Have you ever pondered how an unwavering faith can shape a person's life and influence entire cultures? George Oliveira embodies DNA’s core values and models transformation through 20 years of integrating biblical worldview principles into every area of life, from family to education and vocation. George reminds us of the potency of Scripture and its relevance to every aspect of creation. You will be encouraged and invigorated by how practical the biblical worldview is as you consider God’s will for your own life.
Have you ever pondered how an unwavering faith can shape a person's life and influence entire cultures? George Oliveira embodies DNA’s core values and models transformation through 20 years of integrating biblical worldview principles into every area of life, from family to education and vocation. George reminds us of the potency of Scripture and its relevance to every aspect of creation. You will be encouraged and invigorated by how practical the biblical worldview is as you consider God’s will for your own life.
A biblical worldview is looking at the Bible and reading who, where God really is, is understanding the power of the gospel. It's going to that place and saying, yes, I will preach the gospel, yes, I will proclaim the good news of salvation, but my life cannot be the same it was. It's impossible to have an encounter with Jesus and be the same.
Luke Allen:Hi friends, welcome to Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Here on this show we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world, to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the Church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
Scott Allen:Welcome again, everybody, to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and I'm joined today by friends and co-workers Luke Allen, darryl Miller, dwight Vogt, and today we have our, as a very special guest, george Olivera. George, welcome, it's great to have you on the podcast.
George Olivera :Thank you, it's really good to be here.
Scott Allen:It's so good. Yeah, George is a friend of ours. We go back many years and he's what we in the DNA call a king demiser. He's somebody that has been exposed to the DNA's training over the years and not only has kind of absorbed that and benefited from that, but he's put it into practice in really significant ways, and just a variety of ways, both in Brazil and now here in his newly adopted country of the United States, where he just came last June. So welcome to the United States, George. Yeah, George is a senior pastor at Lakeland Bible Presbyterian Church in Lakeland, Florida and, George, it's just a joy to have you with us today.
George Olivera :Oh yes, it's such a blessing for me to see again good friends for almost 20 years that we learned from you and partner in Brazil and Spain or Europe and now here in the States for the glory of God, and to see these ideas spread in the world. So it's an honor for me.
Scott Allen:It's crazy. I can't believe it's been 20 years. Wow see, you know 20 years. I must be old now, I don't know.
Darrow Miller:We're all 20 years older, I guess I don't feel like it, but anyways it's amazing.
Scott Allen:Oh well, George, we I kind of would like to have you just tell us your story today. You're originally from Brazil, you're Brazilian, and I kind of want to hear your, your, your story growing up in Brazil. And then also, just of course, we'd love to hear kind of how you first intersected the ministry of the DNA and just kind of what happened when you know when that happened. But let's go back even further. Just tell us about you know Brazil, growing up in Brazil, a little bit about your background.
George Olivera :Yeah, I come from a middle class home. My mom, my dad, left my mom when I was a baby and that was very hard for my mom. She used to say that she was a Catholic, but at that time and today even Brazil, many, let's say, they're Catholics. It's like she didn't even go to mass or anything. But then it was very hard to hear for her. She was fired Same year that my dad left her. It was my sister she's older than me, three years old and me and then it was very hard but thankful for that year, because it wasn't that year that she, she knew the Lord and she, she, was able to teach us the Bible.
George Olivera :I remember, still remember, growing up with my mom in the Bible and reading and singing. We I grew up in this Pentecostal church. My mom she's a woman of prayer and taught me on how to be, you know, pray in the Lord when I was a teenager. It was the moment that I was I realized that I needed a savior. That I can remember. I don't know if I was a Christian or not, but I can remember that I need a savior and need to turn to Jesus. Then, a few years later, I had a rock band, yes, and we were like 14, 15 years old. We had a rock band, all the four of us. We decided to attend the same church and that was a church that a few years later I got to meet a dear friend of us.
George Olivera :Her name is Ana Santos, ana Lucia, and it was then I was 18 or 17. That's when they start. She was, you know, as the same way she is now Very a lot of energy, a lot of, you know, passion in the way that she speaks about worldview and everything. And she will talk about this mentor of hers that was like a father to her, helping her to see the Bible and the power of the gospel that would affect everything in life, the whole being. You know. And it was there, miller, but I, when I was 18, he came to a conference in Brazil, transformed me.
George Olivera :We gather a lot of churches there and we're talking about how can the Bible, what does the Bible have to say about art and I was a musician at church is like, okay, the Bible has to say maybe the songs we pick for service or something, because Christian artist for me was the one that was supposed to play in church, worship and that's it. And then we're talking about engineering in the Bible, we're talking about education in the Bible. It's like, oh, that's new for me. You know, 18 year old trying to decide what to do, and then I decided to pursue a degree in music. At that time I was serving at church and I'll start started to to connect the dots while studying music and trying to see beauty of God and the Bible and still learning. That's what, almost. When I finished graduating, I got married to Rebecca. We were from the same church back then and then we started to learn more and then be around DNA material. Then, after Anacentos left the city that we were in the church there.
Scott Allen:What city was that? George, just talk to people a little bit about it.
George Olivera :Yes, it's northeast of Brazil. It's João Pessoa, it's the eastest point in Brazil. If you look at the map we had, we had the first sunlight of America. So you can, you can look, you can stay there. This is the closest, closest way to Africa from the America.
Scott Allen:So that's what's the city, and that north part, that north it's kind of northeast part of Brazil. It's quite a distance from the big cities.
