Immigrant Brazilian fellowship south of Boston revitalized and growing after joining the Celebration Church network
When First Brazilian Baptist Church of Stoughton, a congregation of twelve families located twenty miles south of Boston, voted almost a decade ago to survive for another generation rather than close their doors indefinitely, they turned to Joe Souza and his Celebration Church, a Boston-based church network for immigrant Brazilians.
A native of Rio de Janeiro, Souza was then a church planting catalyst, who affiliated with the former Greater Boston Baptist Association, the Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE.net), and the North American Mission Board. Following three months of meetings and corporate prayer, the busy pastor turned down their invitation to consult or to become their interim pastor.
“They had gone through a tough situation; the pastor left, there was some conflict, and they asked me what they should do. We asked for wisdom from above,” said Souza, who is now BCNE’s Boston area regional coordinator and immigrant ministry leader.
Immigrant church eventually voted to survive
At the end of their initial meetings, Souza communicated some unvarnished truth: “You guys have to decide what God is doing. I’m not going to come in and say, ‘Do this or do that.’” After three more months, he noted in a recent telephone interview, they “decided to try to, you know, survive.”
Still he informed the church members that he could not serve as their interim pastor because, as senior pastor of Celebration’s anchor church and leader of the growing church network, his other responsibilities were filling his schedule.
Celebration Church, based in Middleton, MA, describes itself as “a community of disciples of Jesus, committed to his mission, cultivating healthy relationships, and expressing joy in serving others as one family.” The network has congregations in Middleton; and in Recreio, Santa Cruz, and Universitária, in Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil.
Souza did agree to help the families in Stoughton, which civic leaders describe as “a suburban community with great ethnic and religious diversity,” try to “discern [God’s purpose], start rebuilding, and prepare themselves for a new pastor”—as long as they also agreed to join the growing Celebration Church network, which they eventually chose to do.
Revitalized and vibrant church continues to grow
Nearly three years ago, Celebration Church Stoughton invited Diogo Rosaneli, to shepherd the revitalized congregation. He and his wife, Julia Rosaneli, are the parents of Helena, whom Joe Souza (right) dedicated to God, as the happy parents look on.
Nearly three years ago, Celebration Church Stoughton, as it is now known, invited a young and energetic pastor, Diogo Rosaneli, to shepherd the revitalized congregation. He and his wife, Julia Rosaneli, are the parents of Helena, a six-month-old girl.
Living in Taunton, MA, for Rosaneli and his family “has been really good. The challenge for us, of course, is the cold. There’s not a lot of sun, and where I come from, it’s mostly sunny all day, all year. So it's been a change.”
Every Sunday night, at 6:00 pm, First United Methodist Church on Pleasant Street, where the Baptists meet, comes alive with the sights and sounds of “a very vibrant,” family-oriented group of Christ-followers.
The established church members, who joined after the congregation was revitalized about eight years ago join with young families, their children, and teenagers for singing and worship, after which Rosaneli preaches in Portuguese.
Every Sunday night, Celebration Church Stoughton comes alive with the sights and sounds of a vibrant, family-oriented group of Christ-followers. Diogo Rosaneli (above), pastors a revitalized congregation of about one hundred adults, children, and teenagers.
The children and teens, meanwhile, disperse for their own gatherings. In a separate room, Emily Frischembruder, the youth group leader, delivers a different biblical message in English.
Gary Moritz, BCNE’s Director of Church Revitalization and Renewal, is available to meet with any pastors who want to advance his church’s revitalization. Contact him at gmoritz@bcne.net.
An average of thirty teenagers participate in Celebration Church Stoughton each Sunday, many of whom attended a retreat last year (above). Diogo Rosaneli credits Joe Souza for investing in the town’s second-generation Brazilians.
Rosaneli was preaching to everyone in both Portuguese and English but soon discovered that the first-generation members were “having a hard time following” the simultaneous translation during the unified services.
