By Eli Mendez-Garcia
Seventeen new churches open everyday in Brazil.
“In the next seven years or so, we will be the majority in the country,” says Silas Malafaia of the Assembly of God Victory in Christ church of 100,000 members in Rio de Janeiro. “Today, we make up about 35% of the population, and God’s Kingdom has influence in every corner of Brazilian society.”
Revival has by-passed America. The world is coming to Christ in exponential growth, and Brazil can brag of miraculous numbers. What was once the world’s largest Catholic nation will be overwhelmingly evangelical by 2030, according to projections.
“We are on the verge of a religious change in Brazil,” says Brazilian sociologist Dr. José Alves. “In 1950, 93% of Brazilians identified as Catholics. Fom 1991 onwards, the Catholic Church started to lose 1% of followers every year, resulting in a dramatic drop.”
J.B. Carvalho‘s church in the capital city of Brasilia started with 25 in 2003.
“Today, we have about 12,000 people in Brasília alone,” said Carvalho of Community of the Nations Church. “We also have another 15,000 people in Fortaleza. Our churches are spread throughout Brazil.”
In São Paulo, Andre Fernandes pastors Lagoinha church.
“For many decades, we have heard that Brazil would experience a wave of revival that would be exported around the world,” and ” Fernandes says. “I believe that this is what we are experiencing at this moment.”
Revival is not limited to church attendance. It is also impacting politics.
Marcelo Crivella, pastor turned politician, was mayor of Rio de Janeiro and is now a congressman.
“We are more than 140 deputies and more than 20 senators,” said Crivella. The congressmen meet to have prayer and worship.
Celina Leão, the vice governor of Brasília, believes politicians should pray: “I used to participate in those prayer meetings when I was in Congress. Now, every month in the governor’s office, we meet for prayer, and people come to my office. It’s a wonderful time to see friends and be in communion.”
The country’s first evangelical church opened in 1922. By 1990, the number had grown to more than 7,000 congregations. Nearly 30 years later, it grew to almost 110,000.
“Now in Brazil we have 550,000 – 550,000 churches,” Crivella says.
The fuel for the revival has been prayer and praise.
Worship leader Ana Paula Valadao has been stanging concerts in strategic places all over Brazil since the 1990s.
“It was about healing the land, and we started seeing amazing salvation numbers,” Valadao says. “(We did concerts) like the Carnival site in Rio de Janeiro and in the soccer stadiums. Jesus broke every record, gathering more people than any soccer tournament.”
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