Students use ‘yellow card strategy’ during World Cup evangelism in Brazil

Student volunteer Grant Gilliam raises a yellow card to get the attention of a soccer fan near Rio’s Maracanã Stadium. Gilliam, a student at Mississippi College, and his teammates (from left) Brazilian Baptist Bianca Brandao and Stephanie Silva, a student at Oklahoma Baptist University, shared the Gospel before a World Cup match between Russia and Belgium on June 22. (IMB) photo by Wilson Hunter

Sixty-four soccer matches contested by 736 players on 32 teams in 12 cities. Without argument, the month-long FIFA World Cup in Brazil is the most watched sporting event in the world.

In addition to the 1 billion people tuning in around the globe, an estimated 600,000 visitors are converging on Rio de Janeiro and the 11 other host cities in Brazil to watch and cheer for their country’s team. Other visitors to Rio, however, have another goal in mind — sharing the message of Jesus Christ with those who have never heard the Gospel.

A team of 11 Southern Baptist college students and two student ministry leaders traveled to Rio de Janeiro for the 2014 World Cup as part of the IMB’s student mobilization efforts to partner with Brazilian Baptists in outreach during the world-famous soccer tournament. The students, their Brazilian co-workers and some IMB missionaries have spent two weeks witnessing in communities around Rio and evangelizing near the city’s Maracanã stadium, where tens of thousands of fans attend World Cup matches twice a week during the June 12 – July 13 competition.

MAKING CONNECTIONS Yellow cards in hand, University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa) students Amanda Fenton (left) and Dane Van Ryckeghem share Christ with the help of Brazilian Baptist translator Larissa Freire (right) in front of Rio’s Maracanã Stadium before kickoff of the Argentina vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina match on June 15. Photo © 2014 IMB / Wilson Hunter

“The World Cup is where the nations come to one place,” said Lee Dymond, campus minister at Auburn University at Montgomery (Alabama) and leader of  the students.  “It’s our opportunity to share the Gospel and hopefully impact not just Brazil but all the nations that are coming to Brazil for World Cup.”

Dymond said the students “who are here on our team have a heart for evangelism and a heart for the Gospel. There [are] very few times in history where so many people from so many different places come together. We get an opportunity to be right here with them and we get an opportunity to share the Gospel with as many as we can.”

After arriving in Rio, the student volunteers learned about a specialized witnessing technique developed by the Brazilian Baptist Home Mission Board. Diogo da Cunha Carvalho, coordinator of evangelistic strategies for Brazilian Baptists’ domestic missions efforts, helped to develop the “yellow card strategy” for Brazilian churches to use at a regional soccer competition in 2013.

In soccer, Carvalho explained, a yellow card is displayed by a referee as a warning or caution to a player regarding conduct that could lead to expulsion from the match (signified by a red card).

“It’s a sign to the player that he is getting very close to severe consequence for his actions,” Carvalho said. This visual understanding is the perfect direct approach for witnessing against the backdrop of a soccer match, he added.

Carvalho demonstrated the witnessing technique, which begins by approaching someone and raising a yellow card while blowing a whistle — just like a soccer referee. This warning, though, is a message from God, the Baptist volunteer tells the person.

“In Brazil, probably 90 percent of the people will say ‘yes’ when asked if they want to hear the Gospel,” Carvalho said. “With such an interest in the Word, we can take a direct approach like this yellow card.”

YELLOW CARD EVANGELISM Diogo da Cunha Carvalho briefs Baptist student volunteers on the “yellow card” evangelism method used during the FIFA World Cup June 12 – July 13. Carvalho, who coordinates evangelistic strategies for the Brazilian Baptist Home Mission Board, helped to develop the strategy for a regional soccer tournament in 2013. Photo © 2014 IMB / Lina White (inset by Wilson Hunter)

After receiving permission to explain the message, the approach leads to a “goodness” test, Carvalho explained. Here, the presenter shows, through a series of questions, how all are sinners according to the Bible and fall short of being “a good person.” Then, the believer shares the reality of the Good News.

“We talk about the Law to emphasize the seriousness of sin, but now introduce the Good News through the act of love that God did for us,” Carvalho said.

In a country such as Brazil with a history of religiousness, “at this point some may connect the phrase ‘Jesus died for our sins,’ but there’s a disconnect between that phrase, their actual sinfulness and the ‘I’m a good person’ mentality,” Carvalho told the Southern Baptist students. “They don’t connect the giant statue of Jesus that stands over Rio with what Jesus did for them on the cross — that He came to die and He rose again to defeat death for their freedom.”

On game days in Rio, the collegiate team divides into groups of two or three, along with a translator. The teams then fan out around the outside of Brazil’s national stadium, which is thick with celebrating fans even hours before the stadium opens.