George Olivera :Yes.
Scott Allen:You know Sao Paulo, and it's, it's, isn't it one of the? It's, one of the poorer parts of Brazil.
George Olivera :Yes, yes, exactly, and many states there. You know drought. Our state is one of the poorest states in the country and there are many government maneuvers to keep the the you know the projects going there, but we would not see many transformation for the community overall. There's a lot of. You know. Brazil, unfortunately, is known for many lies and corruption and even even the. Even the name the Brazilian you know in Portuguese is Brasileiros, which is historically it is a name for a profession that the Portuguese had 500 years ago. Portuguese were the guys who came to Brazil from Europe to take the trees, the Pal Brasil, it's a kind of a tree there. They were the ones who came to take the trees and bring to Europe.
Scott Allen:So even in the they were. They were like loggers for us.
George Olivera :Yes, yeah, they would. Yeah, historically they would be known to trade things with the Indians, like give a mirror and get lands and then try to, you know, explore, and they would come from Europe to take the trees and take it to Europe. So they started to change and put that name of Brasileiros for the people who were born in Brazil, which should be Brasilianos, right, so it's Brasileiros. It's funny to see that. That then the culture the idea of taking everything you can from all the goods of the country for yourself, for your own benefit. It's a very known thing in the culture in Brazil. So it's like if anyone has the opportunity to steal something, it's it's, they are, are supposed to, because you know that's what happens in the country. That's the way it is, there's nothing you can do about it.
Darrow Miller:It's the opposite of a concept of coming to a place and helping it flourish and become all that God would intend the place to be. It's sort of the opposite of that a raping of the land, taking what you can get. It's a zero-sum mentality. We'll just take it.
George Olivera :How do we, how do we change the meaning of that word with a biblical worldview, and then we start by the gospel transformation of the word the Christians. We have 40 million Christians in Brazil.
Scott Allen:And growing rapidly right.
George Olivera :Yes, yes.
Scott Allen:The church is growing rapidly. I mean, I know you're you're speaking about the history and some some challenging, difficult things that. But at the same time I want to just, you know, underscore Dero and I've been to Brazil many times Dero, many more times than I have, but it's a remarkable country, you know it's. It's it's incredibly beautiful, incredibly diverse and highly influential, not just in South America I mean, it's probably the most influential country in South America, but in in America overall. I mean it's just highly influential. It's the second most, you know, it's what second largest economy in the in the Americas, and so it's a very, very important country. And what sedans means that this is.
George Olivera :I come from such a rich country and these lies there are so impenetrated in the culture that it became this kind of a poor mentality of that we should be thriving and celebrating the culture and everything, but it's like the, the mentality of we can do anything about ourselves. That's the way we are and this mentality of we need help from outside. It's it's. It saddens me to see that the, the richness of a country and the, the resources that we have, natural resources. You know there's no hurricane, there's nothing that the great land to plant in everything else. But we, we understand that by the, the, the power of the worldview, the understanding of that as Christians, we we are able to serve God and bring that counter cultural idea of being a Brazilian needs to help the nation flourish and help people around us flourish. So yes, we believe that.
Darrow Miller:Again, it's a difference in words here between dependency we have nothing, there's nothing we can do, we're dependent on others versus sort of an entrepreneurial, creative cultural mentality which sets a people, a person, an individual person and a whole nation on a very different course.
Scott Allen:I was going to mention to George. You probably know this, but this, this was very fascinating for me. I just learned this recently in a book that I'm reading about the history of kind of the cultural Marxist or the neo-Marxist movement in the United States, which is really kind of reaching its full flowering right now, sad to say. And you know, I've been studying the roots of that and one of the key kind of thought leaders was from your part of Brazil, palo Frere, you know, and I didn't know. I knew him, but I didn't know that he was from.
George Olivera :Yes, it's the state below us.
Scott Allen:Kind of the northeastern part of Brazil. And for those of you who don't know Palo Frere, you know he wrote a book called the Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He was a Marxist or a neo-Marxist and his area of study was education and he came up with Marxist theories of education that were first tried in French Guyana and they were a complete failure. I mean just students, grades plummeted. You know, it was just a miserable failure. But then in the 1980s he came to Harvard and found a receptive audience amongst the faculty at Harvard and today that is the most influential book shaping American public education the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, george he is discipling our nation.
Scott Allen:somebody from your neck of the woods I just thought I didn't know that he was from your part of the country, so I don't mean to sidetrack us, but I just found that so fascinating yeah.
George Olivera :But it's powerful to see that, the power of ideas that he would express and there is one of his books that's called Giving Autonomy to Children and that parents should be helpers for the child's learning and that the child is born as a good person but the environment corrupts her and then we are just to be facilitators. So there's no instruction, there's no authority, many ideas of constructivism in education.
Scott Allen:And that idea that children are born free and everywhere they're in chains. I mean that you know that it's the society that corrupts you. That came from Rousseau. And so many of these ideas come out of the French Revolution in France, kind of enlightenment France. It's so interesting flowing through Brazil and now here in the United States.
Luke Allen:But if you'd like to explore what a biblical worldview is and how you can begin the journey of transforming your mind to start seeing everything through biblical perspectives, we would encourage you to check out our free biblical worldview training course, the Kingdomizer Training Program, which is available at cormedalecom and is also linked in the episode landing page. The Kingdomizer Training Program was created to help Christians live out their call to make disciples of all nations, starting with themselves and working out from there. I would recommend this course to any Christian who wants to stop living in a sacred secular divide that limits their faith to only some areas of life, but instead it will help them to start to see everything cormedale, which means before the face of God and to start connecting their passions and their calling to their faith. Begin to have an impact with Christ in your culture that, if it's anything like mine, is in desperate need for truth and purpose right now. Again, this course is completely free and available at cormedalecom.
