We are going Glocal at SRC...

We are excited as a church family to start a new ministry year with a Glocal focus. Both the Vision Sunday service and the Leadership Community reflected where we are going as a community responding to Jesus' call "come, follow me". Our know, grow, serve philosophy of ministry is being implemented, as we continue to grow in Christ together and now learn new ways to step up and serve glocally with our time, talents and treasures.
Glocal stands for Global and Local service. We will be sharing with you in the days ahead many opportunities for you to get involved in our ministries both locally (inside the walls of SRC and local to the Boca Raton area) and globally (around the world as we serve our church plants).
We will be sharing new stories of God at work with you, and we will be here to help you engage into glocal service. We are on for a great ride together. We have an upcoming Glocal Fair, scheduled for the weekend of October 16-17. There you will have a chance to learn more about the many opportunities for us to serve God together. Mark your calendars, so you can join us that weekend!

Pray for our church planter... Adrien Bausells

SRC has been so blessed with the partnerships that God has given us in Brazil. One of the special partners that we have is Adrien Bausells. Last March a team from SRC had the privilege to participate in the dedication service of Vila Olimpia Church in Sao Paulo. SRC has partnered with Good News Church and Chacara Primavera to plant Vila Olimpia 4 years ago. Now the church has more than 120 members and is fully organized with elders and deacons. What a blessing! Here you can watch a little bit of the excitement of that night, on March 21st, 2010. Adrien works with our partner Ricardo Agreste, SRC's movement leader in Brazil. Ricardo pastors Chacara Primavera in Campinas, where our team also served in March. Please continue to pray for Adrien and Soraia and their ministry of the gospel in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Pray for our church planter... Josue' Rodrigues

SRC has planted 35 churches in Brazil over the years. In Rio de Janeiro we work with several partners to advance the gospel to that region of Brazil. One of our partners in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro is Pastor Josue' Rodrigues. Josue leads Betania Presbiteryan Church, a congregation of more than 2,000 people. Josue' has a vision for church planting and recently Betania partnered with SRC to plant Betania Litoranea Church (see picture below). Leandro Marques is pastoring that congregation and God has been blessing their efforts. Josue' is also a great musician and has many Christian records in Brazil. Please keep Pastor Josue, his family and his ministry in your prayers.

Pray for our church planter... Caleb Clardy

One of SRC church planters in New York city is Caleb Clardy. Caleb works with Jon Tyson, the leader for the Trinity Grace movement in NYC. We started working with Jon in 2006, and now he is planting his 4th church in the city. Caleb and his wife Allison are ministering in the Brooklyn area to the Park Slope community. For more details on the great work that God is doing through them, and also to connect and pray for them, you can visit http://www.trinitygraceparkslope.com/
Keep them in your prayers, and send them a note of encouragement when you can.

Pray for our church planter... Leonel Ortiz

Since 2007, SRC started to develop a relationship with Pastor Leonel Ortiz from Colombia. His son-in-law Pastor Matt Dubocq is our church planter in Miami. Through Matt we got to meet Pastor Leonel and now we've been working in Colombia since 2008. SRC has planted 2 churches in that country so far, in Villavicencio and Cali. Pastor Leonel is training many leaders (see pic below) for the work of the gospel through church planting in Colombia. He and his wife Belgica, as well as his children are very involved in ministry. Please keep them in your prayers this week. Pray that the gospel can advance in Colombia and that many people can find Christ through the ministry and leadership of Pastor Leonel Ortiz.

Pray for our church planter... Khen Tombing

Our movement leader in India (Myanmar area) is Rev. Khen Tombing. SRC has been involved with church planting in India since the early 1980's, and so far we have partnered with Khen to plant 16 churches in India. Khen and his wife Rith are very active in the ministry of the gospel to the Hindu communities in India. Khen has recently lost his sister to a car accident and was not able to attend our GO Conference in April. Please lift up Pastor Khen and his family in prayer, as we continue to serve our SRC church planters by praying for them every week.

Join us as we pray for our SRC church planters

During the weekend services at SRC, we have been highlighting the work of our church plants and lifting up a particular church planter in prayer. This is a great way for the SRC family to continue remembering our church planters. We thought it would be a good idea to do the same here in our GO blog, this way people can continue to pray during the week.

