By 1930, the Assemblies of God in Brazil had transferred national leadership from foreign missionaries to Brazilians. This shift supported faster church planting by local pastors and helped Pentecostalism become rooted in Brazilian society rather than remaining a foreign-led mission.
During the 1930s, a leadership dispute in Chile’s Methodist Pentecostal Church contributed to a major schism and the formation of what became the Evangelical Pentecostal Church. These organizational changes mattered because they shaped how Pentecostal churches trained leaders, governed congregations, and expanded across the country in the decades that followed.
In 1951, the Church of the Foursquare Gospel became one of the prominent “second wave” Pentecostal movements in Brazil. Its emphasis on evangelism, healing, and organized campaigns helped accelerate Pentecostal expansion in large cities and new neighborhoods.
Brazil for Christ formed in the mid-1950s under Manoel de Mello, who used radio and mass outreach to spread Pentecostal preaching. This showed how Brazilian-led Pentecostal evangelism could use modern media to reach audiences beyond traditional church settings.
In 1962, Billy Graham conducted major evangelistic crusades across South America, including Peru and other countries. These events helped raise the public profile of Protestants and encouraged cooperation across denominations, which supported later networks for missions and mass evangelism.
On June 3, 1962, David Miranda founded the God Is Love Pentecostal Church in São Paulo. The denomination became known for strong emphasis on healing and strict lifestyle expectations, and it expanded quickly through urban areas and into other countries over time.
From November 21–30, 1969, hundreds of delegates attended CLADE I in Bogotá, sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. The congress strengthened cross-border evangelical relationships and highlighted tensions about whether Latin American evangelism should follow North American models or develop its own leadership and priorities.
In 1970, Latin American evangelical leaders met near Cochabamba, Bolivia, to form the Fraternidad Teológica Latinoamericana (FTL). This marked a step toward Latin American-led evangelical and Pentecostal engagement with theology and mission strategy, including debates about social responsibility alongside evangelism.
Between 1971 and 1973, Catholic Charismatic Renewal groups expanded into many Latin American countries, including Mexico, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. This mattered for the wider Pentecostal landscape because charismatic worship styles and “baptism in the Spirit” language began influencing Catholics as well as Protestants, reshaping competition and cooperation.
From July 16–25, 1974, the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization gathered thousands of leaders and produced the Lausanne Covenant. Latin American voices were prominent in challenging narrow mission models and arguing that evangelism and social action should not be separated, influencing missionary priorities across denominations.
In October 1974, Billy Graham held a five-day crusade in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, culminating in a very large gathering at Maracanã Stadium. The event demonstrated how Latin American churches could mobilize city-wide cooperation and mass evangelism, reinforcing Pentecostal and evangelical momentum in Brazil’s urban centers.
In 1975, Chile established an annual evangelical thanksgiving service (often called the “Te Deum evangélico”) attended by national authorities. The ceremony signaled the growing public visibility of evangelicals—many from Pentecostal traditions—and showed that Pentecostalism had become a significant cultural and political presence.
On February 4, 1976, a major earthquake devastated Guatemala, killing tens of thousands and leaving many homeless. In the aftermath, evangelical and Pentecostal relief efforts expanded alongside international missionary support, helping strengthen church networks that later grew rapidly during the country’s years of conflict.
By 1970, Pentecostals and charismatics were still a small share of Latin America’s population, but growth accelerated strongly through the 1970s. By 1980, many countries had sizable Pentecostal communities and increasingly “pentecostalized” Protestant populations, setting the stage for the much larger surge seen in later decades.
Pentecostal missionary expansion in Latin America (1930–1980)