Our desire is that the churches planted through our ministry in Spain would have the same impact as the church in Thessalonica did in the first century of Christianity. The Bible says in 1 Thess. 1:8, “For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not speak anything.” This church performed exactly what we desire to do for the honor and glory of God in Spain. Our vision is that every man, woman, boy and girl in the city of Parla and beyond would have the opportunity at least one time in their lifetime to hear the life-changing message of the gospel. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could write a letter to all of our friends and supporting churches sharing how we don’t need any more missionaries in Spain because it has been evangelized? Once again, you may be thinking, “these missionaries are going to be very disappointed when they realize that their dream is impossible.” Well, I’m glad that it’s not my vision or my plan; it’s God’s. We just have the awesome privilege to be involved with what He’s doing in this world. All we can do is offer Christ our lives and obey Him with every ounce of our being and trust that He “will build His church.” (Matthew 16:18) In the 15^th chapter of Romans we find the apostle Paul giving a summary of his missionary endeavors. All he did was faithfully obey the Great Commission until he found that there were certain regions were the gospel no longer needed to be proclaimed. Paul writes, “Yea, so I have strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named…but now having no more place in these parts…(Romans 15:20, 23) Do we serve a different God in the 21^st century? Scripture declares that Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” (Hebrews 13:8) I believe that we need to get back to the Bible and we will witness the same works performed in our midst today.

 The Lord used the second chapter of Ezekiel to reconfirm his calling in my life. Verses 3 and 4 declare, “And he said unto me (Ezekiel), Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day. For they are impudent children and stiff-hearted…” I see several similarities between Ezekiel’s ministry and ours. Spain is a country that has historically been resistant to the gospel. I remember studying Baptist history and when it came to the section describing the Baptist presence in Spain down through the years it occupied a small paragraph on one page. As a matter of fact Spain has been without a major Gospel preaching movement for at least 1600 years (that includes all evangelical and protestant denominations). Spain has been a Catholic stronghold for centuries. The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), one of the most militant orders within the Catholic Church, originated in Spain. The few true Christians in Spain during the Reformation were persecuted and kicked out by the Spanish Inquisition. Even though Spain became a democracy and provided religious freedom to its citizens in 1978, the people still remained very faithful to their Catholic faith. In recent years, the country has gone from 98% Catholic to 73% and most of them never go to church. The latest wave of opposition to the gospel has come from a new generation, which has rejected Catholicism and embraced Atheism and Humanism. It is sad that many of these young people have turned away from God altogether because the true gospel of Jesus Christ has been unavailable to them.

 I don’t write these things to discourage you or so that you may feel sorry for us. On the contrary, we have a great open door in front of us. We must evangelize Spain! I will be honest, the people in Spain are not lining up in front of our little church waiting for us to give them a Bible or share the gospel with them. They have become hardened as a result of neglect on our part (they have had almost no gospel witness) and persecution. Just like Ezekiel, God has called us to work with stiff-hearted people. The middle section of verse 4 (Ezekiel 2) says, “…I do send thee unto them…” This reminds me that He is “…not willing that any should perish…” (2 Peter 3:9) No matter how hardened and disobedient the nation, He is so merciful that He sends a prophet (in our dispensation he sends missionaries) unto them. A good example of that is when God sent Jonah to preach to Nineveh. God loves the people of Spain although they don’t seem to love Him too much. Let’s look at the last part of verse 4, “…and thou shalt say unto them, thus saith the Lord God.” Do you know what the people of Spain need? It’s the same thing the people in China need, the same thing that people in Africa and India need. They need faithful men and women to be God’s mouthpieces and unashamedly proclaim the good news of salvation.

Then verse 5 says, “And they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house,) yet shall know that there has been a prophet among them.” In other words, whether they accept the message or reject it is not up to us. We cannot save anyone. All we are called to do is make sure that in the Day of Judgment not a single unrepentant Spaniard has an excuse. This is something that we can do in our generation. We are certainly praying for a sweeping revival and that many, many souls will be saved, but whether or not these things come to pass will not determine our success. We will be successful when every individual has been completely evangelized. C.H. Spurgeon said, “If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms around their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.” You see, inevitably many people will reject the gospel. We cannot control other people’s choices. What we can do is make sure that we have done everything in our power to keep them from Hell. All we ask is that you would pray for us as well as the other missionaries in Spain (and those preparing to go). We have big task before us, but guess what? We serve a big God. “Our philosophy is based on our theology.” It is impossible to read God’s Word with an open and sincere heart and not realize that we have a purpose to be alive. And that purpose is not to warm a bench week after week, but to worship and glorify God with our lives and obey His commands until He comes. “…As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” (John 20:21) Thank you for reading about our ministry philosophy.                                          

Written By: Scott Newton

#3: Spain is the least evangelized Spanish-speaking nation.

