Officially recognised chaplaincy and teaching ministries

The Agreements reached between the Spanish State and the FEREDE on behalf of the Evangelical churches in 1993 opened the way for the churches to prepare and provide officially recognised workers into a number of different areas of activity to minister to their members. This included chaplaincies in government institutions and also the teaching of 'Evangelical Religious Education' (ERE) on the same basis as the Catholic church provides teachers of religious education.

Schools

ERE children at a church visit

ERE was first off the blocks, having foreseen the new agreements and begun a very professional teacher training course in 1990. Hampered by a lack of funding and prior experience, it nevertheless produced an excellent crop of teachers over the first five years.

The training programme is an extension course, most of the participants having to study while holding down a regular job and many also being housewives and mothers into the bargain! More recently, the lack of funding has become more intense and fragmentisation of the National Training School into regional departments has mad eit difficult for students in all but the largest regions.

Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see ERE teachers providing religious education in state funded schools in much of Spain. Until 2000, in addition to other difficulties, teachers were not paid a salary for their work. Now this is the case, although the nature of the work means that few really get very much. Evangelical children are very spread out and it is rare to find more than a handful in the same class or even age group in a school, so the schools have to make a special effort to timetable in such a way that ERE can gather children from several classes and age groups together, something which is not so helpful for the Catholic teachers!

One of the areas in which ERE teachers are a real help is working with Gypsy children. Since so many of the Spanish gypsies are now believers... and the rest probably aren't interested in sending their kids to school anyway... there is a large number of these children, often with a variety of social difficulties, in the most deprived school catchment areas. In such places, ERE teachers are making a great difference and helping the parents to see the value of sending the kids to school -which can't be taken for granted- in addition to what they might learn in the specific ERE class. But there is a crying need for more teachers and also for those who would commit themselves to the regional teacher training programmes.

Other faiths

In addition to Evangelicals, Jews and Muslims also share in the state's recognition as 'historic religious groups' within Spain. Thus they also have agreements with the State on the matters mentioned on this page. Yet it was not until 2006 that the muslims published their own recognised RE text book.

Chaplaincies

Other areas where there are now official chaplaincies are prisons and hospitals. However, there are probably far more pastors and other church workers going into these areas without such official recognition.

An area in which there is still difficulty is the armed forces. However, with a totally professional system now, there are few evangelical soldiers (rather more in the police and semi-military Civil Guard) and probably less pastors with a desire to dedicate time to such a ministry. Both issues perhaps need to be corrected!

Pray...

...for those who are involved in these ministries and for the Lord to raise up many more. Pray for the national, regional and local authorities, many of whom have hardly heard of us, to recognise and even encourage us to take advantage of these opportunities.