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MFA Resources
Each ministry needs supporters, many times silent ones. Jesus
Christ himself had some women who took assured He had everything necessary to do
His work. Every pastor of a local church or church planter knows the importance
of family and friends support. There are people and organizations available to
help the ones who had their “hands on the plow”, being a pastor or a church
planter. After hearing a speech about missions a man came to pastor Juracy and
said, “God put in my heart the desire to donate ten trucks of bricks to build
ten temples. I would like for you to help me to choose ten churches”. The
mission of one organization is to distribute bible tracks or portions of the
Bible, other uses the radio to evangelize, and another is specialized in mail
evangelization, etc. Some of those organizations and people are not worried
about denominational barriers and do not want a great percentage of their
resources invested in marketing or administrative expenses. All they want is for
the workers to use efficiently the available resources they provide for the
expansion of the Kingdom. MFA aims to be a bridge between the resources of
Christian people and Christian organizations and the needs of those involved in
ministerial leadership.
The Founder of MFA
 Since
his conversion, Pr. Juracy Carlos Bahia admires the worker used by God to lead a
local church. His desire to serve pastors was solidified in dealing with very
special men, God’s true saints. In his opinion, “the pastoral care, even in
a small church, legitimates the life of the most ambitious visionary”. He says
he has seen “giants leading small flocks”. In 1983, Pr. Bahia was invited to
work at the Home Mission Board of the Brazilian Baptist Convention. He worked at
the departments of Evangelism and Missions Support. While working in this last
one, his task was to provide pastoral care for the missionaries, to suggest
reading materials, to promote intercession, and to represent them in the
denominational realm. At the Evangelism Department, he worked with church growth,
literature development and laymen and pastors training. Church Growth Seminar
were the “apple of the eyes” of that Department. In just one year, 700
pastors were trained.
In 1992, he accepted to take the leadership of Bom Retiro Baptist Church in
Minas Gerais, where he was as a full time pastor and experienced all the joys
and challenges of the fulltime ministry. In 1997,
he was invited to be the Executive Secretary for the Goiás Baptist Convention,
following his participation in a three-week training session at Haggai Institute,
in Maui. While at Haggai Institute, he saw his dream coming true in another
reality. “There was not a moment I stopped thinking, planning and sharing that,
one day I would dedicate my life totally to serve pastors, build upon the
following premises:
- The strategy for the Kingdom expansion is to have a local church with a
healthy pastor;
- Thousands of local churches need to be planted; that requires thousands of
equipped new pastors;
- Latin America, especially Brazil, has become a great missionaries sender
base, therefore services agencies will become much more relevant;
- There is a great opportunity to serve pastors, especially through the
intercessory prayer mobilization, surveying, equipping, ministerial updating
courses, and experiences exchanges;
- There are people and organizations available to invest financially in an
efficient ministry to serve pastors;
- A service to ministers will only be successful if:
- it is independent of a specific denomination, unattached with the “selling
of products” and is able to be an expression of the pastors’ needs
point of view;
- it is able to attract the support of pastors and if its services are
financially accessible to them;
- it involves facilitators or pastors’ equippers;
- it establishes partnerships with Christian institutions to avoid
duplicate efforts.
To confirm God’s direction to this call, Pr. Juracy Bahia was invited to be
the Executive Secretary of Topic Brasil (www.topicbrasil.org),
an organization which serves pastors’ equippers. Since 2002 he is also the
General Secretary for the Brazilian Baptist Ministers Association (www.opbb.org)
. These ministries added to the duty of MFA Executive Director, made his dream
of investing his life totally in the lives of pastors become a reality.
Juracy
Carlos Bahia (juracybahia@aamp.org.br)
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