Metro Voice News Celebrating Faith, Family & Community
In Brazil’s Amazon, an unprecedented evangelical revival is transforming the rainforest region. More than 3,000 Foursquare congregations are flourishing across the region, according to Pastor Josué Bengtson of Belem Foursquare Church.
“In the first six months of this year, we baptized 14,500 people,” he said. “Our goal for this year is to baptize over 30,000 people.”
The spiritual transformation is reaching approximately 30 million Amazonians, marking a significant shift in a region historically dominated by Catholicism. Recent polls show that evangelical Christians now outnumber Catholics across most of the Brazilian Amazon.
Bengtson has spent decades traversing the river’s intricate network, first as a missionary then as a pastor spreading the evangelical message of salvation.
“Back when we started evangelizing in this region, we had just a few workers and, in some municipalities, pastors had to walk 10 to 15 kilometers to open a congregation,” Bengtson said. “Today, almost all medium-sized churches in the Amazon have a small boat.”
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This growth goes beyond numbers, reaching the hearts of many, such as Esequiel Santo.
“I was 15 years old when God called me to reach the unreached peoples of the Amazon,” he said. “One of the biggest challenges was the isolation and getting used to living among the indigenous or riverside communities. But God was with us in the work, we saw lives being transformed, so many people heard the gospel and now we are seeing the fruits.”
José Eustaquio Alves, a leading Brazilian sociologist, says evangelical churches here benefit from long-term pastors or missionaries like Santo who foster deep community ties and growth.
“The Catholic Church has a lot of difficulty in training new priests, so it is very common to see Catholic churches in the Amazon but not enough priests to lead congregations,” he said. “A priest goes once a month or once every semester to the Amazon and is often far from the community. Evangelicals, on the other hand, quickly train pastors who integrate into the community and for a long time.”
Brazilian senator and evangelical Pastor Damares Regina Alves sees this movement as a miracle that’s not only reshaping spiritual practices but also fostering a sense of community and empowerment.
“For many years, people looked at the Amazon and only saw rivers and trees,” he said. “Today, people are beginning to remember that there are people living there who need to be taken care of, need to hear the gospel and whose lives need a transformation. The church is making this revolution happen.”
