Scale, Mobility, and Belonging in the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God

This article interrogates dominant narratives surrounding Pentecostalism in Brazil that have often prioritized large-scale, media-saturated religious infrastructures—especially megachurches—by foregrounding the everyday practices and small local temples of one of Brazil’s most influential churches, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG). Drawing on multisited ethnographic research at different temples of this church in Brazil and Canada, my analysis treats scale and mobility as central to a nuanced understanding of religious belonging. Rather than focusing solely on formal membership or institutional expansion, I explore how diverse forms of participation, ranging from long-term congregants and pastoral leaders to episodic visitors and media audiences, constitute the UCKG as a dynamic, layered religious assemblage. This approach reveals how Pentecostal attachments are produced through situated practices of circulation and belonging, offering an ethnographically grounded account of religious life in contemporary Brazil.