As of 2010, 329 to 358 million people speak Spanish as a native language and a total of 417 million people speak it worldwide. Of these, approximately 47 million are Spanish, the vast majority of whom have never attended a Gospel preaching church, or heard a clear presentation of how they can have a real relationship with God. Only 1.5% of the population claim to be Evangelical Christian.

Mexico contains the largest population of Spanish speakers, 6.3% of whom are Evangelicals (CIA). Spanish is the second most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese, and many Central and South American countries are beginning to send out missionaries of their own.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if some of these were to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Spain! Would you pray that God will raise up laborers for His harvest?

I wanted to share some wonderful news with all of you!  The Lord has answered our prayers. I got a call from the Spanish Consulate today and the lady told me that they have approved my residency visa. I have until December 30^th to leave the country (we are planning to leave much sooner than that). Believe me, I’m ready to go! Don’t get me wrong I have enjoyed deputation but everything has a time and a season and right now I am in Spain mode. I have 32 wonderful churches to visit from now till then and we have complete faith in God that we will have all of our support raised by our departure date. As a matter of fact we are currently at 86% of our needed support. They haven’t approved everybody’s visas yet but the lady told me that they should be ready in about two more weeks. I am so amazed at how God has opened every door for us. During the end of March of this year we really felt the Lord leading us to step out by faith and set a departure date. At that point we were at 66% of our support. In just 5 months our support has increased by 20%. Also, we have been praying that the Lord would supply the money that we need for our Setup Fund. Just in these past two days we have had 2 churches and 1 individual give towards our Setup Fund. The amount that they have generously given is exactly what we need to purchase our tickets. We are seriously considering leaving for the field November 29^th, 2010. That is 2 days earlier than we had originally planned. You can’t imagine how excited we are. I would ask that you pray for the rest of the visas to be approved shortly. We really feel great peace in our hearts because we know that right now we are in the center of God’s will. Amen. 

Dear Co-laborers in Christ,
What a blessing it is to serve our Lord Jesus Christ!  Since our last newsletter we have had many answers to prayer in our personal lives and also in the ministry.  Both of us have been able to renew our resident visas for another two years.  Amen!  My leg has also healed completely and I am able to walk well and do the ministry.

We asked prayer for Stefan to come to know Christ as His personal Savior, and about 6 weeks ago he came into church on Sunday morning and said he had some exciting news for us.  He then proceeded to tell us how on that previous Monday he had repented of his sins and trusted in Christ alone to save him.  Amen!    Since that time we have begun weekly discipleship classes with him, have visited him in his home and have seen his wife and two sons visit the church.  Please pray for all of his family as Stefan desires for them to be saved!   
Update on our DVD project!

We have now distributed 23,000 DVDs.  This means that potentially  69,000 people have had the opportunity to hear a clear presentation of the Gospel.  We have been duplicating more DVD’s over the past few weeks and by the middle of September we will be ready to continue distributing DVDs to the rest of the homes in Parla. Pray for the funds necessary to finish this project.  We have received love offerings from 2 of our churches these past two months and we are truly appreciative.  Click here to see the video update on our DVD project.

