Adventist Federation of Entrepreneurs (FE) adviser Martinho Ferreira de Moura recalls his childhood memories of the age of ten. Since childhood, his parents encouraged him to be active in preaching the gospel, and every Saturday he delivered evangelical leaflets from the Adventist Church to homes in the Meier neighborhood, located in the northern part of Rio de Janeiro. Time has passed and the teachings of childhood resonate in her heart until today.
A businessman for 50 years, Martinho has chaired the transport association and union and is currently a member of the Inter-American Chamber of Transport. All this experience widened his network of influence and allowed him to meet many entrepreneurs in all regions of Brazil, and most of them became his friends. Recently, Ferreira de Moura, an active member of the Central Adventist Church in Rio de Janeiro, found a very creative way to present God’s teachings to his friends.
The main form of contact between them is online, as most of his friends live in other parts of the country. This is why Martinho had the idea to start sending messages from the Este Dia com Deus channel to his friends via WhatsApp.
Initially, the messages were sent to a group of 20 friends, but the initiative gained popularity and the number of interested parties grew rapidly. Thus, Martinho’s contact list grew almost six times, for a total of 114 people, from all over Brazil. The group, officially named “Entre Amigos”, receives daily biblical meditations and its sole purpose is to share the hope that is found in Jesus.
Martinho says his friends have questions about certain topics in the videos and that he takes the time to help them better understand the content.
Fernando Carneiro is also a businessman in the transport sector and receives messages from Martinho every day. The two are competitors in the business world, but the respect and friendship of 25 years extends beyond their professional sphere.
Aries is of another denomination and as a Christian he loves to share the messages of Jesus. So he decided to create a group to send the videos to his network of friends and family, who in turn also share them with their contacts. In this way, the sharing of Bible meditations continues to grow, reaching and transforming more and more people with the study of extracts from the Word.
“It’s enriching to exchange experiences with my friends,” says Carneiro. He doesn’t just watch the content, but uses the Bible as his main tool to deepen his knowledge of God. In particular, the book of Daniel caught his attention, which prompted him to study it further.
Meeting and online meetings
In the Entre Amigos group, the idea of holding Bible study meetings for the group was born. Carneiro not only participated, but also brought 15 friends to the first meeting. During the Bible study meeting, participants had the opportunity to choose which Bible topics to study and learn more. “The most frequently voted topic to study was Life after death. “
Online meetings covering the topics have already started and take place every Wednesday. The speaker is Hebrew Bible Doctor and Pastor of Nova Semente, Edson Nunes. To begin with, he dedicated three separate meetings to discuss the topic of death as explained in the Bible. At the first meeting he explained what life is and then talked about what happens in death. According to Carneiro, the pastor spoke of creation, included the etymology of certain words, and referred to the original language in which it was written. “I watched the first episode twice so as not to miss any detail. The sermons gave me a perception that I didn’t have before, ”he admits.
During the weekly online meetings, the following topics will be discussed, respectively: the resurrection, spiritual gifts, the return of Jesus, the 7th day Sabbath, the end of the world, the Holy Spirit, predestination, miracles, the salvation and the law of God.
According to Martinho, Pastor Gilson Montin, of the Central Adventist Church in Rio de Janeiro, is available to clarify the doubts of group participants and to deepen the biblical knowledge of those interested on an individual level.
The vision is that the Entre Amigos project spreads. “Our goal is to encourage other entrepreneurs to spread the gospel of Christ Jesus in their area of influence.”
This article originally appeared on the Portuguese South American Division news site.
