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| Light to the Nations Newsletter |
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 Dear Philip,
Thank you so much for your interest in Light to the Nations. As you know we are 7 year old ministry with a vision to plant churches that raise leaders that plant churches.
We are involved in so many facets of ministry ranging from local church planting, to internship programs to short term church planting mission trips to evangelistic crusades. Outlined below is an overall explanation of our vision and strategy. |
Our first local Church
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
In March of 2000 we initiated a local  church in Rio de Janeiro. This truly is our passion. Renee, my wife, and I pastor that church and we now have a full leadership base. In fact, if I were to leave the church it is perfectly able to move ahead by itself (please don't tell anyone). We are a vibrant church located right next to a major mall and on the main thoroughfare in Rio.
Our vision in the church is to be a church which raises leaders that plant churches. We are active in reaching our city in all areas including mercy. We have strong active cells and ministries which range from benevolence, feeding the poor, drug addiction recovery, cooking, English classes for the community, etc.
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Non-profit Organization in Endicott, NY
Office Staff: Virginia Larter and Jessica Himmelburger
As you know, we are now almost seven years old. During our first five and a half years of operation we were covered by an umbrella missions non-profit organization based in Louisiana. Last year that organization dissolved and my pastor, Larry Stockstill, recommended that I open a new non-profit. That is exactly what we have done. In October 2006 we incorporated our new US based ministry called Light to the Nations.
As a non-profit organization we are able to receive contributions an issue tax-deductible receipts.
Please pray for our office staff as they are praying for you. I have asked Virginia and Jessica who happen to be my sisters to begin calling some of you over the next few months. I hope this is OK. If you would like a phone update please send us an e-mail at virginia@lighttothenations.org . |
Daily Video for Pastors and Leaders
Published on the Internet
About a year ago I began developing a daily video meditation called the "Leaders Mana". This is a simple daily devotional that is only accessed through the internet. We have been having enormous success in this media, with at times over 200 different pastors accessing it each month. To see a sample video devotional (in Portuguese) Click here. |
Pastor's and Businessmen's Seminars
Releasing the Kingly Anointing
Brazil is a nation rapidly growing in the  gospel. Many churches are on fire for God and the gifts of the Spirit are being poured out like never before. However, there are some areas of need and immaturity in the church. One of these areas is the need to train the church in Brazil to understand their giving calling. Due to this need we have begun promoting Financial seminars for Pastors and businessmen. At each of these, businessmen or Kings, have come from the USA and ministered to Brazilian Businesspeople and pastors. If you know of someone who may be interested in this type of ministry please send me an email at philip@lighttothenations.org . |
Bible School in Three Regional Cities
Project underway for Salinas, Aracajú and Rio
One of the main needs in Brazil is raising  leaders. In fact, Jesus predicted that this would be the critical bottleneck.
Mt 9:38 Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.
With this in mind we have initiated a partnership with Vision University in California and two members of our church planting team to initiate a Bible School in three cities. We expect the schools to be fully functional by the end of 2007.
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Network of Pastors
2,000 Pastors Across Brazil
In an effort to develop a church planting movement across Brazil we began a partnership with Jack Harris of Global Messenger Services to build a pastors network. This has been working quite successfully and we now have over 2,000 pastors loosely connected to our network. Of these 2,000 pastors around 200 attend a regular monthly pastors breakfast in one of our partnering churches sin Rio, Vitoria, or Aracajú. Of these 200 pastors who are committed to our network I consider 15 of them to be the key church planting team members that I work with in Brazil. The 15 live all across Brazil in states ranging form São Paulo, to Sergipe, to Paraná to Goias, to Bahia.
As this network grows it will become the base from which we develop our future church planters and leaders. |
Church Planting Seminars
Building Pastors
 About three years ago we developed a tremendous tool to train pastors. It is called the Church Planting Seminar. We have held several of these seminars all across Brazil. Our goal is to hold 4 church planting seminars each year in different regions of Brazil. These seminars focus on developing young pastors and also sending pastors with an understanding of why to plant a church.