Scott Allen:Back to your story, george. Pick it up again. You were talking about how you had met Darrow. You had just become a Christian. Your mother had raised you in the Pentecostal Church to know Christ. You'd gotten married. I'd like to hear a little bit more about just that first encounter with Darrow and some of these ideas at that art conference that you went to. Looking back on that, what were some of the things that you hung on to from that that you would might say aha's or kind of life-changing, pivotal things for you?
George Olivera :It's funny, right, because when we talk about aha moments, we say that these are moments that change your lives. It does. It kind of pivots your directions, like you're going this way. Oh, I should be aware of that. But it's funny that when I look back now I see, wow, I needed to learn a lot, because you're challenged by something, so you get in this crisis. So the first conversation I had with Darrow was like can the gospel really be that? Is it true? Why aren't we doing that? Why is that new for me? And I remember Darrow calmly telling us many times this is not new.
George Olivera :Actually, this is re-wowed, but we have not been talking about these things for a long time and we need to bring back this understanding because we have been given one part of the truth, not the whole truth, and we need to start the Bible with not with Genesis 3, not with John 3.16. We start the Bible with in the beginning. We're doing here in our church a series on Genesis and this is the first part of the series Genesis 1 through 11. It's so interesting. You get to read commentaries, you get to read Francis Schaefer books on Genesis, space and time. If you lose this part, you lose everything.
Scott Allen:You don't have Christianity.
George Olivera :You can't have that. So the God whose spirit was hovering under the waters is the God who cares for art. Now, and even in the creation narrative he thinks about beauty, he thinks about order, govern, structure. And when we think about those things we must go back to who our God is. Who is this God that he's willing to save us from an eternity in hell? But life with him is this abundant, meaningful, beautiful life, and it starts when we repent and turn to him.
George Olivera :So in the beginning, when I was talking about those things and talking about the power and of influence of a biblical worldview, a biblical worldview is looking at the Bible and reading who our God really is, is understanding the power of the gospel. It's going to that place and saying, yes, I will preach the gospel, yes, I will proclaim the good news of salvation, but my life cannot be the same it was. It's impossible to have an encounter with Jesus and be the same. So this first idea I grew up with this mentality of you believing Jesus. So you stop smoking, you stop cussing, you just do that and then you're a Christian, you go to church and that's it.
Scott Allen:Christianity was. If I could just paraphrase, christianity was getting saved, going to church, attending church and then applying the Bible in a personal way, in terms of just personal holiness, if you will.
George Olivera :Yeah, and that's it it didn't really extend beyond that. Yeah so if you had, this secular work or thing that you do, and it does not matter as long as you're tied, as long as you give your offering and that's it. That's what I grew up with.
Scott Allen:Most of our audience are Americans and I. Just that's very common here, that mindset. But I just want to put a note in here to people that are listening. It's common all over the world and frankly, you know, I'm sad to say, a lot of that very narrow, truncated gospel message was exported from from our country around the world.
George Olivera :And unfortunately I have been. You know I used to think about Christianity in America as this thing that you know, this country was founded with Christian principles and this is amazing. It's a blessing for the country and we see the results of that in many areas of society here, many truths of biblical truths that are here. However, we also see this mentality, especially here. I can say from my experience, and then you can say about Arizona, my idea of okay, if you're, if you're American, means you're Christian and your nationality equals your place with God. And that's not true, right, and we have many Christians that go to church Easter and Christmas and they guide and they, you know, they did their thing, they many times I go to talk to people and sometimes I get to proclaim, to preach, to witness to them and it's like are you a Christian? He said, yeah, yeah, okay, do you go? Which church do you go? Where do you worship God? Do you have a Bible at home? No, no, no, I'm a Christian.
George Olivera :You know this country was founded by Christian principles. I don't steal anyone, I pay my taxes, I go to church on Easter. It's like, oh man, we need you know, maybe this is the wrong doctrine in the past that they were teaching that if you pray a prayer you're a Christian, or the wrong idea that because you're born in a in a nation with Christian principles, you're a Christian. But how do we bring the concept of being a Christian from the perspective of the word? Because you know many people in the Bible. They thought they were saved, they thought they were right with God and, to be honest, and Jesus would expose their hearts. Many times it's not only the Pharisees he would expose the hearts of. You know the disciples, or or you know Zacchaeus, or you know many, many Jesus was bringing that.
George Olivera :How are we to? I don't know if you're changing that to the experience in the America, but what you said about American listeners like that thing stays with me even today. It's like the necessity of our reteaching the biblical worldview, the understanding of the gospel that transforms everything. Or it's just this hollow message that's just okay. Jesus is a nice guy, it's just something that you need to to complete you and finally you'll be happy because that's the goal, right? But this is a little bit of what I see. I don't know if you, if you guys, can.
Scott Allen:I know the team wants to get get into that.
Scott Allen:It's so always interesting to hear people's perspectives moving across a culture, you know, and just especially we'd love to hear your thoughts from Brazil coming to the United States. But before we do that, I want to. I just want to go back to that early encounter that you had with Dero in Brazil, and just that. Aha that you know, this is a much bigger thing. It starts in creation, starts with Genesis, chapter one, and who is God and who who? Who are we and what's our purpose here in the world? You know, before the fall, dero, I wanted to just bring you in too. Do you remember meeting George for the first time? And and do you remember, though, that conference? Anything you want to share about that? I'd love to hear your thoughts too.
