at a visit every month. Pray that it might be possible.
It seems that the road to Blumenau is going to become familiar.
We had a tremendous day on Saturday, over in Blumenau. We last visited in early June; since then there has been rapid growth in numbers, with 25 or 26 now gathering regularly. The age range has not changed much though: apart from two mothers of group members, in their fifties, the average age must be around 22 or 23, with many of them still in their teens. Some have been converted in the group, but most are from traditional, Pentecostal or G12 churches where they have become utterly disillusioned with shallow and erroneous teaching. They are strong Calvinists, in a fairly intellectual and aggressive way, as you might expect from people of this age who have gained their doctrinal understanding principally from trawling the internet.
There are other factors at work, of course. Certainly within the churches, including the Pentecostal and G12 ones, the fact that many of these young people are of the long-hair, black clothes and body-piercing tribe doesn’t go down too well. Not only are their doctrines weird, but they look weird. So they are out of the churches. I have no doubt that they have not always been wonderful in their tact and Christian grace, whether in their espousal of unconditional election or nose rings, but they are a good group at heart, with a tremendous need of, and hunger for, the Word.
While many Brazilian evangelicals would react strongly against the doctrine and appearance of these young people, they are getting on with the big issues of the kingdom – love to neighbour, practical care for the poor and needy, spreading the gospel. Sadly for many evangelicals, as we know personally to our cost, adherence to fundamentalism’s code book is more important than the righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit of Romans 14:17.
To return to the group and their needs: the Calvinism accessible in Portuguese on the net and in general dominant in the reformed movement here is highly polemic, oriented in terms of systematic theology, with very little Biblical exposition. The reformed movement in fact is not reformed at all, if by reformed we mean the practice of the reformers, who opened the scriptures week by week in their churches. We need polemics, we need systematics, but the basic diet of the people is to be the Bible and the Bible alone. And this group is a prime example of the problem. They are believers, they are Calvinists, and yet they have never, ever heard a real Bible exposition.
I wasn’t sure what to do on Saturday, and had brought various notes with me. But as the conversation progressed, I felt that we had to open up a central gospel passage. Those who know me well will have guessed: Psalm 2, the manifesto.
The study took around 2 hours. Heaps of questions. Sidetracks – both valuable and useless – the paper chase approach to preaching and the obsession with the Five Points were very visible and not helpful. Enthusiastic and very noisy interruptions. Exclamations in youth and surfer slang, “Que animal, cara!” (What a beast, man!) Tears (yes, really) as the beauty of the gospel presented in the passage hit home.
We love this group. They need the Word. They need the tools to get into the Word for themselves. They need teachers.
We are doing what we can to bring the word, and to try to give some support and training to the group members who do most of the teaching. We are going to aim at a visit every month. Pray that it might be possible.
It seems that the road to Blumenau is going to become familiar.
# posted by Andrew and Cora @ 10:13:00 am 
