Arise, November / December, 2004

What does God want?

Bulletin nº 17 (November and December 2004)

The Bulletin of the Prayer Network for the Evangelisation of Spain

"This is good and pleases God our saviour, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim 2:3,4)

What is good and pleasing before God? That we live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness (v 2) So how do we achieve this? Through requests, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving for everyone, for kings and all those in authority. And why so? That we may have a good government. And why would God want us to be well governed? Because this is far better for the speading of the Gospel. (Derek Prince, in his day, did an excellent job of explaining these verses in his leaflet 'Praying for government'.

Dear brethren who are praying for Spain, greetings! In this bulletin we combine the months of November and December. In addition to reporting on the major events for which we asked for praer in the October issue, we ask also that you would be praying for all the 'progressive social legislation' being brought forward with a rush by the new government. In everything we wish to fulfil the Lord's desire that all should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

All Saints' / National Prayer weekend - report

This was our prayer focus in the past issue. In Madrid a group of eight churches attended our call and a prayer ride on the circular line of the Metro (subway) prayed for the establishment of a 'protective wall' especially for young people. There followed a meeting in a church building to pray for the city and region. A special cause for concern and prayer was the protection of young people against a spirit of suicide. "Previous experience makes us think that on this occasion we will also see results from our prayer in the natural world. For the time being it is important to know that we have been obedient to the Lord and we expressed this praying in unity and intensity," was the report from the coordiantor of this group. Praise the Lord for initiatives like this; initiatives which were surely repeated in other parts of Spain during these potentially evil days.

"GOSPEL IS LIFE"-Concert tour, Girona - report

The other main topic last month was Girona. The people who specifically responded to this call have already had the full report. They, along with you are now able to praise the Lord for the victory gained step by step. Here follows pastor Jaume Torrado's report. Join us in rejoicing!

"Thank you so much! Thanks to all who have not ceased to pray for our activity in the concerts in Girona. This wonderful prayer network, which has been dawn together over the past months, has born fruit. Since the day the choir arrived, especially during the rehearsals, we felt God's presence with us. For those of you who know Girona, you know it isn't an easy place to reach people with the Gospel. In particular, it's very hard to touch people through activities promoted by 'the evangelicals'. Our plan for promotion worked until a journalist started investigating and realised -from reading online on P4S- our 'double motivation' and just a few days before the tour began produced an article headed 'Evangelical Church organises Gospel Tour with the aim of proselytising'. You can imagine the content was no as favourable as we would have liked -although much better than might have been the case (P4S)- . At first we we very worried, but kept on working.

"We passed out all the promotional material we had printed and God began to confirm that He was moving. Soon we heard that tickets were even running out for all the events. We had expected 1,500 attendance in Girona and they completely run out within a wek of going on sale. We planned -several times- a larger number of seats and finally took all the seats available in the pavillion which could be used considering our sound system. The same thing occurred in the other pavilions. Never before had we dared to make such a step of faith in orgaising an event. In fact such an event had never taken place in Girona. Even on a secular level it's unheard of. people don't respond so well to cultural events.

"The day came for the first concert -in Banyoles- and we were all very nervous, but expectant. Even some city councillors were there to see what happened. The doors opened an hour before the concert and people began to arrive. We began to see our dream becoming reality. The pavillion filled almost to overflowing, with 1,500 sitting quietly, the way the Catalan people do. The choir performed very well and the audience showed their appreciation increasingly as the evening went on, with clapping, stamping and even proclaiming the name of Jesus in Ron Kenolly's song. The choir was in tears and we all the more, as we saw the wonderful scene. At the end, a few words: 'Gospel, what it has inspired in us tonight, has but one source, Jesus Christ. He can fill our lives with peace and joy.' So it continued the next day in Salt and it continued in Girona, where we were most concerened, but finally we had 3,500 people in the audience.

"I cannot express the joy in my heart. I'm still on a cloud about what we experienced. The next day the same paper which had produced the worrying article proclaimed: 'The Gospel choir makes the Fontjau sports pavilion vibrate.' The next morning the Catalan regional TV station TV3 called us asking if they could have a live link during the final concert. It was like a dream. The mobile satellite unit was stationed at the entrance and we were live on the Mari Pau Huget afternoon chat show. This last concert, in Blanes, was tremendous. The audience responded so well and the TV gave us a lot of time.

