News, January and February 2012

News from the Churches

Evangelical Alliance supports government revision of abortion law. Follow up of thousands now on! My Hope TV outreach in follow-up to TV campaign, 15th to 17th. 3rd Protestant Congress of Catalonia took place in Terrassa. Christmas TV service on TVE on Christmas Eve.

The Spanish Evangelical Alliance has issued a communiqué in support of the proposed revision of the abortion law. The current law, which allows abortion on demand under the Health Service up to 14 weeks, was enacted by the previous Socialist government. The new government is led by the partido Popular, which has always opposed such legislation. It now plans to make it more diffcult to have an abortion. The Evangelical Alliance has published <http://www.protestantedigital.com/update/download/01022012_120201REFORMA%20LEY%20DEL%20ABORTOc.pdf| a document (pdf - Spanish)> supporting the new requirement that girls under 18 get parental permission for the abortion. This would be a first step in the overall revision of the law. Meanwhile, the Health department is considering withdrawing the Day After pill from over-the-counter sale, requiring a doctor's prescription.

Mi Esperanza (My Hope), a TV campaign, took place on 15th to 17th December. According to data released on 6th February, from 610 churches, some 5,000 had made a profession of faith in their activities. Over 2,500 made a re-commitment and over 10,000 want to know more. That is of the more than 21,000 who attended. More results are still expected, possibly 15-20% higher. Now we really need you to pray for the major follow-up work being undertaken by the church leaders and 'Matthews' (the hosts who opened their homes).
The campaign united 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 then gave a 3 minute testimony and invited people to turn to Christ. In this simple way, local churches took advantage of a nationwide broadcast on national channels to reach out at a time of year when people are most open to the gospel. This outreach has been supported by most of the largest denominations and a total of some 1,440 local churches, as well as backed with a major contribution from the Billy Graham Association. (More information here from BGEA.
One prayer concern at mid-November was that over half of the churches officially signed up to the outreach had not made a financial contribution at that date, despite encouragements to have special offerings, special events and so on. Pray that the costs would be recouped. another activity led by Decision Spain is Operation Christmas Child. Over 16,000 shoe boxes were collected from around Spain and sent to Equatorial Guinea and Saharaui refugee camps in the desert.

Over the bank holiday weekend 8th to 10th December Catalonia's evangelicals celebrated their third 'Protestant Congress'. With the background darkening with threats of church closures over the past year, Catalonia is still the region with the largest proportion of evangelical church members. Indeed, there are close to as many active congregations as there are Roman Catholic ones. The Congress also celebrated the 20th anniversary of the TV programme 'Neixer de Nou', which is broadcast every week on the regional channel TV3.

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, 2011. A Portuguese language service came into use in the Autumn. The Catalan language service will take a bit longer, possibly being relaunched some time in the New Year. In an interview, marking the anniversary of the new daily Protestante Digital (late January 2012), director Pedro Tarquís said the English language team is now working on its launch.

Earlier news in bullets:

• On Christmas Eve (24th December) Spain's evangelicals were again be able to enjoy a national TV broadcast, as TVE 2 put on the annual Christmas service.
• Churches joined demonstrations in October and November to call attention to the ever poorer state of religious freedom in the country. Church buildings are being closed at the whim of municipal authorities, especially in Madrid and Catalonia. The main demonstration was held in Barcelona on Saturday, 5th November. Several thousand were in attendance.
• 11/11/11 was a busy day for evangelicals around Spain. OnTheRedBox in central Madrid held a day of open air evangelism in the Puerta del Sol, starting their open airs at 11.00. Meanwhile, many believers everywhere spent the day in prayer -and celebration- for the coming My Hope TV outreach.

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.