The challenge in Spain is big one. Come and join us.
40 million inhabitants; around 150 thousand believers; 100 000 Jehovah’s Witnesses; approximately 400 000 Muslims and more than 7500 towns without an evangelical church.
In Spain there are 8095 towns and villages, of which 7540 do not have any evangelical church, which means there are only 555 towns and villages with an established evangelical witness. There are some expat churches ie our Elim churches on the costa del sol.
Since 1974 the changes in Spain have been incredible; from tyranny to freedom, from poverty to riches, from isolation to integration in the European Community, from religious intolerance to unbridled secularism. But freedom has not produced the turning to Christ that we expected. The only exception in the tremendous work of the Holy Spirit among the gypsy population: the “Filadelfia” church has multiplied to include one in every three gypsies. Over 60% of the Spanish evangelical church are gypsies!
More than 15 million people live in towns and villages where there is no evangelical church and have not had the opportunity to hear or see the gospel preached.
A Spiritual Vacuum.
There has been a rapid and uninterrupted increase of people who declare themselves to be unbelievers or indifferent to religion. At the same time, there has been in increase in the number of young people who claim to believe in Prophets, Messengers and Chosen Ones: 22% compared to 15% in 1995. Nowadays 33% of young people believe in horoscopes compared to 22% five years ago. According to the director of this study, we need to “be alert”. These percentages, Serrano believes, could be “the beginnings of something which could become a real problem, if destructive sects manage to achieve an undesirably high status.”
In Christian terms, Spain is commonly referred to as “hard ground” and firmly rooted in its Catholic beliefs. This makes them suspicious of anything new, however, this Catholicism is now largely in name only. Young people are disillusioned with the church and are moving away from that towards drugs, the occult and sects. Islam is stirring itself to find ways to fill this vacuum, and we need to stir ourselves with the gospel of Christ.
This Vacuum is being filled by:
Foreign sects. There are almost as many Jehovah’s Witnesses in Spain as evangelical believers. The Mormons are doubling their numbers every five years. It is estimated that there are more than 300 sects, 30 of them satanic.
Drugs. It is reckoned that there are more than 300 000 heroin and cocaine addicts, which has been an important factor in the AIDS epidemic. In 1992 there were 100 000 carriers of the virus and Spain has the highest percentage of sufferers of all the European countries.
Heroin: - In 1999 the consumption of cocaine exceeded that of heroin for the first time according to the emergency services: out of 2141 people taken into hospital under the effects of narcotics, 1010 had taken cocaine or a mixture of cocaine and other substances, and 880 had taken heroin. In the previous year 1998 the statistics were 43.9% heroin and 37.26% cocaine.
Tobacco: - Spain has the highest rate of passive smoking of the 16 richest countries: 53%. The lowest rate is Uppsala in Sweden, which has only 2.5%. Spain is the largest importer of tobacco in Europe. Perhaps this is why it also has the most smokers and the highest number of smoking related deaths.
Sleeping tablets: - In the year 2000 the Spanish consumed more than 30 million sleeping tablets.
A large part of Spain was ruled by the Moors for over 700 years. The Muslims would like to win it back. There are groups of Spanish Islamic converts in Granada and Cordoba. Today there are about 650 000 Muslim immigrants, 50% of them from Morocco. They have a growth rate of 1000% over the last decade.
The challenge is a big one, but possible with our God.
Pray for us, support us and join us.
