News, September 2011

News from the Churches

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.

John MacArthur will be visiting Spain for the first time on 1st October. He will give several conferences in the Auditorium in León (north west Spain). Brethren leader Manuel Corral is responsible for the invitation, which also includes a Gospel concert with Jubilant Sykes.

[Image 109???]In June, 2011 Carlos Martínez, Europe's leading evangelical mime artist, presented his book From the Dressing Room at the press room in Barcelona's opera house, the Liceo and also in RESAD in Madrid. This was followed in September by presentations in Biblao, Gijón and Valladolid. It is available in English, along with videos and other materials, from his web. Carlos will be performing at Mission-Net, the European missions congress, at New Year.

22nd September 1868 saw Spain's first declaration of religious liberty in Seville - the same city which saw the first office of the Spanish Inquisition and now houses the Inquisition Museum in the Saint George Castle. (Thanks for the note to Gabino Fernández.)

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.

Summer outreach activities have taken place again in numerous cities and smaller places across Spain. Pocket Testament league held its annual activities in Aragon, in the city of Zaragoza, in early August. They had also planned a prior outreach in Barbastro (Huesca), but the necessary permissions for their Children's festival were not forthcoming. They hope to persuade the city council to relent in time for next summer. The Zaragoza outreach, meanwhile, saw hundreds of children attend with their parents and grandparents. PTL has also been busy running the annual Evangelical Olympics in several cities, including Malaga, Madrid and A Coruña. The foundational event, held in Barcelona, happens on October 1st. Over 40 years, 250,000 children have heard the gospel during these events.
Lugones Amiga was the name of an outreach in the town of Lugones, Asturias, run by the Federation of Independent Churches, FIEIDE. A first report informs us that 300 children attended the 'Kids' festival', together with lots of parents and grandparents.
A novel experience is the 'Gospel Commandos', a choir of 25 voices, who sing acapella and reached out in plazas and parks in the town of Almansa for several weeks of the summer. An older choral outreach is Coral Mensaje (Message Choir), a joint Spanish-Swiss group, which drew young people from the two nations together to learn new works and perform on and close to beaches in a variety of regions.

The Lleida city council in Catalonia is to turn down works permission for a church which wants to open a new meeting hall. Right wingers are also campaigning against the establishment of the church - It seems to be a particular problem in the city, where several meeting halls have been closed on shaky legal grounds. The new city council restated in September its commitment to controlling the whereabouts and appearance of religious buildings. The government of Catalonia upholds this position, having decided on 13th September to modify the 2009 regional Worship Law regarding the requirements for opening places of worship. It will no longer be a requirement that cities reserve ground specifically for such buildings. However, it may work out better that councils are expected to be more flexible and consider every situation separately according to the real needs.

On 8th July the National Accreditation Agency ANECA gave the go-ahead for accreditation of seminaries linked to the Evangelical Federation FEREDE. This means that Bible Schools such as IBSTE, in Barcelona, founded by GEM, as well as several denominational seminaries, will now be able to grant degrees of university status. The Baptist seminary in Madrid will also offer Masters courses. Only a royal decree is now required for this to become law. The Ministry of Education will be responsible for writing the decree and will subsequently responsible for overseeing the quality of the courses. As usual, evangelicals will debate the convenience of state involvement in an area as sensitive as that of the training of pastors. But the fact is that most in FEREDE have been involved in the decade long process which is now nearing completion.

On Sunday, 3rd July, 76 people were baptised in Mallorca. The baptisms, by immersion in the warm waters of the Mediterranean, were held at two beaches, where members of the island's two largest churches gathered to celebrate. The AoG church now has close to 2,000 members, after 64 more were added into membership though the baptism at a small cove or Cala. In the case of the 140 year old Methodist church, 12 were baptised on the famous El Arenal beach, close to Palma. A few days earlier, 20 braved the chilly waters of the Bay of Biscay, being baptised in San Sebastian. In a country not known for burgeoning internal church growth, each of these figures commands great excitement and respect in the evangelical community.
On 29th June, 2 million viewers on TVE saw a televised baptism of two new believers, a feat in a different sense, as TV stations rarely take notice of the evangelicals except on the rare occasions when they do something 'wrong'!

The Assemblies of God are growing. In addition to the experience of Mallorca, where 64 were baptised on 3rd July, a recent symposium of the federation FADE agreed to set a target of planting 1,000 new churches in the coming decade. The FADE has also recently launched an online news service: Kerigma online.

Evangelical responses to the new bill on the end of life are varying. The socialist government's final piece of social legislation has met with condemnation from the Evangelical Alliance, which the Evangelical Federation (FEREDE) looks more kindly on it. As the government agonises through the end of a legislature with no hope of re-election, it is hopeful to put this final nail in the coffin of divinely inspired laws on the sanctity of life. Over the past 8 years laws have reduced marriage to a 3 month prolongable contract, abortion free on demand up to 14 weeks into a pregnancy and now it hopes to move towards the legalisation of euthanasia. The FEREDE has come out in favour of a law which does not appear to promote active euthanasia and regulates a bit better the complicated business of switching off machines which might otherwise prolong life unnaturally. The Alliance is harder on the law, which appears to do away with the lex artis, a remnant of the hypocratic oath which aimed at ensuring the doctors always ensure the best for the patient.

Now on or coming soon!

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 in June to replace the one which we knew until January. The Catalan language service will take a bit longer, possibly being relaunched some time after the summer.

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!

Other news and events

Another web we have recently come upon, thanks to email contact, is Prayer Sharers, set up by English speaking residents in Andalusia. It brings a weekly prayer update, among other items of interest.

Earlier news in bullets:

• When the 'Indignants' occupied Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square, the daily open air team of Kilómetre Cero faced an unruly crowd. Jacob Bock, leader of KM0, reports that the Lord turned things around, with an immigrant who couldn't wait for the appeal to get saved!
• 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 the 39th time, the Calatrava Evangelical bookshop in Madrid had a stand in the Madrid book fair at the beginning of June. Most evangelical institutions, such as schools, hospitals and bookshops, were closed during the Civil War (1936-9) and not allowed to reopen. The Calatrava bookshop was one of the exceptions. During the 1960s, they were encouraged by the young George Verwer (founder of Operation Mobilisation), who also opened a bookshop for a time in Madrid. Last year queen Sofia visited the Calatrava book stand.
• On 9th May the first ever 'demonstration' was held by Madrid evangelicals to protest against closures of meeting halls in the city.

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.