Nations & Generations

February 28, 2022 in Discipleship

As we get closer to my 20-year mark on staff with Campus Outreach, I want to celebrate one of the reasons I have continued in vocational ministry. The motive that drew me to work with Campus Outreach was the commitment to life-on-life, multiplying discipleship. Simply stated, it's what I believe Jesus did as the framework of his earthly ministry and what we see in the New Testament, both in the foreground and background, in the primitive church and on the early mission field. The charge Paul gave to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:1-2 has been my motivation in ministry for decades, "You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others."

During the first 10 years in Belo Horizonte, there were many men in my life with whom I had the absolute privilege to engage in discipleship. During those years, from 2002-2012, I was much younger, had no children and related on more of a leader-peer level. Those were very sweet times, because the men I led were also my dear friends. Times were not always easy, and today I don't have the close relationship with all of them I did then; even some who criticize me today. However, I continue to press on because this is what I believe the Lord has for me.

Below I will highlight a few names and faces. These are men who have continued to dedicate themselves to the generational impact of discipling men in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There are many who will be left out, and I do not mean any ill-will towards anyone. For the sake of readability, I am attempting to keep this short, while also celebrating all the men who have continued to dedicate themselves to the generations among different nations around the world; Brazil, USA, the UK, and beyond.

Thiago

Thiago, was my roommate for years after he became a Christian. He is small in stature, and soft spoken by nature, but the Lord is using his very potent dedication to the Scriptures in big ways. Thiago is a leader and elder in our local church in Belo Horizonte. He was a deep-thinking, The Matrix trilogy-loving, frugal college student full of existential questions to which he didn't have any answers. How I love seeing him, his equally impactful wife and his growing family every Sunday as he worships the Lord and, at times, teaches from the pulpit.

Pedro

I met Pedro when he was 16 years old; a spiky-haired teenager all about Judo and having fun. His sister was involved in our community, and he came along for the fun parts. The Lord worked on him. What a testimony of the ministry of purposeful friendships that ask hard questions and don't shy away from even harder answers about God, sin, purpose and eternity. Pedro and I had a long discipleship relationship because he came to Christ before ever starting college. Pedro was one of the guys I considered a "purposeful non-hire" - meaning that I purposely did not want him to come on staff because he was ready to go into the marketplace to make an impact. However, God had other ideas…better ideas.

Pedro came on staff in 2015, fruit of a process that confirmed his character, his vision and his gifting for joining our staff team. By 2019 he had grown in leadership and experience, positioning himself to take over as our Administrative Director and leading the Admin team. His wife, Priscila, has been on staff with our team since 2008. Together they have grown into a couple that leads by example and by conviction, and driven by the grace of God in their lives. In 2020, in the midst of the global pandemic, Pedro officially took over as our Regional Director of CO Belo Horizonte, the first time a native Brazilian has been in overall leadership in our 20+ years of history. It has been amazing to see all this unfold, and to support him in his Christlike leadership.

Alan

Alan was the guy that wanted to do everything during college. If there was an opportunity, he was involved. So when this group of US exchange students arrived on campus with our Cross-Cultural Project in 2002, this wide-eyed freshman was all about it. That was just a start, because what began as an opportunity to refine his English grew into a real friendship. I'll never forget when Alan asked me one day, after a few years of already studying the Bible and asking hard questions about God and faith, "If I never become a Christian, will we still be friends?" That took me by surprise, but also challenged me to check my own motivations; if I loved these students conditionally because of ministry, or unconditionally because of Christ in me?

Alan did in fact become a Christian. Immediately, he was a man captivated by gospel. Over the following years we dug into the scriptures and Alan wanted to be as involved as possible with what our team was doing on his campus. He got his family involved in church, in Bible studies; his immediate family, his extended family, his classmates and so many others. He quickly knew that this was what he was going to do for the rest of his life. He made sure we knew his desire, and didn't take "no" for an answer. Alan came on staff in 2006 and worked directly on the campus for years as a Campus Staff and as one of our Campus Directors. Many things coincided among his experience, family and desire to lead that culminated in Alan, his wife Júnia and their little boy moving to the UK to partner as a CO staff with a church plant in Manchester. Today, they have moved to Birmingham, England (not Alabama!) to continue to labor with a Campus Outreach team that is reaching out to the multicultural campuses there, with direct ties to more nations than I can list here.

Diego

Diego was that guy on campus who joined a Bible study group in order to prove me wrong. I mean, he was a law student and really smart, so what risk did he run? Well, that backfired because he became a Christian in 2010 and never looked back. We were in a few different versions of discipleship groups for several years, but our relationship has only grown closer. Today, Diego is my brother-in-law! He married Tathiana's sister, Fabiana, in 2015.

