From the September-December 2011 Issue
SPAIN'S DESPERATE NEED - Spain
Andrew and Vivienne Birch
Sunday worship serviceI’m writing two days after local and regional elections here in Spain. The results revealed, not unexpectedly, a big swing in favour of the right-wing Partido Popular (Popular Party).
Is that good or bad for Spain? I think most Christians would agree that it’s not easy, these days, knowing which of the two main parties to vote for. The Socialist Party is very leftwing, pro-abortion (etc.) and increasingly anti-Christian, and has lost a lot of support as a result of the current economic crisis which has hit Spain especially hard. On the other hand, following Franco’s long and oppressive dictatorship, for much of the past thirty-five years Evangelicals have benefitted from a more religiously neutral left-wing government.
Most Evangelicals probably feel closer to the right-wing Popular Party on bio-ethical issues (abortion, etc.); and some may have a preference for that party for economic reasons; but, psychologically, it’s not easy for many Evangelicals to bring themselves to vote for a party so closely associated with the Catholic Church and with all that it represents, not to mention the fact that the right-wing party has come off badly in a number of recent cases of corruption. As you can see, it’s not at all straightforward being a Christian in Spain and deciding which party to give your vote to!
What is clear is Spain’s desperate need of a first ever nationwide revival, which is one of the reasons why I feel strongly that, while recognizing our role as salt and light in the world in which we live and even the need for more Christians to get involved in politics, we must not allow ourselves to be distracted from our primary calling: to preachand live out the gospel of God’s grace in Christ.
Blessings…
As a local church, we have seen quite a lot of blessing in recent years. Let me sum up that blessing in a few brief sentences: (1) We’ve seen a steady trickle of conversions and baptisms; (2) Our membership has grown to around a hundred and fifty; (3) We now have eight local groups up and running, in six different places, with most of them meeting every fortnight and with some ‘outsiders’ being contacted in this way; (4) The largest of those groups, in El Arenal, has already become a church-plant – we’ve been holding Sunday services there in a rented meeting-place since February 2010, with an average Sunday attendance of around forty; (5) We have recently appointed a new elder, are giving serious thought to employing one of our elders part-time, and see in one of our young men a future worker.
...and opposition
Needless to say, blessings from the Lord often go hand-inhand with opposition from the Enemy, and that has certainly been the case with us; without going into details, we have felt ‘under attack’ through the apparent lack of spiritual life in some of our members, through the strain under which several of our couples seem to be struggling, and through one or two other ‘pastoral situations’ that are giving cause for concern, etc. Of course, all of this is just as normal and to be expected as the blessings, and it serves to remind us that in the spiritual war we can’t afford to relax, that we are constantly in need of the Lord’s protection, strength and wisdom, and that we need the prayers of people like you!