Darrow Miller:No, I don't.
Scott Allen:Okay, well, that's good. Thanks, Dero, let's go on to next Luke.
Darrow Miller:Oh sorry, george, I remember the furthest back in my memory of George is, I think, being at his house and he's married to Rebecca and he has one or two children at that point and we were talking about the family, what's the family like, and they were starting, as their kids got older, to homeschool and how that was such a pioneering thing in Brazil. So that's where, you know, my memory goes when I think of George as being in his home with Rebecca and their young family and talking about family and homeschooling, and I would be appreciative, george, if you would share something about that moment, that time.
George Olivera :It was. Yeah, it was one of the many times that we had previous meetings before that meeting there, but I know, I know we did, but that's the one that I remember and we started talking about homeschooling and Nelson and Lisa right, Nelson, Montero and Lisa, they're living now in Victoria, Canada, but the transition just Nelson.
Scott Allen:Is Nelson Montierreau? Is he's kind of kind of one of the lead trainers and champions disciples there for the DNA in Brazil?
George Olivera :Go ahead when when Anas Santos left to to Europe, he was the one that listen him was. There were the ones who stayed with us and disciples and Lisa did homeschooling back in Canada with their kids and they're talking about the power of that and the influence that we can have of, you know, sharing the biblical worldview with our kids. And we start to hear that and say no, it's impossible because there's no law here in Brazil. So everyone would say that it's illegal to do that. And we started look at the challenges and my son, daniel. He was like months old and we start talking with people and seeing and there are comes. We had Daniel and Maria ready.
George Olivera :Daniel was almost two and we start in our hearts we're like it's we got to do that, but it's, it's a foreign content, it's like a foreign theme for us here to do that. Everyone would look at us like oh, that's a weird thing. And it's also funny Again, when we come back here, we come to the States, and it's such a natural thing, like many people's grow up, like many adults that grow up homeschooled, like so weird for us people my age, that they were homeschooled. That's, that's not. But for us there it was a challenge because first we had to share what that was, and then and then we were the ones to do it we talked to lawyers. For me was concerned about the government taking my kids away from me or something like that. But what we saw is remember that discussion yeah.
Scott Allen:And George, you didn't know anyone. I mean, it was just unknown homeschooling at that time.
George Olivera :Yeah, the Catholic community started before us there. It was a known that, but I they don't like to share the, what we learned from the.
Scott Allen:They're like okay, we're doing our thing and pretty, pretty divided in Brazil, right as they are in all of Latin America. Yes, yes.
George Olivera :And and then we started to learn about, you know, maybe classical conversation curriculum. And then we found out that it's not illegal in Brazil, is just there is no law to regulate so we can do it. So we started doing it like four families my sister, a friend, Samuel Felix Felix you know him for the videos and another couple, so it was my sister, amanda and Benjamin and Samuel and Suzanne and Jordi also four families. We had like the number of kids like six kids, seven kids back then. Now, if you put together all the four families, we maybe have 25 kids or something. But we started doing it and people are started to see and family.
George Olivera :I remember my mother-in-law. She was nervous about the fact that their grandchildren are not going to school. It's weird for her. But then she started to see the results in the, in the kids and they started to, you know, start to advertise homeschooling for us. So funny that. And now, but now there we started one community of homeschooling for Christian parents and now there's more than three in our city the movement. It did not maybe in the city we started the one, but in Brazil at that time people were just, you know, going and there are many families doing it.
George Olivera :I hear a few cases that the government would go there and try to do something, but even that they can't take your kids away from you. It's hard. I don't know. Now, with the new government, it's more prone to that idea of you know, parents cannot take care of their sons. We are the best solution from them. That's what they advertise, but it's beautiful to see what the Lord did through the education and it's you know. Of course Lisa was giving us counseling.
George Olivera :We were learning with you know, reading a lot, and it's a lot of people that say that homeschool parents don't study. They study a lot. My wife works a lot. Even today, with nine years of experience of homeschooling, it's a new day. We have to learn more things. The kids are, you know, grown up and it's such an interesting idea to see that there we talk about theology. I talk about theology with my nine-year old son. Things that was like when I was 20, I couldn't talk about, and we're just having these conversations. You know, I went to a school here in the States and I started learning Greek and I bring the Greek dictionary or the vocabulary, and my son memorizes better than me. I was like, whoa, I'm not giving you the cards anymore. I need to learn this Because it's just an environment of learning. They love learning and they love, you know, interacting, so I see that the Lord used that and now many families in Brazil are doing it, and it's it was for us.
Scott Allen:Oh, george, I didn't know You're the. You're a pioneer family and the ripple effects of that, I have no doubt, are going to be really significant. You know I, it was in the United States completely uncommon and illegal in the 1960s and the 19th. So the early homeschool pioneer families here came out of where they were, darrow's generation, and I've met several of them and you know I always thank them, you know, because it took a lot of courage and you know it took, you know, a willingness to say you know, we're going to do something different, we're not going to just go along with everything else that you know. And so I didn't realize that you did that in Brazil, that's awesome Part.
George Olivera :A little bit we did Part right, but I think there was a bigger movement but still yeah, and it's great that yeah Such a blessing, Let me
Darrow Miller:let me just throw something in here, if I may. What we're talking about is breaking a mold and whether it's my generation not that I was involved, but my generation Scott said that began homeschooling in the United States and it has become a huge movement now.
