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Dear Friends,
VSI builds relationships with seminary leaders to encourage them
This week, we invite you to pray for the work of ScholarLeaders through our Vital SustainAbility Initiative (VSI). Through VSI, ScholarLeaders (SL) supports executive leaders at theological schools to clarify their unique missions and develop sustainable plans to act on those missions. In the past two months, SL teams have visited 11 schools in India, Brazil, and Ethiopia.
Evelyn Reynolds, who recently joined the SL staff, shares the following prayer requests from her time with the team in Brazil:
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A week ago, I returned from Brazil, where I observed Vital SustainAbility work with three Brazilian seminaries. In light of what I saw with the VSI team, I’d like to update you briefly about how you can pray for Brazilian seminaries and the Church.
Sunset over São Paulo
We worked with one seminary in Londrina and with two seminaries in São Paulo. Londrina is a city of about half-a-million; São Paulo is one of the world’s largest cities, at about 14.7 million.
Although Evangelicals have grown in numbers, many of those who identify as Evangelicals in Brazil are part of enormous neo-Pentecostal churches that focus on power and prosperity.
On the other hand, because millennials often distrust organized religion, some churches in Brazil are disbanding and becoming tiny neighborhood cells. These cells don’t have pastors and don’t reach out to their communities – although in a city like São Paulo, extreme affluence and extreme poverty can coexist almost in the same street.
The three seminaries that we visited prepare pastors to shepherd the Church in this context, and they also have a strong voice for leading change in society.
For example, for revitalizing the Church itself, individuals at these seminaries focus on leadership and on connecting arts and worship. One young man actually became a seminary board member in order to encourage his peers to take Church leadership seriously. Similarly, current students’ interest in Christianity and the arts is especially important for outreach to millennials.
Alumni from one of the seminaries who work as a pastor and a doctor-counselor, respectively
Other current students spearhead ministries to ex-convicts – an often-forgotten subset of Brazil’s poor. These students help to run a bakery where people can work after release from prison and have packaged resumes for other businesses interested in hiring them.
What amazes me is that these are current students – imagine what alumni are doing! Graduates from one seminary run two different children’s ministries that reach hundreds of children a year. Another graduate manages a day house for cancer patients and their families.
While you can praise God for these seminaries and for how they’re training leaders for the Church, you can also pray for them as they confront Brazil’s challenges.
- The current generation of seminary leaders will retire in the next few years. They need discernment to choose the next generation of leaders. Pray for God to raise up young leaders from a generation that’s often suspicious of leadership.
- Most of these seminaries seek to broaden their reach through online education – but what makes their ministry so vibrant is the strong relationships that onsite students have with faculty. Pray that faculty will be wise as they seek to develop relationships with students who study from a distance.
- Pray for development of pastors passionate for the Gospel. Faithful, educated pastors are especially necessary right now. Pray for leaders with a concern for the whole Church and for changing society.
- Pray for students as they seek to use their gifts to address Brazil’s poor and marginalized with the Gospel of Christ.
- Pray for students, faculty, and staff as they seek to walk with integrity in a society where corruption is prevalent.
Through these seminaries, the Spirit is redeeming Brazil. We invite you to pray with us for that work.
Blessings,
Evelyn Reynolds
Director of Communications
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