MondayMorningInsight - Leadership & Encouragement for Church Leaders

Church Packs ‘Em In with “Fight Night”

Posted by: Todd
Posted on: Wed, September 16, 2009
Viewed 167
(22) comments so far

From the New York Times:

The atmosphere was electric at Reborn in Christ Church in Brazil on “Extreme Fight” night. Churchgoers dressed in jeans and sneakers, many with ball caps turned backward, lined a makeshift boxing ring to cheer on bare-chested jujitsu fighters.

They screamed when a fan favorite, Fabio Buca, outlasted his opponent after several minutes. They went wild when Pastor Dogão Meira, 26, took his man down, pinning him with an armlock just 10 seconds into the fight.

With the crowd still buzzing, Pastor Mazola Maffei, dressed in army pants and a T-shirt, grabbed a microphone. Pastor Maffei, who is also Pastor Meira’s fight trainer, then held the crowd rapt with a sermon about the connection between sports and spirituality.

“You need to practice the sport of spirituality more,” he urged. “You need to fight for your life, for your dreams and ideals.”

Reborn in Christ is among a growing number of evangelical churches in Brazil that are finding ways to connect with younger people to swell their ranks. From fight nights to reggae music to video games and on-site tattoo parlors, the churches have helped make evangelicalism the fastest-growing spiritual movement in Brazil.

Evangelical Christian churches are luring Brazilians away from Roman Catholicism, the dominant religion in Brazil. In 1950, 94 percent of Brazilians said they were Catholic, but that number fell steadily to 74 percent by 2000. Meanwhile, the percentage of those who described themselves as evangelicals grew by five times in that period, reaching 15 percent in 2000. A new government census is due out next year.

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What do you think? Any churches here in the states experimenting with 'fight nights'? Should they?

Comments

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Fred on Sun, September 20, 2009

Sick of the Gimmicks.
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Hal on Mon, September 21, 2009

Just for curiosity, how many people responding here lead or attend a church that invited people to accept Christ as their personal savior last Sunday in the main service?

I think this is becoming a novel activity in a church and makes a church different from the others.
kc on Mon, September 21, 2009

All I would say is to recommend reading “Ashamed Of The Gospel” by John MacArthur.
Brian on Wed, September 23, 2009

Here are my thoughts:
#1 we don’t know if this was a God inspired idea-If it was I don’t want to say it is wrong or a bad idea.

ie. I used to despise a Christian group that rewrote secular songs with Christian lyrics. I was like all I sing is the secular lyrics to this song they are stupid. Then God spoke to me with His nice fatherly voice, “Don’t call what I have called others to do stupid.” “Opps,” said I.

#2 Are people coming to Jesus Yes or No? Is their eternal detination being changed? Yes or No to me the only one that should be complaining is the devil.

I can say alot but will sum it up with this thought The “Fight Night” is what got them in the building. God captivated their hearts when they were in there. The “entertainment” was only a tool to bring in the harvest.
bud mccord on Mon, September 28, 2009

This is an old debate for sure. I came to Christ through a bus ministry back in the late 60’s. They used everything from candy to puppets to “lure” us into riding the bus. I took the bait.

The real question is whether or not they have something of substance beyond the interesting event. Is this the beginning of a truly worthwhile dialog about Jesus or is it just an event to show Christians have muscles?

Time will tell. It did in my case! I am way beyond the lure. I got caught!
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