The pastor describes his church family as “a community of people who know each other and care for each other. We have a strong sense of community. One of the hearts of the church is fellowship—and that’s the DNA that Pastor Joe [who eventually agreed to be their pastor] gave the church.”
Rosaneli estimates that church attendance averages one hundred each Sunday; they counted eighty people in 2023, which is a 20 percent growth in a year. “We’ve been receiving new families coming from Brazil, and also we’ve been receiving a lot of teenagers,” which is also helping the church to grow.
Celebration Church Stoughton has been investing in and discovering significant growth of the number of second-generation Brazilians they serve, which too is “a legacy that Pastor Joe left us as a DNA for the church. He has a heart for the second generation and he was always emphasizing how important that is” for ministry, Rosaneli stated.
An average of thirty teenagers participate weekly, six of whom were baptized in 2024. The teenagers just started a “Jesus Club” at Stoughton High School. Every week, the club meeting includes a Bible study; they have already reached about forty-one classmates.
The teenagers of Celebration Church Stoughton started a “Jesus Club” at their high school. The club meeting includes a Bible study; they have already reached about forty-one classmates.
Since Rosaneli is a full-time pastor, he does not need to serve bivocationally like so many immigrant pastors who serve in the Greater Boston area. His home church, Igreja Batista Vilas do Atlântico (IBVA), Lauro de Freitas, Bahia state, Brazil, provides 90 percent of his salary. “They sent me to Massachusetts as a missionary.”
For four years before arriving in Stoughton, he worked as the church’s media director while attending South American Theological Seminary, in Londrina, Paraná state. Additionally, IBVA’s pastor, Marcos Lopes, was preparing Rosaneli for the New England pastorate.
After Rosaneli arrived at the BCNE church, some people he met around town asked about the church and then “they would mention the problems that the church went through” a decade ago. They no longer make those discouraging reputational connections. “I think now we’re in a different moment” thanks to Souza’s success in revitalizing the fellowship, the pastor stated.
During the last two years, Rosaneli reported, Celebration Church Stoughton baptized thirty-two people. The previous year they baptized sixteen, according to the BCNE’s 2023 Annual Church Profile of the fellowship. Now they find themselves in what the pastor described as “a process of healthy growth.”
Revitalization: an ongoing need for churches
“We often think of church revitalization exclusively in terms of long-established churches. But because of the transient nature of many immigrant churches, revitalization is an ongoing need,” said Terry Dorsett, executive director of Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE.net).
“With the world’s second largest population of Brazilians outside of Brazil, New England Baptists are focused on helping our BCNE Brazilian churches grow,” he added.
According to an October 24, 2024, news report, which was by the Instituto Diáspora Brasil, commissioned through a Boston Foundation fund and published by GBH, “Massachusetts is home to the second largest Brazilian population in the United States.” “The community is also the state’s largest immigrant population, and has been since 2010.”
Brazil-New England partnership connections
The historical connection of Brazilian Baptists and New England Baptists is informative. As Souza recounts in an online video, Baptist missionary pioneer Luther Rice, whose family farm is now the site of BCNE’s office and retreat center in Northborough, MA, visited Salvador da Bahia, Brazil.
“In 1813, on his way home from India, having worked alongside Adoniram Judson and William Carey,” an International Mission Board story in February 2018 reports, Rice “spent two months in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil.”
Rice saw “the vast lostness he experienced during his time in Brazil and, upon his return to the US, he raised awareness of the need for Baptists to send missionaries to Brazil. However, it was not until 1881 that William and Anne Bagby landed in Brazil as the first missionaries from the Southern Baptist Convention,” the IMB article continued.
The now-reciprocal and mutually beneficial missionary endeavor in Brazil is being advanced in no small part by New England Baptists. “New England Baptists and Brazilian Baptists continue developing our partnership as various BCNE staff members travel to Brazil to teach in seminaries and pastor conferences, and as the Brazilian Convention’s Multiplication Team travels to New England to lead a conference on evangelism and outreach,” Dorsett reported.
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