Diego is a professional, not on staff. He, in many ways, is what I long to see more often in and through our ministry - dedicated Christian professionals stepping into the marketplace, raising first-generation Christian families and committed to the ministry in and through the local church. His struggles and battles to believe and hold firm to his faith are much different than those of us in vocational ministry. But, to be directly involved in his struggles and see his faith grow deep roots in order to sustain the oftentime desert-reality of the marketplace is amazing. Jesus sustains; Diego and Fabiana have been a testimony of this truth. Their generation is growing as they welcomed their first child in November of last year. Maybe one day they themselves will go to the nations outside of Brazil.

The Lost Art

November 08, 2021 in Team, Discipleship

Our teams often have frequent turnover, with new staff coming in every year, and staff transitioning off as time goes by. This dynamic led me to create a standard several years ago; important training issues need to be repeated every four years. This is because after four years you have new staff who have not yet had direct contact with specific content, and many who did have direct contact have likely transitioned off the team.

At our most basic essence, Campus Outreach's content revolves around being a college ministry that focuses on evangelism and discipleship. This semester our leadership team decided it was time for a specific focus on discipleship training for our team. We are reading and discussing a classic on the subject, The Lost Art of Disciple-Making, by LeRoy Eims, who served with the Navigators ministry. This book is both a theoretical manifest for the need of life-on-life discipleship, but also for the biblical basis and full of practical application. There is a lot of content on which to reflect and discuss as a team.

I have led our team discussions and provided discussion questions for our interaction. I have enjoyed thinking about the specific applications to our context here in urban Brazil on the college campus with a local church. We have come to wholeheartedly agree with many of the author's points. We have, also, disagreed with several points and considered how to adjust in light of what we believe was Jesus' example. It has been great to see how the maxim of "more is caught than taught” can be enriched and potentialized by consuming quality content and working it out through hearty discussion.

Our plan is to finish reading and discussing all 12 chapters and 3 appendixes by the end of November, and we are right on schedule. This has been a great reminder for me of how I originally was drawn to the opportunity to work in Brazil with Campus Outreach because of the commitment to life-on-life discipleship, and oh how I have been encouraged to see this same vision continue strong 20 years later.

Globalization + Missions

February 24, 2015 in Discipleship

This pic is Instagram post of Wandson (from fellow staff Lee Cunningham), a friend and graduate of CO from our church in Belo Horizonte, Comunidade Horizonte.

Wandson left Brazil in February to serve in Papua New Guinea with Mission Aviation Fellowship's radio broadcast ministry using his degree and experience as an electrical engineer. Thank God for sending out His people from BH!

Also, I, an American, just bought a book for Wandson, a Brazilian, from an online bookstore in Australia for delivery in Papua New Guinea. Pretty neat - and also a good possibility for processing errors - and all so that Christ is known all over the world.

What We Believe AND WHY?

October 24, 2012 in Discipleship

Over the past few months the conversation within my discipleship group has centered around this phrase: “What we believe and why?” We have taken some of the important questions of our faith and discussed them, studied them, and hashed-out hard questions in order to get to the point where we know what we believe and why.

First, we took several weeks to look at the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. These are important summaries of the basic Christian faith that span most Christian denominations, including Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox. In addition, being some of the oldest confessions, these declarations are important building blocks for other doctrines we were to study afterwards.

Next, we spent weeks moving from topic to topic. We began with the hard-to-grasp doctrine of the Trinity. Then, we discussed the polemic doctrine of Election/Predestination. The last study we did was about Spiritual Gifts – what they are, their use and controversy surrounding them.

Each person took personal responsibility to find sources, Bible passages, commentaries and articles and bring his own findings to the group. We met together to discuss what each person had come up with. The idea has not been to determine a final stance to sit upon, but to have good Biblical reasons for what we may say we believe, but not always understand why or the history of it.

We will continue on this pace until the end of the year. If you have any suggestions, send them on so we can live in light of Psalm 119:105 – “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”

Tathiana's Reflections: Nov 2012

October 23, 2012 in Personal, Discipleship

ABOVE: Audrey, Tathiana and Rafaela. BELOW: Dora, Tathiana, George and DuncanDiscipleship Group

I’ve been meeting with these girls, Audrey and Rafaela, for two years and I say that it is a privilege to see them growing in their vision to serve others and in their relationship with God.

We are in the middle of a Bible study of Romans and learning that we Christians have an enormous capacity to settle for just doing the “right things”. Sometimes we forget that we are sinners in need of grace daily and not to look at fulfilling the law.

Church Children's Ministry

One of the things that has brought me so much joy this year has been teaching 3 children at our church. Dora, George and Duncan, all between 10 and 12, are children of families who attend our church.

We have spent 6 months studying about different heroes in the Bible and I have seen such change in their hearts and outlook over this period. It is so encouraging to see vulnerability and repentance in these little guys who have such little life experience. I admit that I like the comic relief they provide, and even mediating their in and out of classroom conflicts.