Scott Allen:Yes.
Darrow Miller:Those families were breaking the mold for the culture and for the church, because this was a revolutionary thing in the church too, and you were part of that in Brazil and you were part of the pioneering movement that's now spreading all over the country but is breaking a cultural mode and it's breaking a church mold. So it's tremendously important that we have hearts of, as Christians, breaking molds in our churches and in our cultures to do something new that's of a biblical mind and a biblical line.
George Olivera :And it's not always good. You don't feel good all the time doing it. When we talk here now and you mentioned those things like breaking the mold, it's like whoa. When I look back, maybe yes, yes, I agree with you, but it's not easy. But when you're there, you see that. I'm saying this because when you hear testimonies about people doing things, it's an act of obedience and you do one step at a time. You don't do for the effect that you see in the future. You're doing obedience to God and you leave the results to Him. And I can see a few families that came to Hebeka to my wife and say I thank you because you helped me see education of my children differently, and it was not 2,000 families but it was like 10 families that came to her and the way that she was living as a mother.
George Olivera :the way she was teaching the children was impacting other families as well and of course it was impacting our kids and the next generation. But we don't see that. I'm just saying we usually don't see that advertised or we don't see the easy part or no. But when we follow that and we will glorify God and let's leave it to Him to open these doors and see what's going to happen later.
Dwight Vogt:George, I have a question on the homeschooling subject here. What was the positive idea that you or I said of ideas that you wanted to put into your children that they would not get in the Brazilian school system? Well, I mean, there's so many today. People say well, I'm afraid of the school system, so I'm out of fear at homeschool, and fear is not really a great motivator, it's not a great driver, and so what was the?
Luke Allen:positive. You said.
Dwight Vogt:The main thing is when we and better.
George Olivera :when you learn about education, and especially South America, you learn about what Scott said about Paulo Freire and constructivism and the limitation of education and the lies that even for Christian, christian, christian teachers and that's I used to train Christian teachers in that as well, because all of the teachers in schools in Brazil they have to go to the pedagogy, the pedagogical learning from university. And who's the main star there? Paulo Freire.
Scott Allen:Paulo Freire, same in the United States. Same so same and you know, just on that I just give him credit in this sense. They had a vision to disciple the nations, to really shape the nation according to their worldview or their ideology, and they knew, I mean, it's just not rocket science. They knew that you can't do that, apart from the children in the next generation. So they focused on education. We haven't, you know, and you know, I mean, it's starting to change, but but we just, yeah, anyways, go ahead.
Dwight Vogt:And yeah, and for our audience, what was the idea that Paulo Freire brought?
George Olivera :The main idea was not only constructivism, it was social constructivism. Because social constructivism you get the idea from Piaget in France. You know French ideas. But social constructivism is constructivism, is the idea that you create your own learning process. You are the learner, the main person in the learning process, so we receive no instruction from outside. And social constructivism is that plus the Marxist ideas of society In that book that Scott mentioned. What's the name in English? Scott?
Scott Allen:Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Yes, Now he's completely open in that book about being a follower of Lenin.
Luke Allen:I mean he's a Leninist.
Scott Allen:You know, he's just a hardcore Marxist.
George Olivera :And it's like it's a workbook for the teacher, a militant teacher of ideas, of.
Scott Allen:Marx. But the main thing is Social overthrow revolutionary ideas.
George Olivera :And the main thing is, how do we remove the authority of the parents? How you know the idea of being born as a sinner? The kid was born a good person, so we understand that. We you know, in sin my mom conceived me. That's what David said. Genesis 3 is the reality of the world now and they remove that so, which means that the adults and parents are supposed to frame everything in that idea and then a three-year-old has to construct and create their own ideas. So this is a limitation of education and limiting what it means to be a human. So when we thought about education, and these are rooted in.
Scott Allen:these are foundational principles Exactly. I mean really foundational.
Dwight Vogt:That's what I was asking and that's you really helped. That that's really clear.
George Olivera :And many, many, many teachers don't see that, and I say that because I used to train teachers in Christian schools that they used to pray before class, they used to read the Bible verse before class and then they close their Bibles and they teaching the methodology of Not constructivism Against the biblical principles. So it's like you're not working as a Christian and my idea is that no, but I prayed or I have a Bible verse. Yes, and they're important. We know that the Bible is the Word of God and that's not what we're saying. It's like we need to think critically and think in a way that analyze our methodology, because methodology matters. How are we teaching the children? How are we sharing these?
George Olivera :And even in homeschooling, why do we want to homeschool? That's what Dwight said. We want to live in a bubble. And no, we want to give the reality of the world, what the world really is, and relationships. Oh, but socialization. That's the other concern. You need to socialize, you need to do this. Yes, let's do that. But homeschooling is not. That doesn't have socialization. It has the real socialization, a better socialization, putting 30 kids, 10 year olds, together. We don't know their parents, we don't know where they come from or their work views, how we teach them and we allow the constructivist agenda to be taught to them, and this discipleship for 14, 15 years in a child. And then they go to college and parents say, oh, my child went away from Christianity. I don't know why. You don't know why Because your child 30 hours a week being a disciple and you didn't even realize that it's our job as parents to disciple our children.