This week we will be praying for Pastor Clinton Cesar. Clinton and his wife Juliana are planting Libertas Church in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in the famous Copacabana beach. They are in their 3rd year of work and plans are to dedicate the church towards the end of 2010. They attended the GO conference recently and brought great news about the new location that they secured for their meetings. We are supporting them in prayer and also financially with the remodeling with the new building. Join us in prayer for the Cesar family and for Libertas Church in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Special thanks to all the GO Volunteers!

We had an amazing Global Outreach Conference this year. The weekend services were so intense and covered with great stories of God's work. We went around the world in 60 minutes and we discovered that "we've got to do this" and "we get to do this" together! It's about the gospel and it's about changing lives here in the US and around the world.

The GO Expo was the best ever. We had more than a hundred volunteers involved in making it happen. It was a great time for our church family to come together and celebrate the fruit of their investment (time, talents and treasures) into church planting. It was also a great opportunity to visit with our church planters and to connect with the work that God is doing in their churches.

 The conference sessions also went very well, with time for our church planters to meet together, connect and share experiences. On Tuesday we had a special speaker, Randy Pope, who provided great teaching and a time of interaction for our church planting partners and friends. We closed our conference with a communion service where we had a time of thanksgiving and great fellowship.

None of the above would be possible without the faithful and joyful dedication and service of our GO volunteers. We are grateful for them! We have a great family at SRC, the family of God, and the fruits of our efforts here is impacting the whole world.

You can meet our Pastors from Brazil and Colombia!

Thanks for following our blog as we share wonderful stories of how God is at work thorough SRC around the world. You saw the recent posts on the mission trips to Brazil and Colombia.
If you were not on the teams that went to South America, you can still meet and get to know the church planters that we recently visited...
Pastors Leonel and Javier from Colombia, Ricardo Agreste and his team (Adrien Bausells, Renato Camargo, Ricardo Makino, Rodrigo Leitao, Fabrini Soares, Leonardo Sahium) from Brazil will be visiting us at SRC for the Global Outreach Conference. The dates will April 24-28th. Don't miss this opportunity to meet and get to know them!

Colombia Trip - Day Three - The church in Cali

The team visited Javier's church in Cali, Bethany Church of Reform. In the picture you see Tommy & Shannan, Javier & Gloria, Matt and Casey. Below you can see a view of their church place, where they normally pack 120 people for Sunday service. Pastor Javier is coaching three other pastors who have been leading bible studies and are now ready to plant more churches.

Colombia Trip - Day Three - Meeting with Javier's leaders

The team traveled from Bogota to Cali by air and the next day visited our church planter Javier Gil and his wife Gloria. They are expecting their first baby, Tomas.
On Wednesday, March 24th, our team spent the day with Pastor Javier and his leaders.

Colombia Trip - Day Two - Visit to SRC project

The mission site in Villavicencio that SRC is supporting is a place where kids from the community spend half-day while parents are at work. Instead of the kids staying on the streets or alone at home, they have plenty of activities at the mission site, plus they get to hear about Jesus everyday.

Here you can see Pastor Leonel at the Villavicencio mission site.

Colombia Trip - Day Two - Time in Villavicencio

The next day, our team had meetings in the morning, visited our project in Villavicencio and drove through the mountains back to Bogota to catch a flight to Cali. The road was one of those two-lane type with the solid yellow lines in the middle (which means do not pass). The driver seemed to ignore the solid lines, and was leaving the trucks behind... Above you can see a picture with Pastor Leonel and his wife Belgica.

Colombia Trip - Day One - Meeting with Leonel's leaders

On March 22nd Tommy, Shannan and Casey traveled from Sao Paulo to Bogota. They arrived at the airport and our SRC church planter in Miami, Matt Dubocq, was waiting for them. Matt spent the rest of the time in Colombia with our team, as he speaks fluent Spanish and is Pastor Leonel's (our Movement Leader in Colombia) son-in-law. Matt was a great host and he made the time in Colombia an easy and smooth one for our team. Thanks Matt!!

Here you can see a picture of our team meeting with Pastor Leonel's leaders in the hotel in Villavicencio, a town about 2 hours driving from Bogota.

Visit to Colombia

On March 22nd our team left Brazil after serving there for ten unforgettable days.
Tommy, Shannan and Casey continued their mission trip itinerary, now going to Colombia. Rick Krive went to Recife to spend time with SRC church planter, Pedro Albuquerque and his family. The rest of our team returned home safe and sound on a direct flight from Sao Paulo to Miami.

