Saturday, February 19, 2005
Carnival Retreat – Goiânia – 5-8 February 2005
Most churches in Brazil organise some kind of special event during Carnival. This for two reasons, one positive and one negative. Positively, it is the longest stretch of public holiday in the year – from Friday night to Wednesday morning, and it is good to make the most of it with a long church weekend. Negatively, it is a period with so much noise, drunkenness, nudity and generally licentious behaviour that many believers (and, increasingly, unbelievers) just want to escape.
Goiânia is the state capital of Goiás state, in the Centre-West region of Brazil, around 800 miles from us, flying via São Paulo. First Presbyterian Church is a large church which we have already visited twice, Cora spending three weeks there in 2003 while working in the Coloquium project of our friends Luciano and Luciene, members of the church.
We are very fond of this church. It is large. It is highly structured. These factors would not really endear us, but the reformed theology applied in a contemporary way certainly does. Most of all, as one of the few churches where the commitment is explicitly to Biblical exposition as the starting point of doctrine and practice, we feel very much at home.
Early last year Pastor Gil invited me to speak at this year’s Carnival retreat. The event took place at the Acampamento owned by one of the members of the church. It is used by other churches and Christian groups, but it is “home turf” for First Presbyterian. The site is still being developed, with a good standard of accommodation, and an excellent range of exciting activities, particularly for the young, or young at heart. The whole event was well organized, with great food, a wonderful atmosphere, many laughs, excellent weather – it was a total tonic for us.
I had agreed to preach through Exodus and, despite moments of panic in the weeks leading up to the retreat, this is what happened. It felt slightly cheeky a Baptist taking 250 Presbyterians through a Biblical Theology of the Exodus, but it was well received. In fact, each session seemed deeper and fuller, as the wonderful story of the Rescue out of Egypt gave way to the yet more wonderful story of the Presence of God with his people. I have never spoken on Exodus in Portuguese before, and the vocabulary, especially in the opening section, was a challenge, but linguistic problems didn’t seem to spoil the six sermons.
The people are very responsive, and it was particularly good to have so many sharp and deep questions from the young people. There is strength in depth in the church, with the fruit of solid teaching visible in the teenagers and twenty-somethings. All in all the long weekend cemented what was already a special relationship with this church.
It also was instructive in helping to define strategy. Over the past years, we have constantly tried to open up moments of teaching teachers, rather than just pulpit filling. In general, if Andrew speaks in a church, for a weekend say, there will also be some kind of workshop or lecture sequence aimed at pastors and others in word ministry. This is, after all, our chief concern and goal here. But it was very beneficial simply to spend a weekend with a healthy church, preaching through a book of the Bible, seeing the impact in all kinds of people, and getting involved in many conversations that had to do with the content and application of the messages. Such ministry has value in itself, of course, but we also felt this time how important it was in terms of informing and stimulating the other aspects of wider ministry. We trust this will not be our last Carnival retreat, nor our last visit to Goiânia!
We are very grateful to Gil, who has been such a staunch friend through our whole time in Brazil, and to Abe and June, our hosts and new friends in the Centre-West.
We have tried to give a particularly full photo-diary of this trip, partly for the benefit of the many friends in Goiânia who may access the site. Click on the photos to see a larger, clearer image.
Tentamos fazer uma seqüencia de fotos bem ampla esta vez, em parte pensando nos muitos amigos de Goiânia que podem entrar no site. Clique nas fotos para ver uma imagem maior e mais nítida.
Most churches in Brazil organise some kind of special event during Carnival. This for two reasons, one positive and one negative. Positively, it is the longest stretch of public holiday in the year – from Friday night to Wednesday morning, and it is good to make the most of it with a long church weekend. Negatively, it is a period with so much noise, drunkenness, nudity and generally licentious behaviour that many believers (and, increasingly, unbelievers) just want to escape.
Goiânia is the state capital of Goiás state, in the Centre-West region of Brazil, around 800 miles from us, flying via São Paulo. First Presbyterian Church is a large church which we have already visited twice, Cora spending three weeks there in 2003 while working in the Coloquium project of our friends Luciano and Luciene, members of the church.
We are very fond of this church. It is large. It is highly structured. These factors would not really endear us, but the reformed theology applied in a contemporary way certainly does. Most of all, as one of the few churches where the commitment is explicitly to Biblical exposition as the starting point of doctrine and practice, we feel very much at home.
Early last year Pastor Gil invited me to speak at this year’s Carnival retreat. The event took place at the Acampamento owned by one of the members of the church. It is used by other churches and Christian groups, but it is “home turf” for First Presbyterian. The site is still being developed, with a good standard of accommodation, and an excellent range of exciting activities, particularly for the young, or young at heart. The whole event was well organized, with great food, a wonderful atmosphere, many laughs, excellent weather – it was a total tonic for us.
I had agreed to preach through Exodus and, despite moments of panic in the weeks leading up to the retreat, this is what happened. It felt slightly cheeky a Baptist taking 250 Presbyterians through a Biblical Theology of the Exodus, but it was well received. In fact, each session seemed deeper and fuller, as the wonderful story of the Rescue out of Egypt gave way to the yet more wonderful story of the Presence of God with his people. I have never spoken on Exodus in Portuguese before, and the vocabulary, especially in the opening section, was a challenge, but linguistic problems didn’t seem to spoil the six sermons.
The people are very responsive, and it was particularly good to have so many sharp and deep questions from the young people. There is strength in depth in the church, with the fruit of solid teaching visible in the teenagers and twenty-somethings. All in all the long weekend cemented what was already a special relationship with this church.
It also was instructive in helping to define strategy. Over the past years, we have constantly tried to open up moments of teaching teachers, rather than just pulpit filling. In general, if Andrew speaks in a church, for a weekend say, there will also be some kind of workshop or lecture sequence aimed at pastors and others in word ministry. This is, after all, our chief concern and goal here. But it was very beneficial simply to spend a weekend with a healthy church, preaching through a book of the Bible, seeing the impact in all kinds of people, and getting involved in many conversations that had to do with the content and application of the messages. Such ministry has value in itself, of course, but we also felt this time how important it was in terms of informing and stimulating the other aspects of wider ministry. We trust this will not be our last Carnival retreat, nor our last visit to Goiânia!
We are very grateful to Gil, who has been such a staunch friend through our whole time in Brazil, and to Abe and June, our hosts and new friends in the Centre-West.
We have tried to give a particularly full photo-diary of this trip, partly for the benefit of the many friends in Goiânia who may access the site. Click on the photos to see a larger, clearer image.
Tentamos fazer uma seqüencia de fotos bem ampla esta vez, em parte pensando nos muitos amigos de Goiânia que podem entrar no site. Clique nas fotos para ver uma imagem maior e mais nítida.
# posted by Andrew and Cora @ 10:27:00 am 
