Perhaps surprisingly, the Igreja Contemporânea began with a prophecy. In 1998, Pastor Marcos Gladstone received two prophecies that he would receive a revelation about his life in the United States. This revelation occurred in San Francisco in 1999. Jesus revealed to him that his sexual orientation was unchangeable.
Upon returning to Brazil, he ended his engagement. He distanced himself from the church because it did not accept homosexuals. Still he longed for a place of worship accepting him as he was.
In 2002, a pastor friend told him about an American denomination welcoming gay people. The following year was marked by family pain. His grandmother passed. His mother developed a serious spinal condition. After treatments failed, his mother visited a pastor with a healing ministry. She was told she would be healed without surgery. The same Jesus healing her had called her son to a ministry. This ministry would change the lives of people cast out of God’s kingdom.
In 2003, his mother was miraculously healed. Marcos Gladstone became an interim pastor. From a meeting with three people on Ipanema beach, they opened a temple of that American church in Brazil in 2004. One month before the opening, he was told that this was not his true ministry. Soon he would separate from the American ministry.
In 2005, Pastor Gladstone officially left the North American ministry. In 2006, the Igreja Cristã Contemporânea was born. It started with 20 people. They gathered on the third floor of a building in Lapa. They could not imagine what this would become.
The Igreja Contemporânea stands for the unconditional love of God. It welcomes people excluded and hurting. It opposes an oppressive religious system. This system is often intolerant of minorities. The Holy Spirit raised the Igreja Cristã Contemporânea as an answer to centuries of prejudice.
The church’s foundation lies in love. Pastor Marcos Gladstone and Pastor Fábio Inácio built it together. Fábio Inácio had been a pastor at the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. He left because of his homosexuality. The Igreja Cristã Contemporânea was founded on September 10, 2006. Two days earlier, this great love began.
Classified as Neopentecostal, the Igreja Contemporânea follows an Episcopal regime. Its vision is to be a prophetic ministry. It is inspired by the Word of God. It aims to raise a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. They are God’s special possession. They proclaim the virtues of the One who called them out of darkness into marvelous light. This is a people who once were not a people but now are the people of God. They had not received mercy, but now have received mercy. The Igreja Contemporânea brings healing, love and God’s Word. It welcomes those without spiritual shelter. Here at the Igreja Contemporânea, you are accepted without prejudice.