News, April 2008

News from the Churches

23rd April is Cervantes' official birthday (see separate article) and Day of the Book. It is traditional for people everywhere to buy a book today, but especially in Barcelona, which is also celebrating St. George's Day. The ABBA evangelical bookshop in Barcelona is taking advantage to invite a number of well-known authors from across Spain to sign copies of their books. Most of the authors are from Catalonia, but reformed theologian and writer José de Segovia is among those visiting from elsewhere. Have you recently bought a book on the evangelical reality in Spain? Wesley Owen has a number of (not completely satisfactory) suggestions if you search on Spain or Spanish.

At last it's Monday! is the title of a book published by the Spanish Evangelical Alliance. No, it's not a book for pastors... but for those who should love their regular Monday to Friday work activities. It is based on the English book written by Mark Greene of the LICC.

Community Care, the UK Social Services magazine has published a report on how the Evangelical Church in Montilla, Andalusia, is getting involved in helping to integrate immigrants, many of whom are evangelicals.

Marcos Witt, Mexican pastor and signer and winner of 3 Latin Grammys is the star at the 'Mass Gathering of Young people' to be held in June at the covered Bull Ring in Leganés, south of Madrid. There will be 12 hours of evangelical pop, dance, testimonies and preaching.

BILBAO, April 10, 2008 (D.Vasco / ACPress.net) A British pastor from Northern Ireland, Rev. Harold Good, who was an independent witness to the laying-down of arms by the IRA, was invited to a meeting of Lokarri, a citizens´ network for peace in the Basque Provinces. Good spoke about the peace process in Northern Ireland, to which many people in Spain look for lessons that might be applied to the situation with ETA in the Basque country.

31st March. Santiago del Valle has now been arrested in the Mari Luz case. The body of MariLuz Cortés has been found floating in the Rio Tinto estuary docks in Huelva, close to where she was kidnapped on 13th January. Mari Luz Cortés, 5 year old daughter of a gypsy pastor in Huelva, went missing on Sunday, 13th January. On the news of the discovery of the body it appears that del Valle went on the run. But he should have never been free to do so, since a court order for him to go to prison had for inexplainable reasons been unenforced. Now the justice ministry is attempting to deal with the cause of the problem and put things right.
The gypsy Filadelfia church is Spain's largest evangelical denomination. Juan José Cortés, MariLuz's father is holding up a good testimony, despite the circumstances and media coverage. A memorial service at the local gypsy church was covered on national news channels.

[Image 70???]On 1st March 'Spain prays for Spain' held a united national prayer meeting on the concourse in front of Madrid's Santaigo Bernabeu stadium, home of Real Madrid football club. Almost 5000 attended, with others viewing live by internet and TBN-enlace TV. This was the third stage of three monthly events, first city-wide, then regional and now national. [Image 71???]As the photos show, several thousand believers from across Spain joined the rally -with more by TBN tv and internet- and prayed for the country at the mid-point of the general election campaign. Spain Prays for Spain called the event, which was coordinated by the Madrid Evangelical Council.

Items from earlier news with current/future implications:

On 8th March, a united churches' meeting will galvanise local support in Zaragoza for the efforts to set up the Agua Viva pavillion at the International Water Expo, being held this summer. This project is still in need of finance and volunteers, although a number of evangelical organisations have committed themselves to supporting the event and the 5 neighbourhood campaigns which will carry on across Zaragoza over the summer.
6 million are expected to visit the Expo, including 4.5 million Spaniards. Volunteers are now being sought to join the pavillion team.

The Catalan Generalitat has announced it plans to regulate 'places of worship'. Although political and religious groups will now need to debate and fine tune the proposals -or throw them out, it is intended to provide guidelines on what kind of building can be used as a place of worship and to limit the powers of town halls to set their own standards. One of the problems is that evangelicals and muslims have found it very difficult to find suitable buildings at reasonable prices in many places and end up renting shop front 'locals' which are often barely suitable. Questions remain over the effect of the law on medieval buildings and whether the town halls are willing to cede authority to the regional government in the issue.

For earlier news from the churches, click here!
For other news from the churches we remind you that Protestante Digital always has a selection of interesting news and opinion articles. (Titles are also published in our 'More News' section.)