Day Nine: Sao Paulo - Dedication of Vila Olimpia Church

Our team had the privilege of participating at the dedication service of Vila Olimpia Church. Four years ago, Pastor Adrien Bausells (below) started that church plant and a partnership between Spanish River Church, Good News Church, Chacara Primavera and Pirituba Church funded that project to completion and to self-sustaining mode.

 It was a beautiful service where Rick led the worship and Tommy gave the message.

This was the last event of this mission trip to Brazil and it was a remarkable one.

Day Nine: Sao Paulo - Fazendinha and Seed Projects

On Sunday afternoon, the team visited the projects that Alphaville Church has in the Sao Paulo area: Fazendinha, Seed, and Santana da Parnaiba Projects. Everyone on our team was amazed by the work that they are doing in those communities. Pastors Hilder and Carlos Alberto are the movement leaders in that area, and they have other leaders overseeing those projects. Pastor Alessandro (picture above) takes care of Fazendinha and Valdir ministers at the Seed Project.

Day Nine: Sao Paulo - Alphaville Church in the morning

The team left Campinas on Sunday morning and traveled to Sao Paulo to participate at some events there. In the morning, the team attended the service at Alphaville Church, where Rick led the church in a great time of worship and Casey preached a wonderful message.

Pastor Hilder invited our team to go up on stage and the church recognized everyone for their service. It was a special time for us.

Day Eight: Church Service at Chacara Multi-site

On Saturday evening, part of the team participated in the Chacara multi-site church service where Tommy preached the message. Here you can see Tommy and Hilton, who was a great translator for the American speakers at all events of the week. Hilton is the Associate Pastor at Vila Olimpia Church in Sao Paulo. He worked very hard delivering the messages in Portuguese, so the local pastors and communities could be blessed. Thanks Hilton!

Rich and Valette Porter went to Jaguariuna to present the Money Management Seminar. Rich is shown with Pastor Rodrigo of Jaguariuna Church.

Larry and Sonny went to Indaiatuba also to present the Finance Seminar to the community of that church that Pastor Ricardo Makino leads. Sonny is shown above speaking to the audience.

The team ended the day at Aldenir's house and enjoyed Mexican food for dinner. Aldenir is on the worship team of Chacara Primavera in Campinas. He is a Palmeiras fan - we mean fanatic :).
He loves giving Palmeiras soccer shirts to the guest speakers. Aldenir hosted the team twice in his house for delicious food and great fellowship. Thanks Aldenir!

Day Eight: Meeting with leaders in the morning

The team had breakfast at Chacara Primavera with leaders of the CTPI church planting network (above).

While Tommy, Terriel, Casey, Sonny, Larry and Fabiana met with Ricardo's leaders in the morning to talk about the status of the church planting projects and future steps, Rich, Valette and Craig went to Chacara multi-site where Rich gave the Money Management Seminar.

Day Seven: Conference continues

In the morning, after a wonderful time of worship with Carlinhos Veiga, Terriel talked about "The Method: the Dynamics of the Preacher in the Contemporary Communication".

Then SRC church planter and partner Fabrini (shown here) spoke about "The Mission". The team went out to lunch in the mall, and visited the Presbytery Museum at the Campinas Seminary.

In the evening, Sonia Agreste (Pastor Ricardo's wife) led the worship, and Ricardo closed the conference talking about "The Call: A New Preacher for a New Reality".

The conference ended and the team went out to celebrate at Romano's Italian Restaurant. Dinner was served at 1:00am!

Everyone had a great time in fellowship with Ricardo and the leaders of CTPI.

Day Six: Conference the rest of the day

After a long break for lunch, the conference participants attended workshops based on their interests or needs. They offered three tracks: initiation (for new church planters), consolidation (for experienced planters), and mother-church (for churches who are now planting other churches).

In the evening, Carlinhos Veiga led worship with emphasis in the Brazilian popular music style, with Christian lyrics. Rick and the band followed Carlinhos.

Tommy spoke about: "The Person: the integrity, spirituality and quality of life of the Pastor". The central point was Acts 20:28 and the importance of pastors taking good care of themselves.

Day Six: Conference in the morning...

This was Tommy's day to talk at the church planting conference. He spoke in the morning about "The Paradigm: Paul's Experience in Athens" and how pastors need to use the message of Acts 2 and apply it to an Acts 17 reality. Although the message remains the same, the language and the methods that pastors use in the new reality need to adapt to the culture that they are in.

