News, November 2011

News from the Churches

11th November - 11 hours of evangelism in Puerta del Sol, Day of Prayer for Mi Esperanza. 5th November - mass demonstration in Barcelona on eve of new church closure. 2nd November - Operation World day to pray for Spain. Nationwide demonstrations taking place around 31st October. John MacArthur visits León. Hundreds converted at remand centre. New book from Carlos Martínez. TWR signs agreement with Canal de Vida. My Hope TV outreach hot in preparation.

11th November was a busy day again for evangelicals around Spain. OnTheRedBox in central Madrid held a day of open air evangelism in the Puerta del Sol to celebrate the 11/11/11, starting their open airs at 11.00. Meanwhile, across Spain many believers spent the day in prayer -and celebration- for the coming My Hope TV outreach (cf separate entry). Join us in prayer!Thanks for praying.

2nd November is Operation World's day to pray for Spain. Every day of the year this prayer book brings to us a different country - or region. More information is vaibale here!

On 31st October, the FEREDE (Federation of Spanish Evangelical Churches) has called all its member churches to join demonstrations to call attention to the ever poorer state of religious freedom in the country. Churches (and other buildings of religious minority groups) are being closed at the whim of municipal authorities, especially in Madrid and Catalonia. A new project before the Catalan Parlament is to rewrite its regional law on religious liberty, giving local city councils the last word on how and where religious groups can meet. This fundamental right, upheld in theory by the 1988 Constitution, is now seen to be severely under threat.
Catalan pastors already demonstrated in early October, but a mass demonstration of the membership is planned for Saturday, 5th November. In reminiscence of the British 'gunpowder plot' of 1605, they hope to put a virtual bomb under the seats of politicians in the run-up to the 20th November elections.
On 20th October evangelical representatives met with Madrid's deputy mayor Ana Botella (wife of former president Aznar) and held a very fruitful meeting, which involved discussion of the problems the churches are having with the city council over buildings. They outlined a future procedure for resolution of the difficulties.
The churches of the Balearic Islands placed a half page twice in the region's leading newspaper, Diario de Mallorca, to get the situation into the public eye. On the 30th the notice was placed below a report on Mallorca against Barça, a sure favourite of many readers!
Churches in Aragon gathered in Zaragoza's Plaza del Pilar on the 31st to join the protest.
On the eve of November 5th's demonstration against church closures, the Barcelona City Hall has given one church 48 hours' notice to stop all activities. Apparently a neighbour has complained about noise and in addition the building has no licence, despite having existed legally since 1985, well before the current law (2009, with 5 years for churches to adapt). It is not exactly a noisy pentecostal church, either, but a Brethren Assembly. Once again, the authorities have overstepped their brief and by attacking a conservative church they will certainly have stirred up those who might not have demonstrated this day, thinking the closures only affect new, noisy upstarts. <http://actualidadevangelica.es/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3320:ultima-hora-el-ayuntamiento-de-barcelona-da-48-horas-a-una-iglesia-evangelica-para-que-cese-su-actividad&catid=46:actualidad|More here (in Spanish)>

John MacArthur has visited Spain for the first time. On 1st October he gave several conferences in the Auditorium in León (north west Spain). Brethren leader Manuel Corral is responsible for the invitation, which also included a Gospel concert with Jubilant Sykes. Reports say over 1,000 attended the conferences.

The Gideons report that some 70 prisoners are coming to the Lord each month at a remand centre north of Madrid. Several hundred are now doing a correspondence course of follow-up and about 80 were expected to be baptised in the summer at a special pool-side service. They also report that the entire length of the main Pilgrims' Road to Santiago has now been covered, with Bibles being offered to 240 hostels. Next year they will start on the north coast route through the Basque Country and Asturias.

