Christian Congregation of Brazil
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The Christian Congregation of Brazil or Congregação Cristã do Brasil was founded by Italian-American missionary Louis Francescon (1866-1964) in Sao Paulo in 1910. Francescon came to Brazil from Chicago, Illinois, and was quite successful among Italian immigrants. He had left the Italian Presbyterian Church because of his belief in Water Baptism by immersion. Later he accepted the doctrines of faith healing, miracles, and Holy Spirit baptism. This was part of the first wave of pentecostalism, and evidently the first organized Pentecostal denomination in Brazil. Together with the Brazilian Assemblies of God founded 1911 in Para, by the Swedish-Americans, Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren, the Christian Congregation of Brazil are the early foundation of the Brazilian Pentecostal Movement, one of the most dynamic and fast-growing evangelical movements worldwide.
The Christian Congregation of Brazil has today 2.5 million members and 15,000 congregations in Brazil and an intense missionary work abroad.
Francescon was among the early founders of the Italian-American Pentecostal church in Chicago, from where evangelists went to the Italian colonies in the United States planting churches mostly in the Northeast. Most of those churches were incorporated into the Christian Church of North America.
L.M.A.2004
External link
- In the Power of the Spirit, Chapter 4 (http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showchapter?chapter_id=11) (Pentecostalism in Brazil)