Rio Recap, 2021: Celebration Universitária Church

This is Post No. 3 from our series Rio Recap, 2021.

Posted on July 27, 2021 by J. Boe Ellis

RIO DE JANEIRO — Short-term missions is full of pinch yourself moments. I almost hurt myself with this one, walking on July 10, 2021 with our team from Tampa, FL around this really cool, really small, really poor neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It’s a village of about 4,000 people isolated on the peninsula that occupies the University of Rio de Janeiro near downtown and the Galeão International Airport.

It was about 4:00 p.m. local time and our opportunity was to divide up into teams and to go out and interact with neighbors, to share the gospel and invite them to a celebration service out in the streets later that evening. I didn’t have a plan, really, other than just setting out with the Gospel in my heart, and of course, with my trusty hat on my head. It says in Spanish “Jesus te ama,” and I was excited to learn while I was there that it translates exactly the same into Portuguese, Jesus te ama, spelled the same and everything.

So we set out. We would walk up to doors and knock, or walk into businesses, or happen upon folks sitting outside. I would introduce myself and our team as folks from the local church up street. Universetária Church is an existing church, and the newest partnership for our Brazil partner, Pastor Joe Souza, and Celebration Church Boston.

We were there to come alongside Universetária and its Pastor Rafa Rocha as he leads his church family to partner with the Celebration Church Planting Network by becoming Celebration Universetária this August.

They meet right now in a small house on R. das Margaridas (one of fewer than 10 streets in the community), so almost everyone we approached knew the location and was at least somewhat familiar with the church. What I wanted to be sure of, was whether they were familiar with one vital truth. It was on my hat. Did they know that Jesus loves them?

Would they let me share the simple story of the Bible, that God created a perfect world, that we messed it up (through our sin and rebellion against God), that we can’t fix this problem ourselves, and that we are dead in our sin? “But God… being rich in mercy… made us alive together with Christ” (Eph 2:4-5), sent His own Son (John 3:16) to give His life that we might be made right with God – restored, redeemed, forgiven, because of the work of Christ and through no work of our own, but only by believing. We would lead them through these verses, and often recite Romans 10:9 “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” A lot of times, we like to talk about this eternal life as a gift from God, free to us by Grace (Eph 2:8-9), but very costly to God. Only by the Blood of Christ are we made right before a Holy God. We use these little beaded bracelets with the colors of the Gospel.

Black (sin, hopeless). Red (the blood of Christ covers sin). White (purity through Christ, no longer slaves to sin, clean). Blue (a post-salvation profession of faith through baptism). Green (growing in Christ, discipleship and disciple-making). Yellow (streets of gold in Heaven, eternal life with Christ).

“It’s a gift,” we would say. “It belongs to you already. There is nothing you have to do to earn it. We have paid for it, and decided that it is yours. The only problem,” we continued, “is that your gift is still in our possession. What must you do the receive the gift?” Being careful to make sure they don’t hear us saying that they have to earn it through any work of their own, we say simply “you must receive the gift,” as we hand it to them, explaining that believing, trusting completely in the work of Christ done for them personally (in their place) on the cross is the only way to receive the gift of eternal life.

Many respond. We do our best to pray with them and connect them to the local church. And, we move on. We walked literally and figuratively through the Gospel with four or five different groups over two and half hours, talking about Jesus with people who need to know that they are loved by the creator of the universe. Amazing grace, indeed.

And when it came time to head back to the street where the church was located, I was filled with gratitude for such an incredible experience to be thousands of miles from anything familiar, and yet sharing a message that is so familiar, a message that knows no boundaries, is never powerless regardless of obstacles like language and culture.

So here we were, these Americans, doing what we could to help this tiny church family show their neighbors that they want to make a difference. And, man did they show it. With some financial support from Celebration Boston, Universetária Church planned what was for them a large-scale event. They rented a couple of tents, lighting, chairs, and tables, and set up in the middle of the street.

They invited a kids orchestra from one of the poorest and most dangerous favelas (shanty towns) in Rio. And when it came time for the program to begin, they let me know with about 15 minutes notice, that I would be asked to get up and give a five-minute greeting to the church and the crowd that had gathered there.

When it came time for me to stand and speak, all I could think to say in the moment was “Jesus te ama.” It was on my hat.

We all need to hear that don’t we? Clearly people who are without Christ need to hear it, but we need to hear that too. We need to preach this Gospel of grace to each other and often, that our hearts would be filled and that the overflow of our hearts would be His grace.

And that is the whole point of church planting in Boston, Tampa and Rio. It’s missions. It’s Acts 1:8. It’s Mat 28:19-20. It’s all about evangelism and discipleship, not as programs of the church, but as the purpose of the church. Evangelism and discipleship are what Christians do, and in a church planting context, the emphasis is always on growth through conversion, and bringing new believers into the waters of baptism and into the fellowship of the church. Jesus te ama is the message of the whole Bible, in three words.

We were privileged to share that message in support of our partnership with Celebration Church Planting Network and Universetária both on Saturday night and again Sunday morning in worship, where I was blessed to be able to preach the joy of Gospel partnership from Philippians 1:1-6.

Our whole team focused on serving and on just being present. Short-term missions is a ministry of presence, as we try to do everything we can to push our partners further and faster down the tracks than they might go without us. Our presence matters. Your support makes the difference.

For Celebration Universetária we are already hearing great stories of impact around the community, as they prepare to launch officially as Celebration Universetária on Sunday, August 8, 2021.

They have identified already a plot of land in the neighborhood where they hope to build a bigger meeting space. Great Commission Partnerships wants to help with this vision. In addition to leading churches and teams to serve the neighborhood through annual evangelism, outreach, and discipleship training trips, we want to help supporters in the U.S. invest prayerfully and financially in the ministry and in the new building campaign.

Please contact me directly to talk more about these opportunities to serve Celebration Universetária and Pastor Rafa, who is still seeking to raise up enough support to have some kind of regular salary as the Lead Pastor. And that is O.K. by him. “The Lord has brought us this far,” said Pastor Rafa. 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?

Click here to learn more about our Brazil partnership or click on the button below to give directly to our work in Brazil.I had a lot of time to think about that over the nearly 24 hours of travel it took to get home. I found myself spending a lot of time thinking about that hat – the simple message “Jesus te ama,” and how if I really believe it, the entire posture of my life should look like it.