Tommy used the music of SRC's own Eric Whitaker (2 Edge) as an example of another method to deliver the message of the gospel in today's language. This talk was fantastic, and created a lot of good discussion for the Q&A panel that followed after Ricardo's talk about "A Way: The Gospel and the Brazilian Culture".

Day Five: The Conference Opening

Rick Krive opened the conference with 30min of worship, and he led us with songs in Portuguese and English. About 300 people were attending the opening night, and we had a wonderful time praising our Lord in both languages.

Terriel followed with a talk about "A Problem: The Preaching Crisis in the New Reality". Hilton translated the talks for the American speakers and he did a wonderful job following Terriel as he spoke, showed examples, and danced (!!), as an illustration of a preaching style.

Day Five: Timothy Project

Terriel and Tommy spoke at the Timothy Project, a network of young pastors in the Southeast region of Brazil that our Movement Leader, Ricardo Agreste, coaches, mentors and walks alongside to build them up for ministry.
Terriel did a wonderful job sharing with those pastors about "Preaching in the Art of Being a Pastor". That happened in the morning and it was followed by a panel with Q&A.

In the afternoon, Tommy spoke about "The Leadership in the Art of Being a Pastor". Both talks blessed those leaders and gave them new perspective in both areas of preaching and leadership.

In the evening, the music workshop happened, where Rick Krive, Carlinhos Veiga and Sonia Agreste spoke to about 100 worship leaders. Rick focused on the participation during worship, Carlinhos talked about the role of culture in the worship, and Sonia talked about the inclusion of non-believers during worship. Our team had a wonderful time this day. We learned a lot.

Day Four - Tommy and the remainder of the SRC team arrive in Campinas

Today, Tommy and Shannan Kiedis, Casey Cleveland, Rick Krive and Terriel Byrd (Professor of Christian Ministry from Palm Beach Atlantic University) arrived in Campinas and joined the team for the opening of the CTPI (training center for church planters) Conference at Chacara Primavera.

Shown at right are Tommy with Pastor Ricardo of Chacara Primavera church in Campinas who is hosting the church planting conference

At left are Tommy and Pastor Ricardo with two of our church planting partners: Pastor Leonardo Sahium of Gavea Church in Rio de Janeiro and Pastor Fabrini Viguier of Igreja Plena de Icarai in Niteroi, Rio.

The SRC / GNC team poses for a group shot below:

Rich Porter, Rick Krive, Sonny Lemons, Valette Porter, Craig Kindell, Fabiana Marques, Nicholas Marques, Shannan Kiedis, Terriel Byrd, Casey Cleveland, Larry Weeks (left to right)

Day Four - Preparing for the Church Planting Conference

The SRC / GNC team spent Monday resting, shopping and sight-seeing, getting ready for a busy week.

The morning was spent helping to prepare for the Church Planting Conference which will begin tonight.

The team is shown here making name tags and assembling information packages for the conference.

Day Two - Evening service at Jaguariuna Church

Craig visited Jaguariuna Church which meets at a hotel in the center of the small town of Jaguariuna located about a half hour drive from Campinas. The church is an SRC church plant that is celebrating its one year anniversary. The service had about 25 people attending (a smaller number than usual due to the very heavy rain that night) and had a guest worship leader, Paulo Nazareth, son of Josue' Rodrigues who is a church planting partner in Niteroi, Rio. Paulo did an excellent job leading worship including several worship songs that he had written.

Pastor Rodrigo Leitao gave a good message on identifying the true church and the service was followed with food and fellowship.

Day Two - Evening services at Campolim Church in Sorocaba

Sonny visited Campolim Church in Sorocaba where Pastor Renato Camargo gave the message at two evening services which had a total of about 135 people attending. There was also a separate program for the many children in attendance. The church meets in the TransAmerica Hotel in Sorocaba which has small auditorium. The services included a worship band and there was a time of fellowship following each service. Good News Church is partnering with SRC to support the Campolim Church plant.

Day Two - Evening service at Renovo Church in Braganca Paulista

Rich and Valette visited Pastor Roberto Ferreira at Renovo Church in Braganca Paulista. Roberto is a very good speaker and gave an excellent message to a group of about 25 people. Rich, an elder at SRC, was invited to help serve communion at the service. Rich and Valette enjoyed the worship time which included a few songs in Portuguese and English.