News, May 2005

News from the Churches

FestiMadrid Demonstration

Demonstration wins results: FestiMadrid, the Luís Palau outreach June 24th and 25th is supported by many of the region's churches. A major christian music festival, it will bring together some of the Spanish-speaking world's top performers, while Luís Palau speaks from time to time from the stage. The event will happen on the esplanade outside the Las Ventas bull ring, a key location, with good visibility and accessibility, although not as central as the organisers would have liked. A 600 person demonstration outside the city hall had to be arranged -on 9th May- to achieve an answer to the evangelical petition for a high profile location for the celebration.

NVI published in Spanish Spanish at last! After several years of success in Latin America, the International Bible Society has just published a version in Spanish Spanish of this translation based on the theological and linguistic studies made for the English language NIV. As with English, there are significant lingüistic differences on each side of the Atlantic!

Spanish evangelical reactions to the election of Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI are arriving. According to Protestante Digital, "representatives of the Spanish Evangelical Alliance have said that the appointment of Benedict XVI is an “obstacle” to any real understanding between Catholics and Protestants, given his theological background and thought." (PD 6 May) It also asks: 'What will the new Pope do about worldwide Protestant growth?' Meanwhile, Spain's top weekly news roundup, Informe Semanal on TVE also commented -more as an epitaph to John Paul- that Benedict needs to be aware of the 14 million Latins who deserted the Catholic Church for evangelicalism during the last Papacy. Yet in Spain it hardly looks likely at present that Spaniards will follow the direction of the Latin millions in the immediate future.

Madrid's evangelicals mourn - but not for the Pope! Doña Elfriede Fliedner was the last of a family line dating back to the first missionaries in the late 19th Century who made a significant impact on Spain through church planting and, in particular, the establishment of the El Porvenir (the Future), an evangelical school in central Madrid. Many of the country's evangelical leaders were educated here at a time when all other evangelical schools had been closed down by the Franco dictatorship. El Porvenir survived due to it's being owned by a German family.
Doña Elfriede died on 1st April, aged 92. On Saturday, 2nd over 400 attended the memorial service held at El Porvenir.
El Porvenir continues to provide an evangelical education to this day and the Fliedner Foundation also has a second school in the eastern districts of Madrid, as well as a book shop. The shop also publishes an annual Vademecum which for over 100 years has been listing the addresses of all the churches and other evangelical organisations, shops, etc., in Spain.

500 young people meet to pray Over 500 young people met in Barcelona on 2nd April for the 3rd interdenominational prayer meeting, organised by Venga Tu Reino (Thy Kingdom Come) and the Evangelical Alliance. Leaders of 4 churches prayed for the young generation: one Pentecostal, one Brethren, one Baptist and one Methodist. Prayer for unity and other petitions followed.

Mission for the 3rd Millennium This congress took place from 4th to 7th May in Madrid. George Verwer and Samuel Escobar were among the keynote speakers.Update when available.

Buenas Noticias TV, the weekly evangelical programme on the national station TVE, has now double the air time, with 15 minutes each week. In addition, from March it is now aired in Spain at the later time of 9.00 on TVE2, a welcome change for Spaniards who like to lie in on Sunday mornings! It can also be seen on the international satellite channel TVE Internacional on Sundays at 06.30 GMT in Europe, Africa and Asia and 10.10 GMT in the Americas. More info at http://www.rtve.es/tve/programo/index.html Note that the timing on the programme is Madrid time (GMT +1), final programme, still subject to change, published 24 hours ahead.

Sources El Mundo, TVE, EP, ProtestanteDigital, Ferede