Portuguese Perspective

This past month I had the privilege of attending a church planting conference hosted by the Portuguese Association of Evangelical Mission Alliance. Around 300 Portuguese pastors and church leaders were in attendance, along with guest speakers from other areas of Europe, and a handful of mission organizations. I tagged along with the leaders of the church body I am a part of here in Lisbon.

It was great to hear these leaders discuss the spiritual state of their country and Europe at large. Different workshop topics included European Secularism, The Arab World, Poverty Ministries, Faith and Works, and the Organic Church to name a few. The key note speaker, Ngwiza Mkandla, is president of Dawn Ministries and originally hails from Zimbabwe. He held four sessions talking about transforming leaders, churches, cities, and nations.

The main focus of the conference is to equip the Portuguese church leaders with the vision and encouragement to plant and grow churches here in Portugal. Paulo Pascoal, the leader behind the organization of this conference, has a heart to see the different evangelical groups come together in this focus and vision for Portugal. I was encouraged as I met people from Brethren, Baptist, Lutheran, Evangelical Free, and other backgrounds and saw their desire and heart to network with one another to share the message of Christ.