by João Mordomo

License plates in Brazil are a combination of three letters and four numbers. For decades, the license plates in my state, Paraná, have begun with “A”. Recently, however, the increasing number of vehicles on the road has pushed us into unchartered territory. All new plates begin with, you guessed it, “B”. The current system allows the plates in our state to range from AAA 0001 to BEZ 9999. In the past couple of weeks, I couldn’t help but notice an increasing number of new cars on the road whose plates begin with “BAM”. At first it was just one or two, but now it’s increasingly common to see BAM plates everyday. As of the last week of May, there were at least 2779 of them!

There seems to be a parallel with “business as mission” BAM as well. Blame it on innovation theory if you want, but the fact is that BAM is finally, and noticeably, gaining a foothold here in the world’s fifth largest country. We’ve moved from the innovation phase to the early adopter phase, and this is evidenced in numerous ways. Just a few of the BAM developments we are now seeing on the road to spiritual, social and economic transformation include:

BAM Conferences

The concept of BAM first showed up on the Brazilian church’s radar at the 3rd Brazilian Congress on Missions (CBM), in 2001, in the form of a 15 minute overview given by a global BAM statesman. The first BAM event in Brazil was held a year later, in Curitiba, with a few dozen people (and the same statesman). Then every year or two another event would take place, in addition to the seminars offered at the 5th, 6th and 7th CBMs in 2008, 2011 and 2014. In just the past two years, however, we’ve seen events take place not only in Curitiba, but also in other major cities such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Porto Alegre, Vitoria, and others — and these have been larger and tackling a more diverse range of BAM issues. Several international networks such as Lausanne, BAM Global and Open B4T (as well as several marketplace ministry and tentmaking networks), have been instrumental in helping develop “BAM Brazil” in many of these locations. Read more