News, October, 2006

News from the Churches

The Valdepeñas Evangelical Church has placed the foundation stone for a new building 90 years on. Radio Sevilla has just signed up for a family life based weekly programme. The Continentals are on tour. Tax changes for Catholics could also benefit evangelicals. Evangelical organisations celebrate anniversaries. A prostestant woman pastor is Bible teacher at a Catholic university! Read on!

On 7th October, the church in Valdepeñas laid the foundation stone for a new building, 90 years after it was first founded by the Spanish Gospel Mission. Incredible, but true: the local authorities are providing the ground and paying the architect, in recognition of the importance of the church in the town. Many evangelical leaders across Spain grew up in this church.

Concert time! The Continentals are on tour in Spain, giving 7 concerts across the peninsula between 28th October and 3rd November. Then, on 19th November, the Madrid Gospel Choir is giving a concert in aid of the Evangelical social service organisation Diakonia, with guest singer Bob Bailey, once grammy nominee and collaborator with Ray Charles, Nat Cole, BB King....

Radio Seville has an evangelical programme! As from 10/10 at 10 p.m., Juan Varela of Campus Crusade's Family Life Andalucía office will direct a weekly one hour programme with music, chat and messages of hope for the family. At 10 p.m., this is hardly prime radio time, but much better than most stations are willing to offer. Radio Seville is one of the city's most popular stations.
This opening comes just weeks after the state owned Radio Nacional started weekly programmes for evangelicals, jews and muslims at around 6.00 a.m. on Sundays. The evangelical slot, of just 15 minutes, is called Protestant World. TVE recently ran a news item on how wonderful it is that the Catholic Church has stations all over the world. but so far the state has allowed no evangelical broadcaster air space.

Good News for evangelical TV! The program Buenas Noticias TV, which goes out on Sundays on state TV channel TVE (and on TVE Internacional by satellite), has just announced it is recruiting an assistant editor. After the recent addition of a weekly radio program to the state network this is good news indeed, although the evangelicals would still like permission to run their own station. Pray for the right person to apply and be chosen!

El Mundo reports new State financing model for the Catholic church. The government says it is also in discussions with Evangelicals and other recognised religious groups over adoption of the same model. The idea is for tax payers to select which religious body to give 0.7% of their tax bill. While the Catholic church is one organisation, almost each evangelical church is independent, thus complicating maters, but government will now discuss options with the representative body FEREDE. On the other hand, many evangelicals don't want to be 'on the record', after having experienced not just discrimination, but also physical persecution in their lifetime. Until 1967 only Roman catholicism was permitted as the religion of the Spaniards.

Anniversary Time! The evangelical churches' federation, FEREDE, is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the formation of its forerunner the Commission for the Defence of the Evangelical Churches, back in times of religious intolerance during the Franco regime. And the Catalan churches' council is also celebrating, this time 25 years of existence. During these years the two organisations of churches have achieved much for their member churches in terms of recognition. Not all agreements with the authorities have been quite to the liking of all, but almost noone would have us return to the times of persecution and intolerance which live on in the memory of older church members.

5000 were reached by the puppets of Titriteros para Cristo in Ciudad Real during early August. Decision's outreach photos are also on line. Other outreaches are also posting reports.

New regulations for prison visiting have been accepted by the different faith groups, including the Evangelical Federation, FEREDE. While this streamlines and facilitates screening for pastors, volunteers -some of whom have been visiting for years- are left frustrated at the prison gates. These include many from the well-established MEP (Ministerio Evangélico en Prisiones).
To stress the importance of this prison visiting ministry, we rejoice at the news that on 21st July 22 inmates were baptised at Huelva prison, close to Seville. Church members were allowed to join the pastors and inmates at the prison's pool side for the ceremony.

Autumn is conference time! A number of significant conferences are taking place this autumn. Perhaps the most significant, internationally, is one for Latin Americans working in or interested in missions, organised by COMIBAM in Granada in mid-November.
December 6th and 8th are holidays and a time for major national conferences. This year the main one is the 1st Protestant Congress of Andalusia, in Seville.
More on the calendar of events.

A prostestant woman pastor has just taken up a post as teacher of Biblical Theology and the Anthopology of Judaism at Deusto University in Bilbao. Dr Lidia Rodríguez is from Valencia. This is one of Spain's leading Roman Catholic universities and it is the first time since the heady years of the reformation that a follower of Luther's teachings has been found in such a position. The previous ones were all burnt at the stake or in effigy after a timely escape to northern Europe!

A number of articles have appeared in September in the press reflecting the reality that are the evangelicals in Spain. El País praised the Madrid Gospel Choir as being well worth hearing, while La Vanguardia reported on the only fully registered church in Turkey in 83 years of 'secular rule', led by a Catalan pastor.