Forward in Faith | Winter 2025
In 2024, Pastor Juarez Malta from Brazil visited Perimeter and shared his testimony to encourage our church to “Keep Going” because God is using life-on-life discipleship to change lives.
In 2017, Pastor Juarez Malta hit a breaking point. Exhausted and emotionally drained, he had decided to leave ministry, even finding a replacement to take his place in the large Brazilian church he helped pastor. The weight of ministry had taken a toll, especially as he struggled with a performance-oriented mindset that shaped his work.
At that time, a friend took Juarez to a life-on-life discipleship workshop in Brazil, co-led by Perimeter. God used that moment to profoundly change his life.
Before becoming a pastor, Juarez had a career in sales, and that performance-driven mentality had seeped into his ministry. During the workshop, he realized he’d been working for Jesus, trying to earn His approval. Striving in his own power, Juarez had lost sight of the joy of serving as a son of God, already fully loved and accepted.
Life-on-life discipleship helped Juarez reclaim his calling, not by changing what he did, but by changing how he did it. He learned to stop measuring his worth by his accomplishments and began to focus on love —for Jesus and for people. He was overflowing with passion and love for Jesus. This transformation changed his ministry to his family, his church, and his community completely.
In 2018, Juarez’s father was dying, and he felt the Lord had been preparing him for this suffering through his discipleship material. In his father’s final moments, Juarez preached the gospel to his father in the hospital room repeating the three simple, yet powerful phrases he’d memorized through discipleship: “We lost it all. Jesus did it all. And we get it all.”
Juarez’s father came to Christ! But unexpectedly, so did his brother, who had been in the room listening. That day, his brother gave his life to Jesus, and today he is a baptized member of Juarez’s church, serving the Lord.
Juarez wanted to share his story to encourage our church to: “Not give up—keep going.” The Lord is using life-on-life discipleship to transform lives and ignite hearts with a passion for Jesus and people.
“Our ministry is not a place for perfect people, but for those with a thirsty heart for constant transformation through the gospel and the example of Jesus.”