Scott Allen:I think, george, you're highlighting the fact that when we have this narrow, truncated gospel that we were talking about earlier, the goal of Christian faith is to get people saved and some basic discipleship. But what gets missed is that Christianity is a worldview. It has first principles, foundational principles. Most of them come out of Genesis 1, 2, 3. And we have to live in that world and if we don't, then we're just going to be, like you say, praying at the beginning of a class and teaching someone else's worldview essentially, and that's just. That's been the blind spot that we are trying to address in the DNA. So I'm really happy that you're talking about this.
George Olivera :It's funny that he in Florida a couple of years ago, the governor of the centers, does a law about schools and ideology.
Scott Allen:And the people put on view boards.
George Olivera :It's okay to say gay, because the law was don't say gay, right, that's what they called it. And it's funny that they mentioned that because of we're trying to put religion ideas into schools, so we're not supposed to have that. Everyone should choose their own religion and okay, in the States we're free to do that. You know, like Richard Dawkins with the God Delusion, he's like, oh, atheists have no faith. He's like I'm not supposed to write a book about it. So it's like they don't see that this is a set of world views that they're trying to indoctrinate as well. And we're trying to say, yes, we want to indoctrinate with the word of God, which is truth, which is reality, but it's like no separation of church and state. So we should not talk about religion things and the redefinition of the word faith, and you know it's all connected with the idea of we all want to share about our world views to the world. Everyone has their own set of world views. Paulo.
Scott Allen:Freire had his own. Somebody's first principles are underneath everything. Right, you can't get away from it. It's interesting.
Dwight Vogt:There's some pushback on the word worldview now too, because it's code for Christian nationalists, when in reality, what you're saying is true it's the core of religion, it's the core of secularism, it's the core of our philosophies.
Scott Allen:They're recycling the nation with their principles and they don't want competition as essentially what they're doing with that phrase Christian nationalism.
Dwight Vogt:So denied. Exists that level of thinking worldview?
Scott Allen:George, catch us up to kind of the present, because you had a big transition from Brazil to the United States, where you're now pastoring a church. How did that happen? How did you make the jump from Brazil to the States?
George Olivera :I'm sorry if I'm giving too abrupt of a change.
Scott Allen:If you wanted to finish out that no. I just wanted to say I just know, our time is running short and I just like.
George Olivera :I want to know how he got here.
George Olivera :I just wanted to share because when I was 18 or 19, I used to talk to Darrell and young people. They always try to. What we used to say is discover the will of God for us. So we need to. And discovering the will of God is sometimes who am I going to marry? What am I supposed to do? Should I be an engineer? Should I be a lawyer? Should I be a missionary? Should I do this or that?
George Olivera :And I wanted to bring my life as an example that you don't have to know everything about your life. You need to understand that what you're doing is for the glory of God and take the next step, because we know from the Bible that David, for example, david, he was called by God to be the king. Yes, but he was a shepherd, he was a lawyer, he was many things before he was a king. So he was in the will of God in that sense. So we are to, as Ephesians we read, we are to understand and to know the will of God that is already revealed and take the next step.
George Olivera :So when I was 18, I saw the gospel and biblical worldview is something that is exciting. I want to apply that and I want to learn about music and doing that. So I have a degree in music education. I study a lot of Paulo Freire back in university because it was music teaching but also learning about that and I could serve in the local church with that. But also that gave me a platform to disciple people in worldview and biblical worldview.
George Olivera :And then I started teaching and teaching. And then I went to a Christian school and then we created a curriculum in education and vocation, applying the biblical principles in there, and then I continued teaching and then I started preaching and disciple people and then after that, a few years later it was beginning of 2022, I already had four kids. We were waiting for our fifth, amanda. I have a nine year old, eight and eight year old, six year old, four year old and almost two year old so five kids there. And that's when I was working with my local church in Brazil and also with Nelson, helping with the discipleship curriculum, vocation and biblical understanding of work. So I was doing what I had in front of me as an opportunity to serve and it was not about me. I'm trying to use my example so I can maybe in a way, help others that are trying to figure out what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to do this or that? Look at what God gave you and use that to serve others.
Scott Allen:That's what you mean by take that next step. Just be faithful in that step that he's given you the next step, whatever that is. And you do it, and then let him kind of write the story from there.
George Olivera :So it was in 2022 that I even had a business. I had an English school. I was trying to work with that and also serve in the church preaching, teaching and church plans and vocation discipleship. So I was doing that. But I opened the business six months before COVID. So it was very difficult For two years. I was trying to hang in there but it was hard.
George Olivera :So, beginning of 2022, I came to talk to my pastor, Dan Brazil, like Henan His name is Renan. It's like Henan. I don't know what to do. I want to serve God, keep serving him with the company, with what I'm doing, but my wife's pregnant of our fifth baby. I don't know what to do. Maybe the company will have to close. We can keep it going.
George Olivera :And he would look at me in a strange face and I was like I don't know what's going on, but I'm coming to you so we can pray and may the Lord give me opportunities to other ideas or something. And then I stopped talking and he was like okay, George, two weeks ago, a pastor from Orlando called me telling me about a program of church planting. They have and they're looking for pastors from Brazil to plant a church in Orlando, a Brazilian speaking church. They're going to finance that for a year, and then we work in partner with other churches and so on and so forth. And he started telling me all those things and in the end he said I didn't tell you that before because you had your company, you're doing your things, so I didn't want to get in the middle of that.
