News, January-February 2011

News from the Churches

Protestante Digital renewed - English service temporarily unavailable! MariLuz murder trial under way. 8000m2 awarded to evangelical foundation for school near Seville. Lleida city council closes 5 churches and opens case studies on 3 more; MyHope - TV campaign through home groups launched for Christmas 2011 splash. Betel association and Madrid City Mission celebrate 25th anniversaries. Micah Challenge comes to Spain. This and more... Read on!

Now on or coming soon!

The trial of Santiago del Valle, accused of the murder of MariLuz Cortés, daughter of an evangelical pastor, began on 16th February. The little girl (3 years old) went missing from her home in Huelva, Andalusia in January, 2008. Her body was discovered several weeks later thrown into the harbour close by. More information is the separate article.
An evangelical master chocolatier has become Spain's chocolate champion and will now represent Spain in the world championship in Paris. He is famous in the Madrid area for having built a 20 metre long Crib scene in his church, the Boadilla del Monte Evangelical Church, as well as having made Prince Felipe's commemorative wedding cake.
Protestante Digital, the Spanish evangelical news service, led by the Spanish Evangelical Alliance, has updated itself. It has taken some 18 months to reach the definitive launch date on 31st January, 2011. The English language service remains to be reconnected at the time of writing, but we look forward to the positive effects of the transformation. We congratulate them on the amazing growth and effectiveness of the service, approximately over the same period as PrayforSpain has been in existence.
An evangelical foundation has been awarded a grant of 8,000 square metres of ground to build a school in Dos Hermanas, near Seville. It will become the first evangelical school in Andalusia since the Civil War and will offer infant, primary and secondary education. The competition for the new school was won due to the proposal to make this a centre for educational research. More from Protestante Digital (Spanish).
The city council of Lleida (Catalonia) has closed 5 churches and opened studies on 3 more in the weeks before the regional elections. Meanwhile, a Catholic church which has been denounced repeatedly for excessive bell tolling has no such study. The reason given is that the churches appear to have no opening licence, as though they were discotheques or pubs. The need for a licence is arbitrary, depending on each town hall, but recently the Catalonian Parlament published regulations for the entire region. With elections at regional level, it is doubtful if the churches can obtain even a start to justice until well after Christmas. The church buildings all belong to pentecostal groups, including Assemblies of God, the Gypsy Filadelfia church and two Nigerian churches. They are all located, as is customary in Spain, in premises on the ground floor of blocks of flats, it being virtually impossible to buy land suitable for the building of a church, even if one had the money. In theory, the city councils should provide land for the churches to build on.
Mi Esperanza (My Hope), a TV campaign, will take place at Christmas 2011. It was launched in mid-November 2010. 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 many local churches, as well as backed with a major contribution from the Billy Graham Association. See the Spanish website!

Recent news and events

Once again an Evangelical service was televised over Christmas.
The Disney version of C.S. Lewis's The Journey of the Dawn Treader was released in Spain on Friday 3rd December. In this case, it was given a special launch by the Catholic Bishops' Conference, in a similar way to the recently launched documentary Blood Money. Although there are special materials published to help evangelical churches in the States and elsewhere to take advantage of the film, these have been appropriated by the Catholics in Spain! May the Gospel message get through loud and clear.

Earlier news in bullets:

On 9th December the former directors of Barcelona's Evangelical Hospital and Madrid's City Mission, Armand Urrutia and Juan Simarro, were awarded the second Diakonia prize for evangelical social work.

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 may be some interruption to the service. You can also listen to some reports and comment.

Latest on Protestante Digital: (21st January)

Government alleges “lack of consensus” as reason for postponing Religious Freedom law change
Third Narnia film promoted in Spain through Catholic hierarchy, not Evangelical Alliance