We have also placed a very large billboard at the entrance of our city with a message about the DVD, asking people if they have seen it and advertising our website.  We will change this billboard approximately every three months with something thought-provoking for those seeking for the truth.   We have  recently purchased space in our city’s monthly newspaper.  We will have one-fourth of a page to write whatever we want every month.  This paper is distributed free of charge to 30,000 people in our city.  Pray for new contacts through this outreach.  We want to continue sowing the seed of the Word of God in every home in Parla.  Recently a young man contacted us, requesting a free Bible.  His name is Eduardo and he had seen our website and was interested in what he had read.  We were able to visit him in his home and even though he lives one hour away from our city, he came to the service last Sunday.  Praise the Lord he trusted  Christ as his personal Savior this week!  He is so excited about growing in the Lord. We will begin discipleship classes with him next week.    Last Sunday we had a very special service in our church with an emphasis on the Family.  We sent invitations to all the contacts we have made recently.  We were so thrilled Sunday morning when 41 people attended the service.  We were filled to capacity.  Amen!  Now, we understand that people will come to special services and  maybe not come again, but we now have more people to pray for, visit, and encourage to find out the truth from God’s Word.  The seed has been planted, we are watering and we know that in God’s time, there will be a harvest of souls. 
Continue praying for David and Favianna as they have submitted their papers for obtaining visas to come to Spain and are waiting for approval.  They are still planning on coming here on the 1st of December.  We are excited about having all the team here in Spain to serve our Lord together.  Thank you again for your faithful prayers and financial support.  You also are part of the team for reaching souls for Christ here in Spain.

In His Service, 
Julio and Andrea Velasquez

Written by: Scott Newton

#2: Spain has been without a major Gospel preaching movement for at least 1600 years.

AD 33-70: Christianity came very early to the Peninsula. According to some ancient writers such as Clement Of Rome & Eusebius, St. Paul visited Spain (see Romans 15).

AD 70-711When the Visigoths, whose leaders professed Arianism (the denial of the divinity of Christ), invaded the peninsula, Christianity had been fairly firmly established for around 240 years, and had held its own councils and used a liturgy different from that of Rome, known later as the Hispanic Rite.

There were more than likely many true believers in this church, however, they had from AD 70 been corrupted through following the teachings of the Didache, supposedly a summation of the Apostles teaching.

The majority of this document was a paraphrase of biblical text, but here is the hook at the end:

16:2 “But be ye gathered together frequently, seeking what is suitable for your souls; for the whole time of your faith shall profit you not, unless ye be found perfect in the last time.”

Early writings confirm that this movement clearly taught a grace+works salvation. Not Gospel.

AD 711-1478 With the invasion by the Moors at the beginning of the 8th century, Christians suffered greatly. The Catholics who lived under the Moorish domination became known as Mozarabic Christians. By the end of the 15th century when the Reconquest of the peninsula from the Muslims was completed, the Mozarabic Christians had been subjected to the Roman liturgy and strict papal jurisdiction.

THE REFORMATION 16TH CENTURY SPAIN

However, it was not until the 16th Century that some people, interested in the writings of Luther, started to share a different Christianity among the Spaniards.

At the beginning, Spanish protestantism was accepted among the noble and high classes, due to their interest in reading the Bible. There were important reformers in Spain, such as Juan de Valdés, Francisco de Enzinas and three ex-monks, Casiodoro de Reina, Cipriano de Valera y Antonio del Corro. Reina & Valera were the first ones to translate the Bible into Spanish, with the support of Oxford university. (AD 1569)

However, soon after the entry of the reformation movements from Europe, the Inquisition made sure they would not succeed. The majority of Spanish protestants went into hiding, died, or left the country.

PROTESTANTS LIVE AS OUTCASTS DURING 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES

During the following two centuries (17th and 18th) any attempt to reformation within Spain and the catholic church was stopped, or had to go underground. Yet, from some historical records from the Inquisition itself, we do know that protestants continued translating the Bible into Spanish and Basque and made it available to people. Others, who were exiled, continued translating Christian literature; while others who remained in Spain died in the hands of the inquisitors. There were 3499 court cases against Lutherans in Spain and Italy during that time, which is 7,1 % of all the inquisition cases recorded.

During the 18th and beginning of 19th Centuries, economic and military relations with England eased off the pressure over the foreign protestants in the country, allowing them to have freedom of conscience, though not freedom of practice.

The Second Republic (1931-1936)

During 1931 and 1936, under the auspice of the second republic, there was freedom of religion once more in the country which allowed growth. These 5 years, added to the 6 years of the first republic, made a total of 11 years of religious freedom in the whole history of Spain.

First stage of intolerance (1939-1966)

The civil war and the regimen afterwards, were devastating against the protestant churches, even though protestants had not taken positions in the war. At the end of the war, there were only 7000 protestants left. Most churches had been raided, along with schools and cemeteries. Some others were burned down or closed by the authorities.

It is estimated that over 80% of the churches were closed down.