George Olivera :But since you're sharing that, you're the first person that I thought about this, because the person needs to be married to this and he would tell all my curriculum. He was telling there what was required and then that was when I came. So I came to the States in August August 22 and started working with them for a year. But here I met a pastor from Orlando church and he was planting a church for Brazilians in Orlando. It was the same church that I was going, I was planning to do, and I told him you know, maybe I should work with you, maybe I should help you, because what you're doing, you know, just let me serve with you. And he was like okay, let's pray about that. And two months later he told me that a pastor in Lakeland was going to retire if I was willing to come to be the pastor of that church. It's an American church, you would have to preach in English and so on and so forth and they invited me to preach and I came and a year and almost a year and a half passed and I'm here. So I came to plant a church for Brazilians.
George Olivera :Now I'm here pastoring a church of Americans and serving in the Presbytery.
George Olivera :We were thinking about and praying about church plans and, you know, helping that. So the Lord, the Lord, is opening the doors and directing everything. But the main thing for me when I think about pastoring is that how can I, how can I use what the Lord has given me to share the biblical principles of biblical worldview in the congregation? Because when we do that with the Lord, when we do that with the local church, with the intentional discipleship I think this is the heart of what we want you know about that. It's not, you know, to be something separate or just a new thing here is like, how can we make that the discipleship of our church, this understanding? So this is the challenge that I am facing now and I think it comes from a discipleship from the children, young people, you know, having that intersecting all the discipleship in the pulpit, talking about work in the pulpit that we don't hear a lot talking about. You know, living our whole life for God and then seeing that in the discipleship's ministries of the church and being intentional about that.
Darrow Miller:As I was listening to you, george, and the journey you're talking about, it reminds me. My son, david, is a recovering addict and he said I have to ask the question what is the next right thing to do? And it's been that simple question that has moved him from addiction to sobriety. And it's such a simple thing and that's what you're describing. Here I am today. I'm functioning, by God's grace, from a biblical worldview, learning what that means. I know Christ. What's the next thing that he wants me to do? So it's not necessarily having the whole next 10 years or 20 years lined up. It's walking in a very personal way, in a relational way, asking God what is the next right thing that you have for me to do? And it's just been fun to hear you describe that as your own journey and obedient to that, as you have grown in your faith, within the framework of a biblical worldview, understanding Because that's critical there's a bigger world, a bigger universe that I'm walking in, hand in hand with the one who created me and has purposed me.
Scott Allen:Well, George, I am. Thank you, Darrow, for that word. I'm so excited God brought you to the United States because he's got some reason for you being here and we need you. So I'm excited to see what that unfolding journey is going to look like and I'm glad that we can walk together with you, George. It's been an honor to have that relational connection with you.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I just wanted to echo what Darrow was saying. I love that. What you're saying, george, about the next step because I do hear that all the time what is God's will for my life? That's the common question of the high schooler looking at the big world ahead of them. And I was talking with Arturo Cuba I believe mutual friends of ours about two years ago about this what's God's will for my life?
Luke Allen:I'm learning all these amazing things about worldview right now, biblical worldview. How can I apply this? What can I do with this? And he said he gave the analogy of creating a puzzle, and a puzzle that you first paint and then you put together. And he was like, instead of trying to figure out what that entire puzzle will look like when it's done, let's just look at that next piece that you have in your life. Okay, pick that up. So that, essentially, is whatever you're doing in life right now.
Luke Allen:For me personally, I'm in the young family stage of life. So how can I live faithfully according to these biblical principles, these core biblical principles in this area of life? And then I'm going to put that piece in the puzzle and then I'm going to move on to the next thing, and I love that concept that you were saying of you don't know what God's going to do with that piece. Just live faithfully and, like you saw in Brazil when you applied the principles of education into your own life, faithfully living that out. You didn't know what God was going to do with that, but he's already having this. It's what sounds like a huge impact from that step you took, and he might not have a huge impact from that, but just that, faithfully living in each season of life that we're in, that's how we're disciple nations and we don't know what God's going to do with it. It could have an impact on just ourselves, or a family, or even a church, or even bigger than that, and I just think that's so encouraging to hear that lived out in life.
George Olivera :Many of the assault of the world view, assault in us, in the Christian today, is that the myth or the fallacy of the pursuit of happiness that I need to. You know, in friends, our advising friends, I just want you to be happy. Or a parent to a child, you can do anything as long as you're happy. This is not attainable. So how can you be happy? It's better to say be a lawyer, you know, you can do a law degree and you can be a lawyer, but be happy. This is so, you know, conceptual, it's not possible. So how do we, from a biblical world view, change that mentality? Because we're not called to be pursuing happiness. This is a lie. So you're saying that. I open here in 2 Corinthians 6, when Paul is sharing about his life. He says 2 Corinthians 6, 4, he says but as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labor, sleeplessness, night hunger, by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, by truthful speech and the power of God, with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left, through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as imposters and yet are true, as unknown and yet well known, as dying. And yet behold, we live as punished and yet not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing. As poor yet making many rich. As having nothing yet possessing everything. Paul is saying sometimes I'm even sorrowful, but I'm always rejoicing. That's the reality I am, what I feel is sorrowful. I am spending my life for the glory of God, so others can be rich. I am giving of myself to others, so, as Christians, we're not in a place. If you read Hebrews 11 as well the end of Hebrews 11, you see that many of them did not see the promise come, but they were living for something greater, for something better.