Bekah Gordon, co-leader of the trip, said the atmosphere was exactly what she had hoped.

“It’s the World Cup!” said Gordon, who previously served with Dymond at Auburn-Montgomery as a semester missionary through the North American Mission Board. “I grew up playing soccer, and I’m now a soccer coach in Montgomery.  To be able to combine two of my greatest loves — the Gospel and soccer — is awesome.”

According to Gordon, evangelizing with the yellow card approach “is really unique because you’ve got a lot of soccer fans who know exactly what it means.”

At the stadium one day, Gordon and her partner approached a young man sitting alone.

“Ricardo was sitting by himself [and we] walked over to him and threw up the yellow card and blew the whistle,” Gordon said. “He immediately threw up his hands and said ‘What did I do? What did I do?’

“That was the perfect reaction because we wanted him to have the idea that something was wrong,” she said. “We told him it’s not just what he has done, it’s what all of us has done.”

At first Ricardo said he was a good person, but recognized after the examples Gordon gave that he was indeed guilty and deserving of penalty and hell. He admitted he had a faith background as a child, but discarded it to enjoy his own lifestyle of fun and partying.

“This concerns me very much,” Ricardo said through the translator.

Gordon and her evangelism partner Jordan O’Donnell, a student at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, explained to Ricardo “that giving our lives to God is not like going to prison; it’s not bondage, but freedom,” Gordon recounted. “We shared that we are not bound to sin anymore and life with God is better than the world.

“We continued to share but our translator interrupted us and said, ‘He’s ready to accept Christ!’” Gordon said. “We prayed with him, and he said ‘I feel free now.’ The cool thing about this whole exchange is that Ricardo is from Lima, Peru. God blessed our [Portuguese-speaking] interpreter with enough Spanish to communicate the Gospel clearly.”

James Dubuisson, a student at the University of North Alabama in Florence and youth minister at First Baptist Church, Lawrenceburg, Tenn., admitted he had some apprehension to the direct approach of witnessing.

“I was skeptical of the methods we’re using here because I’m more comfortable building a relationship with someone and then sharing the Gospel,” he said. “But coming up to someone on the street and saying, ‘You need to know about Jesus’ is new to me. God has been challenging me a lot.”

Dubuisson said it was a great feeling to approach the first person and find him receptive to the Gospel. “When we were leaving, they said it was the best thing that ever had happened to them,” he said.

For the ones who did not accept Christ following their conversation, Dubuisson said, “I pray that God continues to work through the seeds we’ve planted here.”

Alison Myers, a senior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), came to Rio with a personal objective to learn more about the Brazilian culture so she could better share the Gospel contextually with Brazilian friends at UAB. More than that, Myers came with a special story to tell.

Myers was born with hip dysplasia. Doctors told her parents she would never walk.

“That was really a setback for my parents,” she said. “The doctors told them they needed to accept the fact I would be handicapped. My parents prayed and got people from all over the world to pray for me. They had faith in the Lord that He would provide and be the physical and spiritual healer in my life.”

After a first surgery was unsuccessful, Myers’ parents continued to believe God had a different plan for their daughter. A second surgery brought good results and allowed Myers to walk.

“Every step I take is a daily reminder of what He can do through me,” she said. “When talking to people here, if they look depressed or discouraged or broken, I include my story because it’s such a huge part of my life. That really lights up their eyes when I tell them how the Lord has done so many great things in my life.”

Myers said she prayed before leaving for Rio “that the Lord would stretch me and allow me to be uncomfortable … and be able to deal with it. It was probably a very bold prayer, but that’s what I prayed for. To hear people say ‘no’ is hard, but the Lord has given me that boldness.”

Sharing the Gospel with people who understand and receive the message “is so great to see because sometimes when you have a language and cultural barrier, it’s hard to know how they’re feeling,” she said. “So to see a face light up with understanding and wanting to accept Jesus is totally worth this entire trip.”

According to Gordon, each collegiate volunteer “on average is sharing their story and/or the Gospel four to seven times every single day here in Rio. They’re going for it.

“Having so many college students (on the trip), we’re encouraging them to be bold,” Gordon said. “We’ve said it from the first day: we’ve not been given a spirit of timidity but a spirit of boldness. I’ve shared with them what I’ve studied in Acts 4 — how they [early Christians] shared with boldness and the spirit of God overcame them with grace. You get renewed by that grace.

“This group has been incredible and has not shown any timidity about going and sharing their story and the Gospel,” she said. “My prayer for this group is that as we have shared the Gospel, it will stay on our lips and continue to come out as we go home.”

This story was originally originally posted at commissionstories.com.