THE CONSTITUTION OF 1978

After the death of Franco, Spain moved on to monarchy and democracy, reaching a crucial moment in 1978, when the country adopted a new constitution. King Juan Carlos I was in favor of democracy and religious freedom.

MODERN DAY SPAIN

Spain now enjoys religious freedom, and God is starting to move in big ways. Pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send forth more laborers, Spain is white unto harvest!

We are church-planting missionaries. We understand the command in Matthew 28:18-20 to evangelize, baptize those that are saved, and teach them to be like Christ (discipleship), but these demands can only be fully obeyed within the context of the local church. The first century Christians comprehended that they would be unable to reach the world (“…Jerusalem…Judea…Samaria, and…the uttermost part of the earth.” Acts 1:8) without establishing churches in every corner of the earth. That is why they naturally were involved in church-planting. They understood it to be the obvious and practical conclusion of our Savior’s command. We have a mission and God has chosen the church to carry out that mission. If a “church” is not obeying the Great Commission then it cannot biblically be defined as such. We understand the church to be a group of baptized believers gathered together to carry out the Great Commission. We are pioneer missionaries (we are starting a new work from scratch) that have moved to Parla, Madrid and have begun to proclaim the gospel to every individual in that city for the purpose of establishing a church that will obey and fulfill its mission. We are not in the business of constructing church edifices, but of organizing (directly or indirectly) visible groups of believers (starting churches) in every city to shake up Spain for Christ. As we start more churches our reach will be greater and we will be able to effectively evangelize more places than just Parla. We will reach Madrid as well as the other provinces in Spain, Southwest Europe and the world. In other words, we must start churches in order to reproduce what we are already doing in Parla, Madrid in other places around the world. Our desire is to establish churches that will fulfill our three basic and essential ministry goals.

1. Evangelize the lost: Every single individual within the reach of the church must have the opportunity at least one time in their lifetime to accept or reject Jesus Christ. The church must find every way possible to accomplish that task.

2. Enable others: This means that we are to follow our Master’s example in training faithful men who will reproduce themselves in other Christians. This is not an option, but our solemn duty.

3. Establish Churches: We must start churches that will perform the first two goals in other places. The ideal would be a church for at least every 50,000 people.

 We could go to Spain for a short period of time and carry out massive evangelistic campaigns and distribute millions of bibles and gospel tracts. Although through these efforts many would hear the gospel and some would be saved the effects of this style of evangelization are short-lived. The only way to make a lasting impact for Christ in this world is by establishing churches. A bible-believing, gospel preaching church will faithfully and continually evangelize until everyone within the reach of the church has heard the gospel. But then the church will disciple and train the converts and involve them in the work of the ministry and the cycle will be never-ending.

 It is clear that there are more ways than one to establish a church. Some churches are started by a solitary pioneer who goes someplace where the gospel has never been preached. Some are started by a group of pioneers (a team). Both of these methods are perfectly acceptable but we have opted for the latter. We believe that we can accomplish more in less time for the honor and glory of God as we work together towards a common goal. Team missions is not a new or modern idea but it goes all the way back to Jesus and the Apostle Paul. God has given each of us different gifts and abilities that we can use for the furtherance of the gospel. One clear example for us is the technology aspect of our ministry. If it was up to me or my parents we would have no evangelistic website, no gospel DVD project, and you wouldn’t be reading this article because we wouldn’t have a blog or team website. Of course we would still be able to preach the gospel but with these tools our reach is even greater. Thankfully one of the members of our team is gifted in that area. All of us are commanded to evangelize but some people seem to have a greater God-given ability to make friends and start conversations with people. My father is that kind of person. He has never met a stranger. I remember going on door to door visitation with him in Venezuela and seeing how he would somehow convince a grumpy, unfriendly person to allow us in their home. Before the conversation was over he would have them laughing and attentively listening to the gospel message. Without getting into all of our team’s strengths and weaknesses it is sufficient to say that “two are better than one…” (Ecclesiastes 4:9).

 Once the church that we have started in Parla begins to grow and leaders are trained we will practice a third method of church-planting. While some churches are started by pioneers (one missionary or a team of missionaries) others are the product of churches producing churches. We could work diligently as a team to start a church and leave it with a pastor as soon as possible. Let’s say we were able to start one church every five years (It’s not impossible but we have never witnessed this in Spain). In a fifteen year period we would have started three churches. We could certainly attempt such an ambitious goal, but what if we invested ourselves in training men for the same period of time? What if we allowed the church in Parla to naturally produce more churches? Every pastor trained would equal a new church and members from the “mother church” would go and help those pastors start the new works. We want every pastor to enjoy the blessings of working as a team whether they start a church nearby or in a distant place. Please continue reading. Next week I will post the sixth and final part of our ministry philosophy.