For over 20 years TWR has worked in Spain through MECOVAN, a broadcaster linked to the Brethren. Now, at MECOVAN's suggestion, it has signed a new deal with the broadcaster Canal de Vida, linked to the Spanish Churches' Federation FEREDE. In particular, Radio Encuentro, which has struggled for years to obtain licences to broadcast from within Spain - although it has a strong presence through Internet- will now be able to use TWR's transmitters to reach a wider audience. The deal was signed on 19th September and will be put into practice when the current MECOVAN series of programmes comes to an end in 2013.

Now on or coming soon!

On 31st October, the FEREDE (Federation of Spanish Evangelical Churches) has called all its member churches to join demonstrations to call attention to the ever poorer state of religious freedom in the country. Churches (and other buildings of religious minority groups) are being closed at the whim of municipal authorities, especially in Madrid and Catalonia. A new project before the Catalan Parlament is to rewrite its regional law on religious liberty, giving local city councils the last word on how and where religious groups can meet. This fundamental right, upheld in theory by the 1988 Constitution, is now seen to be severely under threat.
Catalan pastors already demonstrated in early October, but a mass demonstration of the membership is planned for Saturday, 5th November. In reminiscence of the British 'gunpowder plot' of 1605, they hope to put a virtual bomb under the seats of politicians in the run-up to the 20th November elections.
On 20th October evangelical representatives met with Madrid's deputy mayor Ana Botella (wife of former president Aznar) and held a very fruitful meeting, which involved discussion of the problems the churches are having with the city council over buildings. They outlined a future procedure for resolution of the difficulties.

Mi Esperanza (My Hope), a TV campaign, will take place at Christmas 2011. The campaign aims to unite the best of mass and personal evangelism, by training church members to invite neighbours, family and other contacts to their home to watch the 30 minute TV show together. They will then give a 3 minute testimony and invite people to turn to Christ. In this simple way, local churches can take advantage of a nationwide broadcast on a main stream channel to reach out at a time of year when people are most open to the gospel. This outreach is being supported by most of the largest denominations and a total of some 1,400 local churches, as well as backed with a major contribution from the Billy Graham Association.
After lengthy negotiations with several national broadcasters, only Intereconomía has agreed to air the programmes, which will go out on the evenings of 15th to 17th December. Other better loved channels refused to take the programmes due to a fear of loss of advertising revenue, among other issues. In any case, 15,000 DVDs have also been prepared for the 'Matthew Homes' where the programme will be seen by guests of the owners, so nothing less than a power cut will stop the airing! Pray that people will not be put off by the poor reputation that the Intereconomía channel has among the general public. A business and finance channel, it is considered excessively right wing or outright fascist. See the Spanish website!

Other news and events

The English language service of Protestante Digital has been closed during the relaunch of this news service of the Spanish Evangelical Alliance in Spanish. PD's director has assured us that a completely new service will be launched very soon to replace the one which we knew until January. The Catalan language service will take a bit longer, possibly being relaunched some time in the autumn.

Earlier news in bullets:

• Summer outreach activities have taken place again in numerous cities and smaller places across Spain. Here is a resumé of news we received:
  *Pocket Testament league held its annual activities in Aragon, in the city of Zaragoza, in early August. Hundreds of children attended with their parents and grandparents.
  Lugones Amiga reached out to the town of Lugones, Asturias.
  A novel experience is the Gospel Commandos, a choir of 25 voices, singing in the open air in the town of Almansa. An older choral outreach is Coral Mensaje (Message Choir), a joint Spanish-Swiss group.
• The Barcelona Evangelical Hospital has been granted a new plot of land in a deal with the city and regional health authority.
• On 5th July, the government launched its Religious Observatory web site. In addition to listing all registered religious communities (i.e churches, mosques...), it suggests guidelines for local authorities and other such bodies on how to cope with religious groups.

For earlier news from the churches, click here!

Finally, more news from the churches is (usually) always available at the Protestante Digital site.

As of 1st February, the transformation of the PD web means there has been some interruption to the service. You can also listen to some reports and comment.