News, June 2008

News from the Churches

Zaragoza water Expo started on 14th. The Evangelical pavilion among the attractions - with 20,000 visitors in the first 10 days. Marcos Witt tops cast in Madrid Youth gathering. This and more... Read on!

One of the most important outreaches of the past years is now on in Zaragoza. Coinciding with and very involved in the World Water Expo, the region's churches have a pavilion in the Expo, highlighting evangelical development around the world. In addition, four district outreaches will run for the 3 months of the Expo this summer. At the end of May, evangelist Ken Barrett gave a weekend training seminar for sketchboard preachers. Unfortunately, the practical sessions had to be cancelled due to too much water... rain! Ken and other evangelists will be regular features in Zaragoza this summer.
There is also a 300 voice Gospel choir preparing to perform on 5th July, with composer Richard Smallwood, famous for 'I love the Lord' sung by Whitney Houston in the film 'The Preacher's Wife'.
A fascinating addition to the personnel at the Agua Viva pavilion is Alfonso Cruz, an evangelical from Terrassa, Barcelona, who is one of only two painters who works under water, making paintings of wrecks, reefs and sea life. Videos of him at work will be shown in the pavilion.
During the first ten days, the pavilion saw 20,000 visitors, of whom 15,000 viewed the 'espejismos' video presentation, 3,000 of these leaving contact details asking for more information. Many have also take a John's Gospel, Jesus film video or other material.
6 million are expected to visit the Expo, including 4.5 million Spaniards. Volunteers are now being sought to join the pavillion team. Email address here

Early May. The authorities at the Zaragoza water Expo have approved the design of the Evangelical pavillion, which now needs to be completed in just six weeks! The design was approved late April. Sadly, their web has been redesigned yet again -and not to our liking- with no English available at present. The old English pages are available, but you need to guess the links! Here is a list (info in Spanish) of the supporting NGOs. We remind you this is part of a major outreach making the gospel known across the city throughout the summer.

Marcos Witt, Mexican pastor and singer and winner of 3 Latin Grammys is the star at the 'Mass Gathering of Young people' to be held on 28th June at the covered Bull Ring in Leganés, south of Madrid. There will be 12 hours of evangelical pop, dance, testimonies and preaching.

Prostestante Digital claims the Spanish evangelical churches are growing by 12,000 members a year. From our perspective, it might be truer to reflect that the migration of the past 8 years has certainly brought far greater attendance and even membership to the churches, but whether 2008 sees a continuation of this trend is questionable. It is possible that should the 'home' countries of the new migrants fare better than Spain in the current recession, we will soon be saying farewell to many of these new church members. Perhaps our main need is to channel the enthusiasm for evangelism that these Latins, Eastern Europeans and Africans have to reach such as will not move on so quickly, not to mention enthuse us Western Europeans for the Great Commission!

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.)