Portugal
Date Entered: 1980
Major Ministries: Church planting
Country Profile
Population: 10,631,800
Isolated from the rest of Europe by a powerful and often hostile Spanish neighbor, the Portuguese courageously turned to exploits at sea. Five centuries ago, small ships bearing Portugal’s scarlet cross of Christ coursed the oceans, exploring and opening two-thirds of the then unknown world to trade. Now from Brazil to Timor, nearly 200 million people use the language of Europe’s oldest intact nation. Though Portugal eventually lost its place as a world financial leader, today it boasts the fastest growing economy of any country in the European Union.
Intensely Roman Catholic-oriented from its inception, Portugal wears on its coat of arms five blue shields, each with five disks representing the five wounds of Christ. Portuguese monarchs traditionally wore no crown; it belonged to the Blessed Virgin. Today Roman Catholicism remains ingrained in the Portuguese culture, even though only a small percentage of the population regularly practices their religion. Less than three percent of the Portuguese population consider themselves evangelical Christian.
The purpose of the missionary team of ABWE in Portugal is to initiate a church planting movement that will turn back the darkness of a religion of works. This involves aggressive evangelism and discipleship, resulting in the planting of autonomous Baptist churches that reproduce themselves. It also involves the on-going training of national pastors and lay leaders, thus fulfilling the mandate of II Timothy 2:2.
The first ABWE missionaries entered Portugal in 1980 with an aggressive strategic plan to establish five churches, which in turn would reproduce 15 second and third generation churches. By God’s grace seven 1st generation churches have been planted. Of those seven churches, three now have national pastors.
During the past 20 years a valuable infrastructure has been developed to enhance the church planting effort in Portugal, including:
- The Greater Lisbon Christian Academy (GLCA) for MK education
The Partnership of National Pastors and American Missionaries
The Fellowship of Baptist Churches for World Evangelism
The Leadership Training Program (GDL) for training national workers
The Retreat and Conference Center
In a country filled with cathedrals, monasteries and shrines, people tend to equate the “church” with a building. Having an adequate facility, both for worship services and for evangelistic outreaches, communicates credibility to the nationals. The goal of the team is to provide adequate facilities for each of the churches.
Building on the success of the past 20 years, the Portugal team has developed a new church planting strategy, called the “Portugal 4x4 Plan.” The goal is to enlarge the base of first generation churches to 16 by the year 2016. These 16 churches will become the foundation for a national church planting movement in Portugal.
The strategy of the “Portugal 4x4 Plan” is to place a team in each of four key locations in the greater Lisbon area. Each team will consist of three missionary couples (one with strengths in evangelism, one with strengths in pastoral care, and one with strengths in youth ministries), two church planting assistants (CPA’s) and a national pastor.
God has abundantly supplied the majority of the resources for our teams to accomplish the goals of the 4x4 plan by providing more than half of the needed missionary personnel along with their monthly financial support.
To make each of the teams complete, however, the need remains for one couple with strengths in evangelism, one couple with strengths in pastor care, four youth specialists and three CPA’s. Funds are also needed to purchase or build ten additional facilities.
The Portugal team is trusting God for additional personnel and for the necessary funds. Would you prayerfully consider what God would have you do to be involved in meeting these needs?