News, October 2011

News from the Churches

2nd November - Operation World day to pray for Spain. Nationwide demonstrations taking place around 31st October. 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.

2nd November is Operation World's day to pray for Spain. Every day of the year this prayer book brings to us a different country - or region. More information is vaibale here!

John MacArthur has visited Spain for the first time. On 1st October he gave several conferences in the Auditorium in León (north west Spain). Brethren leader Manuel Corral is responsible for the invitation, which also included a Gospel concert with Jubilant Sykes. Reports say over 1,000 attended the conferences.

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. Here is a resumé of news we received:

Pocket Testament league held its annual activities in Aragon, in the city of Zaragoza, in early August. 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 reached out to the town of Lugones, Asturias, run by the Federation of Independent Churches, FIEIDE.
A novel experience is the Gospel Commandos, a choir of 25 voices, singing in the open air in the town of Almansa. An older choral outreach is Coral Mensaje (Message Choir), a joint Spanish-Swiss group.

Now on or coming soon!

On 31st October, the FEREDE (Federation of Spanish Evangelical Churches) has called all its member churches to join demonstrations to call attention to the ever poorer state of religious freedom in the country. Churches (and other buildings of religious minority groups) are being closed at the whim of municipal authorities, especially in Madrid and Catalonia. A new project before the Catalan Parlament is to rewrite its regional law on religious liberty, giving local city councils the last word on how and where religious groups can meet. This fundamental right, upheld in theory by the 1988 Constitution, is now seen to be severely under threat.
Catalan pastors already demonstrated in early October, but a mass demonstration of the membership is planned for Saturday, 5th November. In reminiscence of the British 'gunpowder plot' of 1605, they hope to put a virtual bomb under the seats of politicians in the run-up to the 20th November elections.
On 20th October evangelical representatives met with Madrid's deputy mayor Ana Botella (wife of former president Aznar) and held a very fruitful meeting, which involved discussion of the problems the churches are having with the city council over buildings. They outlined a future procedure for resolution of the difficulties.

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. The Catalan language service will take a bit longer, possibly being relaunched some time in the autumn.

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. Over 1,200 churches are so far signed up. 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.

The Barcelona Evangelical Hospital has been granted a new plot of land in a deal with the city and regional health authority. The hope is that they will be able to build a super new facility very close to the Sagrera high speed rail station. Pray that this project will not be cancelled or long postponed by the current round of health service cuts.

Earlier news in bullets:

[Image 109???]In June, 2011 Carlos Martínez presented his book From the Dressing Room. 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.
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.
Lleida in Catalonia has hit the headlines for closures of several places of worship of religious minorities, including evangelical churches. This it the tip of the iceberg, which has led to nationwide demonstrations planned for 31st October.

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.