São Paulo—Scott Pittman is a missionary commissioned with the task of sharing Christ with millions of people living in São Paulo, Brazil, and he could really use the help of Kentucky Baptist churches.

“São Paulo presents the greatest challenge I have ever faced in my career as missionary, with such an incomprehensible concentration of lostness,” said Pittman, the International Mission Board megacity strategist for Greater São Paulo.

Pittman estimated more than 18 million people (90 percent) are lost. He and his wife, Joyce, who formerly served on the staff of Western Recorder, have been tasked with starting church planting movements amid a crowded city so heavily burdened by crime and homelessness.

“The association I am presently working with is about the size of Shelby County, Ky., but with 57 times more people,” Pittman noted. “It has 52 churches, many of which are weak. That area alone needs more than 200 new churches by 2020 in order to get the ratio down to at least one Baptist church per 10,000.”

Pittman, a former Kentucky Baptist Convention staffer, said the KBC has approximately one church for every 1,800 Kentucky residents.

“What we need are church partners to embrace this great need,” he said, “and Kentucky Baptists can do this through ‘Adopt São Paulo.'”

Vision trips planned for June 8-13 and November 9-14 will allow Kentucky Baptists to see firsthand how their churches’ missions strategies can assist the Great Commission work being done in São Paulo.

Pittman said there are numerous ministry opportunities for churches of all sizes, interests and at every level of engagement, adding that prayer adoption is needed as much as partnering churches.

“I have years of experience with Kentucky Baptist volunteers working in different parts of Brazil, and I’ve always known them to be a dedicated group of people eager to take on the challenges God has for them,” Pittman said.

Ministry opportunities in addition to the vision tours include:

n Become a prayer partner and adopt one of the more than 140 districts in the city, an existing Baptist church or a people group within the city.

n Become a volunteer church that commits to a one-time mission project.

n Become a partnering church that makes a long-term commitment to work with missionaries in a particular area or with a people group.

n Become a strategy coordinator church that is a partnering church with the goal of planting a self-sustaining church.

To learn more about Adopt São Paulo, send an email to adoptsaopaulo@pobox.com.