Roberto Naves Amorim currently serves as one of the coordinators in Brazil for Overseas Instruction in Counseling (OIC) and is also on the pastoral staff at Evangelical Christian Church of the West Sector in Goiânia, Goiâs, Brazil. In addition to being a senior pastor at his church, Roberto is the creator, writer, and announcer of the daily devotional “Bom Dia”, which has been a blessing to thousands of people. But most proudly, Roberto is a husband to Cláudia and a father blessed with four children and three grandchildren.
Roberto has been actively involved in the Christian church since his teenage years. Right at his mid-teenage year, the Lord began to establish in his heart a special love for God’s Word, and he became convinced that the Lord was giving him the desire to preach his word and shepherd God’s flock. So, at the young age of eighteen, Roberto started his pursuit to become grounded in robust theological convictions and within a few short years he was ordained as a minister of God’s word.
Roberto’s teaching and preaching of the word of God as sufficient for all of life was bolstered through his significant providential encounter with the pioneer of the modern biblical counseling movement, Jay E. Adams (1929-2020). To Roberto’s knowledge, there was only one resource on biblical counseling by Jay Adams available in Brazil at the time of his graduation from seminary in 1989. Beginning in the early 1970s, Dr. Adams had re-asserted to the conscience of American Christianity the nouthetic method of counseling, which affirmed the Bible as the primary and sufficient source for addressing people’s counseling issues.
In an effort to encourage a return to biblical counseling beyond the borders of the United States, Dr. Adams held a biblical counseling conference in 1989, specifically geared toward Brazilian pastors. At this conference, Roberto had his first exposure to biblical counseling, and he had the opportunity to meet Dr. Adams in person. This personal encounter was monumental for Roberto because Dr. Adams reinforced the indispensable value of understanding the word of God as the authoritative and sufficient solution to the inherent problem of man.
From the early years of his ministry, biblical counseling became the driving vigor for Roberto’s ministry to God’s people. He is convinced that the words the Holy Spirit spoke through Apostle Paul to Timothy are trustworthy and worthy of acceptance for the world today, namely that “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17 ESV). The psalmist also bears witness that “the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” (Psalm 19:7-9 ESV). These Spirit-inspired truths in the Bible, and their like, critically formed Roberto’s philosophy of the authority and sufficiency of the Word of God for Christian ministry in a highly psychologized society, such as is Brazil.
Although biblical Christianity had been present in Brazil for over a century, Roberto is resolute that the gospel must be daily emphasized to Brazilian pastors. He noted that Western psychology has heavily influenced Brazilian society, and that humanist psychoanalysts pose a major threat to people embracing biblical Christianity in Brazil. Over the years, Roberto has observed that while Brazilian pastors have believed that the Bible is truly the Word of God, many do not believe in the sufficiency of the Bible to cure man’s problems. Roberto noticed a dichotomized worldview among Brazilian pastors. He shared that “Brazilian pastors think that the Bible attends to the spirit of the people while psychology attends to the soul. They do not believe in the unity of the spirit and the soul as needing the Scriptures for flourishing.” What is the solution to this misconstrued worldview? For Roberto, Brazilian pastors and local churches urgently needed to be trained and equipped to know how to think biblically about human nature.
Roberto strongly believes in the power of the word of God to transform lives, and the Lord has been faithful to His word. Roberto briefly shared a testimony of a professing Christian man who was struggling with depression and contemplating suicide. He noted that this man was overwhelmed with the reality of being a failure in every aspect of his life and was realizing his lostness before God. Through counseling him biblically, Roberto helped the man to realize that all he had conjured up as his problems were not actually the problem. Roberto walked him through Genesis 2 and 3 and helped him understand that the perpetual inclination of his heart was away from God, his Creator, and that is the source of his problem. By God’s grace, the man accepted his inherent condition, willingly sought the Lord in repentance, and diligently began to search God’s Word to know God and God’s will for his life. Roberto was able to walk alongside him and point him to the implications of his new identity as the word of God revealed for every area of his life, including those he had thought were the major problems. To the glory of God, the Lord began the work of transformation in his life, including hope for the future. This is one example of the many hearts the Lord has transformed through the pure, undiluted teaching about God’s will for mankind as revealed in the Bible.
Furthermore, Roberto affirmed and taught biblical counseling at his church, Evangelical Christian Church of the West Sector. Dennis Pires, another OIC Brazilian coordinator, is a fruit of Roberto’s ministry at this local church. Dennis aided Roberto in much ministry work, including organizing a biblical counseling conference, with approximately 250 pastors in attendance, in an underprivileged and marginalized area of Piaoui, Brazil.
Roberto’s passion for biblical counseling within the local church moved him to organize several other biblical counseling conferences at his local church. At one of these biblical counseling events, Andrew Rogers, the incumbent executive director of OIC, was invited to speak. A graceful friendship began between Roberto and Andrew, which later led to Roberto’s partnership with OIC.
Andrew had extended the invitation to him because he knows Roberto’s heart longs to train pastors in biblical counseling. Roberto is passionate about training pastors in biblical counseling and making biblical counseling resources readily available for not only southern Brazilians, but also central and northern Brazilians. This passion has already been aided through Roberto’s partnership with the OIC family. OIC’s ministry help make materials, for training and equipping Brazilian pastors and local churches, readily available. Roberto, alongside Dennis, is currently going through the first Module of OIC’s four-module training program, the Church Leadership Training Program (CLT), with pastors across Brazil.
Roberto shared his enthusiasm about OIC’s ministry vision: “to train trainers in biblical counseling.” Therefore, as one of OIC’s coordinators in Brazil, his mission is to contact and encourage pastors in various churches to go through the CLT modular training that OIC provides. The goal is that those who have completed the four modules are equipped and ready to go through those courses with their own congregations. Roberto is convinced that training pastors and leaders, who will be faithful to the Lord in teaching their congregations the supreme authority and sufficiency of God’s word as the cure to the human problem, is potent for the abrogation of the schemes and power of psychology and psychoanalysis in Brazilian society.
Roberto believes there is a burden to take good care of the local church. In order to be faithful, pastors are to teach members how biblical counseling works practically in their lives. This is why Roberto is convinced that OIC’s ministry in Brazil is invaluable. Therefore, he and his wife, Cláudia, are enthusiastically trusting the Lord for what He will do through their partnership with OIC to propagate the training and equipping of God’s people to know how to faithfully live in this fallen world.
However, resources are needed, so Roberto and the OIC family in Brazil are praying that the Lord will continue to lay it on his people’s hearts to commit to support them through incessant prayers for the salvation and heart transformation of many perishing souls. They would also encourage believers to prayerfully consider becoming a financial partner to help make resources and training readily available for this cause. If you are interested in praying for and/or providing a financial gift, whether one time or ongoing, to support OIC and the Amorims’ work in Brazil, please visit OIC’s website at the provided links above.
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