"In all, almost 7,000 attended the concerts. From them we got over 2,000 response cards, including 1,100 requests for a personal visit to present the Jesus film. 300 people have shown interest in participating in the Gospel is Life platform which we have created. New people are visiting our churches. The director of a TV program on which I was interviewed said 'you have found the way to do it for us'. This had been our goal, to make it amenable to the Catalan people. An old person told an usher after a concert: 'Never in my life have Iexperienced what I have tonight.' This is another goal fulfilled, that the sprirtual world should be touched by our concerts.

"To God be the glory! Something great is happening in our country! Thank you all again for your prayers. Please keep praying for us, now that we have moved into the second stage, which is the most special moment. We need the Lord's help to complete all the visits that have been requested. We need to know how to presnt the Good News to the Catalan people and to be able to build on, without knoch¡kning down the bridge which has been built with our people, to help them come to the feet of Christ."

Activities until the New Year

Pray for the young people in Elgoibar. We had the following letter: "Dear brethren, I am Lourdes Fernandez, secretary of the church in Elgoibar and member of the evangelism team. I am writing to ask you to help us praying for Elgoibar. This town is close to Eibar in the Basque Country and there is a serious problem here. Every Saturday an avalanche of teenagers and other young people come here to the movida ('movement') which means coming to drink and take drugs. well over half the young people of the town are involved, as they themselves admit. The city hall itself is very alarmed and is attempting to take measures to contain it. There was recently a report on ETB, the Basque TV channel. In the Elgoibar church we are praying, then going out to evangelise. We are aware of the power of God, but not ignorant of the presence of evil and that the enemy has taken ground here. Even while we were preaching I was offered some tablets, free. That's the way many fall into it at first, until they are hooked. We are committed to continue doing the work and fighting in prayer. But we really feel we lack the experience and knowledge of spiritual warfare. So we ask you to help us in your interession groups, that the situation here in Elgoibar will change. Even some of our own young people have begun to get involved in the movida and you can imagine our alarm and concern, particularly the suffering of the parents. Thank you so much for your ministry. We wish you all God's blessings. Greetings, Lourdes."

§ 18- 28 Nov. In Mataró (Barcelona)-Operation Mobilisation has a series of campaigns this year with US teams. This one is reaching out to a city with a high level of muslim immigrants. More: www.usa.om.org/Spain04/MainMenu.htm

§ 21st Nov and 19th Dec. El Salvador church (Valencia): Evangelistic outreaches starting at 11.30

Evangelists' Conference

§ The 6th 'Conference for the Evangelisation of Spain' will take place between January 6th and 9th. Location: El Escorial, Madrid. The title: You feed them! Pray for this event, that it will be a major encouragement to those who atend- and even those who cannot- to get involved in the evangelisation of Spain. All the information (in Spanish!): http://www.confevan.org/conferencia

"Progressive Social Legislation"

Important prayer issue

The new Socialist government is far more militant in its secular humanism than any before and firmly set on establishing a Secular State. The objective of its social legislation programme is to undo what remains of the Christian influence in the law. The following laws are set to be -or have already been- approved:

§ Broadening of the depenalisation of Abortion (already over 77,000 abortions annually).

§ Research on embrionic Stem Cells.

§ Faster and easier divorce through reduction in red tape and time requirements.

§ Marriage and adoptions by homosexual / lesbian couples.

§ Euthanasia, assisted suicide among the aged and infirm and terminally ill.

§ Subsidies for Islamic (and evangelical!?) education in schools - since here it is impossible to do away with Roman Catholic education, which is the Socialists' ultimate objective.

The President himself said 'No more laws on morality, no more outdated legislation.' when he officially opened the new school year. They want to outlaw religion in the public sphere, to complete the separation of Church and State. For years, there has been an on-going influence of the Roman Catholic church, which had a significant influence during the Franco dictatorship. Yet, in undoing the specific relationship with one confession, the government wants to aim at distancing society from all religion, even if this means giving certain rights to other groups temporarily. Due to the unpopular nature of some of this legislation, it is interesting that it is being rushed through the first half of the government's tenure.

Is this what God wants? 'That we may live peaceful and quiet lives' Yet every day 200 Spaniards are denied the right to be born. Now other lives may be terminated prematurely. How can we then pray for this government? God wants His Word to be preached without restriction, He wants to be glorified. Thus we beg you to pray that beyond all human hope these unjust laws may fall by the wayside, unapproved.

Spanish sister site: www.confevan.org

As from mid.December, our Spanish language sister site www.confevan.org is up and running. This is the official site of the Spanish Evangelists' Conference and shares the same webmaster and Carrelet web technology.

Thank you once again for your prayer and communication with us. Keep this bulletin circulating!