Pompano Beach Church Shares Facilities with New Brazilian Church New Church Starts With 80 Members Partnership A new congregation and a new pastor have joined as ministry partners with a well-established church to minister to a new people group. This new church was organized as the Pompano Beach New Covenant Brazilian Community Church of the Nazarene in November 1997. The new pastor is Rev. Ledmar Cesar Lopes, who felt led to join the Church of the Nazarene after attending the 1997 General Assembly. The new congregation made up of 80 Brazilians joined Pastor Lopes in this adventure for the Kingdom; Lopes is an experienced church planter who earlier started new churches in Brazil and North America. Eighty thousand Brazilian immigrants in the Southern Florida area make up the new people group. Pompano Beach (Florida) First Church, led by Pastor Randy James, is the established church in this gospel partnership. The new church was organized in a combined service of the two congregations on Sunday night, November 2, 1997. The Brazilian church already averages 140 to 150 in attendance. They meet for worship and fellowship on Saturday evenings and have full use of the First Church facilities. They also have a weekday cell ministry in church members' homes. When asked about how the partnership operates, Pastor James replied: "Of course, there have been some adjustment problems but nothing that cannot be worked out. Our present arrangement is that the Brazilian congregation will use our facilities till the year 2000 and then secure their own facilities. Then we will do it again. We have also helped start a Haitian church in the last three months, and they are already running 75 in attendance. Ministry through various language congregations seems to be the most effective way we have found to reach outside the 'English' barrier. We have just scratched the surface in reaching our mission field." As a ministry challenge, consider the incredible combined impact Nazarenes could make if every established congregation that has a new nearby cultural or language group would start a ministry to them. The Great Commission and our long-term denominational commitment to missions compels us to do it, to do it well, and to do it now.
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