We believe that if a person doesn't understand why he should plant a church he will probably not be successful. Much of the teaching focuses on developing an outward vision for the community and for missions.
We like to host American pastors or speakers who can share there experiences with these young pastors as often as possible. If you or anyone you know would like to speak at one of these seminars please drop me an e-mail at philip@lighttothenations.org . |
Publishing Company
Editora Luz às Nações
At the end of 2005 I was faced with an opportunity  to invest into a publishing company. A friend of mine who is the owner of a large nation-wide publishing company suggested that we partner in a new company to produce training materials for leaders throughout Brazil. We did this and we now have almost 10 books published and being distributed across Brazil.
Recently we held a Church Planting Seminar in the heart of the Brazilian Highlands. One day before the conference was to begin I received a phone call from the publisher who was contacted by someone in a tiny village in the north of  Brazil. He had just bough one of our books, "The Church Planting Manual" and wanted to find out if he could attend the seminar. It always impresses me how wide we are able to distribute these books.
We are currently seeking authors in the USA who would be interested in publishing there material in the Portuguese nations. If you or someone you know would like to have his or her book available in Portuguese and distributed in Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique,and Angola please send me an e-mail at philip@lighttothenations.org . | |
Project 153
Our Five-Year Missions Focus
Project 153 - This is the mission focus of our ministry. Upon analysis of the Brazilian census Data  (IBGE) we discovered that there are hundreds of municipalities in Brazil which are under 3% Christian. Of these cities, 153 are over 10,000 in population. Many of these cities do not have any churches. We believe that this is the final church planting missions emphasis in Brazil. This project includes:
- Training a pastor at the church planting seminar and Bible school
- Holding a city impacting three day event in which teams target each household in the city with prayer and evangelism, and evening crusades are held. For a two-minute video of a typical crusade CLICK HERE
- Supporting the pastor with a portion of his financial need for one year
- Providing a network of support and spiritual covering primarily provided through the sending pastor.
Please click on the photo for a different 4 minute video documentary of Project 153. |
The Global Apprenticeship Program, or The GAP trains young adults from Brazil together with young adults from the USA with morning classes and afternoon projects. Each person is placed in a team which mixes Americans and Brazilians so that both can get a flavor of missions and understand how to work and resolve conflicts that arise in a cross-culturally setting. Ministry projects range from prayer walks to  evangelistic crusades to administrative budgeting and small construction projects. We believe that this is possibly the best internship program for those interested in Missions or church Planting since we are located 100% on the mission field, the interns work side by side with nationals, and we are planting over 170 churches each year. Our desire is to become a 14 week elective to US-based internship programs for students desiring exposure to missions. |
Church Planting Project
Partnership World-Wide
Over the last seven years we have been developing a church planting movement in Brazil. We work together with a group of powerful apostolic leaders in several regions around the world. This group is lead by Pastor Larry Stockstill in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Together this group has planted over 10,000 churches in the last 7 years.
In Brazil we have planted 420 churches over these seven year. This is truly a victory and many of these churches are planting additional churches each year. This last year we were able to plant 172 churches 53 of which were partly funded through monies we have raised.
The cost to plant a church in Brazil is $150 per month for 12 months. If you would like to participate in this project please send me an email at philip@lighttothenations.org or simple send us a donation for your contribution.  |
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Current Projects we are Raising Funds For
Five Year Goals
- Project 153 - $10,000 per city
- A Mobile Crusade Unit (MCU) which is an 18-wheeler which converts to a stage and sound/lighting system to hold events for up to 10,000 people - $150,000
- Purchase of our GAP campus in Rio which we currently rent - $250,000
- Purchase of a Cessna 210 single engine airplane to facilitate access to the remote areas of Brazil. None of the cites in Project 153 have commercial airports. Most have landing strips. The distance form Rio ranges from 20-40 hours of driving each way. - $170,000
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 Renee and I thank you so much for all your support. We truly would love to here from you. We are still in need of committed intercessors, people who would like to come to the mission field as missionaries both ong and short term, financial partners and friends. Please consider what your part could be.
Sincerely,
Philip Murdoch
Light to the Nations |
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