George Olivera :And the reality of the biblical worldview is when we live for Christ, we are willing to serve the world, serve the ones around us for God's glory. It's His story, it's not ours. And this will bring us fulfillment in life, even in times of hardship. And I'm not saying that we were supposed to be hitting ourselves or no. I'm saying that the meaning of life is not living for ourselves. This is what most famous people, rich people in the world. They will always say that, and Jesus was saying that much earlier than them. It's like the meaning of life is to live for the glory of God, for the kingdom of God and for His glory. How can we not only say that but live that as church?
Scott Allen:I think you know to give the American founding fathers a little bit of due here when they put that phrase the pursuit of happiness. I do think that's what they had in mind, george, that God did design us to live a certain way. And when we're obedient to that, it's only then that we can find that true contentment. And often it's paradoxical, right? So you get, you know, you die to yourselves. And Jesus says that's how you find life, that's how you find life. He wants us.
Scott Allen:I mean, the idea of being joyful or happy or content isn't an unbiblical idea. You know, God, our Heavenly Father, wants that for us, just like we want that for our children. But you only get that by living in obedience to his, to reality, to his word. And so I do think there's a case to be made, that kind of pursue your you know, your joy, your happiness. If you do that faithfully, it leads you, tends to lead you in the right direction. Because, let's say, you're serving money. You know, and that's my highest ideal, you know you're going to find out, you know it's empty, right, it's empty, there's not. At the end of the day, you know that I just, you know it leaves me hollow.
George Olivera :It comes to the definition. How do we define happiness biblically? When we enjoy God, when we are living for him, we're truly happy In spite of circumstances, in spite of everything because we're living for good.
Scott Allen:That's right. Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't mean that you don't suffer. Yeah, that's right. Go ahead, dwight. Yeah, you thought a lot about this, yeah, and it can be something really simple.
Dwight Vogt:I like to use the word paradoxical and I'm, you know, I'm thinking, yeah, we don't pursue fulfillment, we don't even pursue Shalom, really, as a direct result. We pursue God's purposes in our life and to fulfill those as he called us to live. And and it's interesting, I was just. You know, george, you're making me think. I just finished work with my brother over the weekend and ended up painting on a scaffolding and I'm thinking what was fun about that? Nothing. And yet it was so fulfilling to help him to get the ceiling painted well and I came out of with well, that was. I was so tired, so beat up, my knees were messed up and I was filthy, but there was a sense of yeah, that was good, that was really good, you know, and where does that come from? It's like God says you know, I can bring you creative for that.
George Olivera :Right.
Dwight Vogt:It's paradoxical Good words, god. Paradoxical, but it's. It's part of the and I'm going back to the creation mandate. What were we doing? We're just trying to make something better. We're just saying, okay, god, you've given us some resources, given us tool. How can we make something good out of this? And it was that simple.
Luke Allen:The first time I heard this quote by St Augustine I was really confused by it, but just this conversation is making it clear in my mind. St Augustine once said love God and do as you please. And in my mind I was like, how do you do that? One sounds selfless love God and one sounds selfish do as you please. But it's the order of them that matters is when you love God, then out of that you can live the life that he has for you and live in his reality and enjoy his creation and all the beautiful things he's blessed you with.
Scott Allen:But the key is love God.
Luke Allen:You know that orders your life and then from there living in that.
Scott Allen:Well, listen, george, we, we didn't. You know our time is out. I think this is a really good place to stop, just because I think this is such a powerful takeaway, and just using your own life story as an object lesson for for us and for our listeners, I think is really just terrific. On this, how do we pursue God's will? What does it mean to be faithful? Just this idea of trust God. You know, I always think of that verse in Ephesians about how he has good works prepared in advance. You know, he knows, he knows we have to walk into those. You know, and just trust that he's gonna, he's gonna guide. And that's been your story, george, and it's not over yet. So we look forward to seeing the. You know how it goes, but yeah, we never got onto. Just, I love to hear your insights about our own country, the United States. Coming from Brazil, and we touched on that a little bit, but I'd love to, you know, maybe next time we'll have you back on, we'll talk a little bit about that.
George Olivera :So thank you for for inviting me as such an honor. Just good to be here with friends talking about God things.
Scott Allen:You don't even see time going Well, you're a blessing to us, george, because you know, when we hear people like you and the faithfulness that you've lived your life and the application of biblical worldview, biblical principles, that's why we're here, you know, that's why the DNA exists, and so it's a real, it's a real affirmation to us and encouragement to us. So God bless you and your ministry in Florida, as you pastor the church, and we'll look forward to having you on again next time, thank you. So thank you as well for listening to another episode. Of ideas have consequences. This is the podcast of the disciple nations.
Luke Allen:Thank you for listening to this episode with George Olivera. As always, for all things, ideas have consequences. Visit the episode page on our website, which is also linked in the show notes. On that page, you can learn more about the Kingdomizer training program, which I mentioned in the commercial, which is a free biblical worldview training course that George has taken and you can too. It is a great place for anyone to start to understand the transformative power of a biblical worldview, not to mention it's completely free. So why not sign up today?
Luke Allen:Ideas have consequences is the podcast of the disciple nations alliance. To learn more about our ministry, you can find us on Instagram, facebook and YouTube, or on our website, which is disciple nationsorg. Thanks again for joining us. Guys. Please share the show with a friend or leave us a rating and review on the podcast platform that you are currently listening on, which will really help us as we continue to share this show with more people. Just as a heads up, next week we are going to be publishing part two of our Easter series, which, if you haven't listened to the first part yet, which is just called Easter part one the continued work of Christ, we would recommend that you go back and listen to that one before joining us here next Tuesday, on Holy Tuesday, for part two. We'll see you then.