Heading towards to the old continent: Building transnational networks of interaction between Brazilian and Sweddish Pentecostal leaders

It has been some years that the brazilian Pentecostal process of transnationalization towards Europe and other countries it’s not been considered as a new fact and understanding for some researches in the anthropological religious field. Recent studies have shown the existence of what it’s been called as “inverted mission”. Brazilian religious leaders are taken their way back to Europe, when, before, there used to be a religious flow from Europe to America. Therefore, this is a two way interaction that involves a transnational movement of the Brazilian Pentecostals ministries leaders from Brazil to Europe, from Europe to Brazil, as well as to other countries, creating the perfect environment to build networks between Pentecostals churches around the world This article seeks to analyze the relationship, the bonds built specially between Word of Life Church in Uppsala, Sweden, and Encontros de Fé in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Such relationship contributed to bring to Porto Alegre the Word of Life Bible School which was founded 27 years ago by Ulf Ekman, the president of Word of Life Church, to be installed at Encontros de Fé church. Some of the results collected in field researche shows that the aim of this partnership regards on the goal of raising social capital and, also, form new leaders for church’s own needs and growth.