Rio Recap, 2021: Celebration Barra in Rio

This is Post No. 2 from our series Rio Recap, 2021.

Posted on July 28, 2021 by J. Boe Ellis

BARRA, RIO DE JANEIRO — Short-term missions can be difficult at times. I am not sure if grilling a bunch of meat and throwing a big party qualifies, but we gave it our best. No really. Our mission in Barra (pronounced Baha), Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night, July 11, 2021, was simply to be hospitable.

And if you know Brazilians, they don’t mess around. The saying “go big or go home” should have come from Rio, especially where meat is concerned.

We were much obliged, as they say, as we played host to around 50 very special guests for a very special service with Pastor Josias (Joe) Souza and his budding Celebration Church Planting Network. It was a super way for the burly Brazilian from Boston to come to Rio and get church planters and small group leaders together in one place, to get them to sing together and to hear the vision straight from Pastor Joe, who had traveled from Boston to Rio this particular week with an eye on this particular night.

It has been like 15 years in the making, about that long since Pastor Joe began planting Portuguese-English-speaking churches in Boston / New England. All the while, and especially in the last four and a half years, he has been dreaming about the day he could leverage all of his experience and all his roots in his hometown of Rio to start not just a few church plants, but with the Lord’s leading, a church planting movement that could blossom from Rio to the whole country of Brazil – and beyond.

So why not start with a celebration service in Barra, his old stomping grounds, he thought? With nothing but positive feedback and a peace about the timing, Pastor Joe rented a great house complete with an outdoor kitchen that looks more like a mini-convention center –remember this is Brazil–and started inviting pastors and leaders and their families to come and enjoy fellowship, and, yes, meat.

The scene was perfect. On the menu was picanha, of course, and lots of it, and filet, and sausage, and garlic bread, and all the sides. And to drink? Is there anything other than Guaraná? Most of all, on the menu was a spirit of cooperation, as one new Celebration church plant and three new small groups had formally taken shape by the end of the night.

Pastor Joe talked about the feedback he received after the event. “They all said that this was the thing that was missing, just having fellowship and getting together,” Pastor Joe said with a smile, “and singing and eating good food. It’s important. So I believe we are going to do this more often.”

Before he could get the words out of his mouth, Pastor Joe had scheduled August 8, 2021 for the next special launch event for the new Celebration Church Universitária, the first official Celebration Church Planting Network church in Rio. Great Commission Partnerships won’t be making that event in person but we want to invite you to join us in prayer, specifically:

that God would choose to bless Pastor Joe’s trip to Rio
that the Spirit would be present in mighty ways at the launch service of Celebration Universitária on Sunday morning, August 8, 2021, and at the special event that evening in Barra
that God would use Celebration Universitária to lead their neighbors to Christ and change their neighborhood for Christ
that God would bless and grow all three small groups forming in Barra, one already bursting with students and young professionals, and two others praying about tracking toward church planting

This is our charge, as Great Commission Partnerships, to come alongside the need through trips, through service, through prayer, and through giving. Pastor Joe is asking his church family in Boston to give sacrificially (above their regular giving) at least $2,000 per mo. collectively in support of these pastors, small group leaders and church planters in Rio.

To use a gardening metaphor, we might say the seed has been planted, even years ago, but right now is the critical time to protect and nurture the little plant shooting up from the soil, so that it can grow strong and put down big roots.

If that sounds a little dramatic, it should. “God is doing something awesome here,” Pastor Joe said. “I can really see it happening.”

And that is the measure of our partnership in Rio. I have been privileged to serve alongside Pastor Joe in different ways for more than 10 years now, and I have seen a lot of really cool ups and a few not so cool downs, but I don’t think I have ever seen Pastor Joe this excited. “You could go on a lot of mission trips,” he said over breakfast the next morning, “but you won’t find a better trip than this one.”

Amen. What a blessing for our team to hear that from our partner. Our mission statement says that our ministry exists to… “support long-term partners in the field,” and that support can look like a lot of things. Among them all, the impact of encouragement and serving can not be overstated. It is a ministry of presence through going, praying, and giving.

Please contact me directly to talk more about these opportunities to serve Celebration right now in Universetária, in Barra, and in Santa Cruz. Will you join us in prayer, through giving, going, and for some maybe even moving your life to Rio to love these church planters and their neighbors, to love Brazil with the Gospel?

You can help fund our ongoing involvement in this vision. In addition to leading churches and teams to come to Rio to serve, God is opening doors for supporters in the U.S. and beyond to invest prayerfully and financially in this ministry. Click here to learn more about our Brazil partnership or click on the button below to give directly to our work in Brazil.

The Lord will be glorified when we do. And rest assured, when you come to Brazil, you can know that the Lord’s blessings and the meat will just keep coming around, again and again and again.

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