Pastors in the Students' Seats

This week began nice and slow, and then just picked up speed and I now find myself on Friday with still so much to do - including saying hello to you through our blog. Although I didn´t have time to take pictures this week, I thought I would fill you in a very interesting part of our week.

As you might remember, we were asked by our church to be part of a "pilot small group" - and for once that doesn't mean 'pilot' as in airplanes :) Basically this year we are meeting with several other couples from our church to learn about leading small groups. Then at the beginning of the year each couple will lead their own evangelistic small group. Every Tuesday evening we meet together, and this week our leader (who is also a professor at a seminary) called us to tell us to meet in the auditorium at the seminary instead of at his house. Assuming this meant we would be listening to a guest speaker, we arrived only to find out that in a way WE were the guest speakers!
Every year the seminary leads a pastor's conference at the seminary for pastors from a large area of Brazil. They were spending the week being trained as leaders and encouraged in their ministry. Unknown to us, as part of the conference these pastors spend an evening asking questions and opinions from average people like people in their congregation - this year Jeyson and I, and the rest of our small group! So, on Tuesday night that's what we did. We sat in a large circle with 30 pastors and answered questions from the perspective of a typical person from their congregation.
I can't tell you how inspiring and enlightening it was to hear many of questions on these pastors' hearts. There were questions about preferences in styles, what makes a good sermon, and then they brought up some deep concerns about their congregations, wanting to know our thoughts. The general feeling was serious concern about the lack of discipleship of the average Brazilian Christian in their pews. These pastors truly want to see growth and maturity, but feel their churches are not desiring the same. Of course there are exceptions in every church, but one pastor said people in his church don't even understand the basics of salvation and many others are simply not 'walking the talk'.
Looking around here in Brazil, you can find bumper stickers saying 'This car is a blessing from God' and a label on your yogurt package saying 'Taste and See that the Lord is Good' - but this doesn't mean that there is true Spiritual growth and maturity behind the talk. Please pray for God to bring maturity to the Brazilian church and that the discipleship and evangelism relationships we have here would bring true, lasting fruit.