Daniel King is a missionary evangelist who is passionate about leading people to Jesus.
Friday, September 6, 2013
Thursday, September 5, 2013
When 10% of a City Prays for Salvation
Jequié, Brazil is located
deep in the interior of the state of Bahia in northeast Brazil. The population
of the city is 150,000 and on the final night of our Gospel crusade this week
over 15,000 people gathered in the center of the city to hear the Gospel. Virtually
every hand was raised when I gave the invitation to receive salvation. For the
local pastors who often work for years without a single conversion, this is a
harvest of unprecedented size.
For the past month,
excitement has been building in Jequié. Billboards and thousands of posters
announced that Jesus would do miracles. A huge stage was erected in a parking
lot in the middle of the city and people streamed to the grounds anxious to see
what God would do. Lively music greeted them. The atmosphere was full of
excitement. On the first night of the crusade, Jesus did not disappoint the
expectant crowd. Three people who were deaf in one ear claimed they were
miraculously touched by God and were able to hear. Because of the miracle
testimonies, the crowd sized doubled the next night.
On the final night of the
crusade, I preached a simple Gospel message contrasting the kingdom of darkness
with the kingdom of light. I asked, “Why come into the kingdom of God?” I
answered, “Because there is joy, forgiveness, and healing in the kingdom of
God.” I invited those who wanted to receive Christ to come to the front of the
crowd. Counsellors from the local churches greeted them. The new believers gave
us their names, phone numbers, and addresses. We presented each of them a
beautiful Bible.
The next day, local churches
used the decision cards to call each person who made a decision to follow
Jesus. The churches formed teams who went out two-by-two to visit every person
who got saved. They arranged a time to meet together to study the Bible. The
ultimate goal is to get every new believer plugged into a local church so he or
she can be discipled.
The church in this part of
Brazil seems weak. Small neighborhood churches of 15-20 members are scattered
around the community but it is estimated that before we came to Jequié there
were less than 9,000 believers in the entire city.
In São Paulo, Rio de
Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte the evangelical Church is growing quickly.
Mega-churches with thousands of members are flourishing. However, in the
northeast of Brazil, there is a great untouched harvest field of souls waiting.
The church in the northeast is anemic and it is estimated that only 2-3% of the
people in the interior of northeast Brazil are saved.
Over fifty million people
live in northeast Brazil, six million of these live on the coast, the rest live
in the interior of the country. The rural area is affected by constant droughts
and is plagued by great poverty. Approximately sixteen million people live in
villages. Thousands of these villages don’t have a single Christian witness.
The landmass of northeast Brazil is three times larger than all the Central
American countries combined.
Salvador, the largest city
in the state of Bahia, was the center of the Brazilian slave trade during the
mid-sixteenth century. African slaves were captured and taken to Brazil and
they brought their traditional tribal religions with them. Today, their
descendants continue to practice ancient superstitions. They often mix tribal
and indigenous religions with Catholicism and evangelical Christianity.
Witchcraft is common. One
woman who came to the crusade was unable to walk because of a curse that her
neighbor placed on her. She got saved on the first night of the crusade and
started to walk. Many people here are afraid of curses, hyper-aware of the
spiritual world, and practice rituals similar to voodoo. Dozens of demonic
manifestations took place as we took authority over the powers of darkness.
Jesus set people free from a lifetime of demonic oppression.
I worked with Rubens Cunha,
a Brazilian evangelist who has done over forty crusades in the northeast of
Brazil. He says, “If I was to do a crusade in every city in the state of Bahia
with a population of between 30,000 and 100,000 people, I could do one crusade
a month for seven and a half years. If you have a passion for evangelism,
please come and help us reach this ripe mission field.”
Over the next three years,
the eyes of the world will be on Brazil as first the World Cup and then the
Olympics are held there. As people stream to Brazil for sporting events, it is
important for the church to come to northeast Brazil to evangelize. The harvest
is ready, will you help bring in the harvest?
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