UK mission agencies Crosslinks and European Mission Fellowship are hailing the astonishing growth of evangelical churches across Portugal over the last few years, driven mainly by highly intentional church planting.
Data recently published by the Portuguese Evangelical Alliance shows a remarkable increase in church plants by evangelical churches. Fully 44% of the evangelical churches in the country were started after 2001 and over 60% have ‘defined plans and locations to plant new churches in the next five years’. A large majority say their church is growing. These churches range in size from less than ten members to congregations of over 300.
Vivienne Birch of Leicester-based European Mission Fellowship said: ‘In the last few months EMF has accepted a number of new workers for this kind of work in Portugal, with a waiting list of applicants eager to “get going”, so the survey seems to be painting an accurate picture.
