Let me tell you how the Churches of Christ in Uberlandia got started. I share this only out of historic interest, as I am now a very satisfied Unitarian Universalist.
When I moved to Uberlandia in 2001, it was as a missionary of the independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ. I was joining a group of missionaries, husbands and wives, who had moved from Belo Horizonte to Uberlandia to help out a new church. The missionaries and the church were aligned with the noninstrumental Church of Christ. For the uninitiated, these two faith traditions I’ve mentioned are actually branches of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. They share much in common, but differ over whether musical instruments should be used in worship. I know…it’s incredibly silly.
There had been a Church of Christ in Uberlandia decades prior, but it became thoroughly Pentecostal and changed names over the years, leaving behind any connection to the larger faith tradition that gave it a start. It was then in the late 1990s that two women, both single and living together, moved to the city on business. Not finding a Church of Christ there, they began hosting Bible studies. Only women and children attended, and some women started to ask to be baptized. They asked the elders of the large downtown Church of Christ in Belo Horizonte what to do, and were told to go ahead and baptize the women themselves. And so, they did.
For a period of two or three years this church operated in private as a congregation of only women. In large part perhaps out of beliefs that women ought not to teach men, the status quo was held until around 2000 when three couples moved from Belo Horizonte to Uberlandia, supported by a combination of Brazilian and American churches. The Uberlandia church then rented a building and officially “opened for business.”
I don’t know how things stand today, as I am no longer in touch with the people involved, but as of 2015 there were three congregations there from that mission, two of which were quite active. The two women who got things started in the first place moved away years ago, and none of the original missionary couples remain involved, but the communities they founded and nourished carry on. I do also see indications online of there being a Church of Christ of the Pentecostal variety in Uberlandia now as well.
The transformation from a group primarily consisting of women and children into a community with multiple congregations speaks volumes about the power of commitment, belief, and adaptation. Although my personal spiritual journey has led me to embrace Unitarian Universalism, the story of these churches remains a poignant chapter in my life, illustrating the complexity and diversity of religious experience. Faith, in its many forms, continues to shape lives and communities in meaningful ways, even as individuals like myself move through different spiritual landscapes.