     How important is one solitary soul to God?  Is God interested in reaching out to a handful of people living in a remote village in darkest Africa or in the jungles of South America?  Is God interested in the single person that a missionary in Europe has been able to reach during his first four years on the field?  Does God truly want us to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, or does He just want us to go where we can reach the most people in the shortest amount of time?   We see in many places in Scripture where God was interested in individuals.  He sent Phillip to the backside of the desert because there was one man who was searching for God and needed the help of a Christian to show him the way.  Jesus himself had to go through Samaria because there was a woman at the well that needed to know that she was a sinner and in need of salvation.  Many times Jesus preached to multitudes of people, but He was always interested in each and every individual soul in need of Christ.

       As missionaries we do not pick the place where we desire to serve God.  It would be easy and advantageous for us to peruse through world atlases and travel catalogs and find the most beautiful places to be a missionary.  We could find places where the weather is always nice, the food is delicious, the people are all friendly and desirous to be saved and where there are good doctors and great roads.  But that is not the way God works.  He speaks to us with His still small voice and puts such a burden in our hearts for a place to serve Him.  it doesn't make sense to root up a family with small children, pack them into a mini-van, take them over 200,000 miles of interstates to visit over 300 churches over several years, then have that family move to a god forsaken country where living conditions are not very good and where good doctors are hard to come by.  Worse yet is the family that goes to a country where the people are not interested in hearing the Gospel or where the law prohibits a person from sharing his faith with others.  In our own understanding these things don't make sense.  But we cannot lean on our own understanding.  God is interested in every person on this earth hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Some missionaries go to countries where the people are very receptive to the Gospel and in a matter of 4 short years, they are able to establish a good church, train leaders and have those leaders prepared to begin more works.  Many of these missionaries are able to start 30 or 40 churches in their years on the mission field and lead thousands of people to Christ.  Others spend 30 or 40 years in one church and lead only a handful of people to Christ.  Is this a waste of time and money?  Of course not.   

      Having been brought up on the mission field as a young child, I have spent almost all my life working in missions.  We have served in Latin America as well as in Europe.  We have seen the difference between working in a third world country and working in a modern developed country.  We have worked with poor people and have also worked with middle/upper class people.  There are so many contrasts and differences, but God has been interested in each person we have been able to reach for Him.  In 1992 while serving in Spain, we were able to see a young couple come to Christ in our church.  Their names are Alberto and Paqui Puente.  After discipling them and helping them grow in their Christian faith, they went to our Bible Institute and desired to serve the Lord full time.  A few years later, they moved to the States where Alberto pastored a Hispanic church in Alabama.  The church has grown and out of that church many have been called into the ministry.  They are sending missionaries around the world now, including two of their sons who will be returning to Spain as missionaries within the year. Even though many others trusted Christ as their Savior, if Alberto and Paqui had been the only ones  who had gotten saved during our first 14 years in Spain, it would have been worth it.  God loves every single person and He died for every single person in this world.  Our job is to obey God and share the Gospel with every person that God puts in our path.  Whether you live in a metropolitan area in New York or in a small rural town in Wyoming or in a mega city like Mexico City or in a jungle village in the Amazon, whether you can reach thousands with the Gospel or only a handful in your lifetime, we are to keep on obeying God and reaching  souls ,one by one, for whom Christ died.  

Spaniards have been the victims of a self-serving and greedy religion that offers no hope and no relationship with God for centuries, and they are increasingly distrustful of church. Here is an interesting article by Gallup on church attendance…

The scope of the influence of religion and the church on Spaniards’ lives remains difficult to characterize. While most Spaniards identify themselves as Roman Catholic, only 43% say religion is an important part of their daily lives, and less than a third tell Gallup they have attended a place of worship in the last seven days.

Blog post taken from Project Southwest Europe - Scott Newton

Ron Maggard is a fellow missionary and a good friend of mine.  The Lord used him to play a significant role in my christian growth while I was at Beacon Baptist Church.  He wrote an article that goes along with our Ministry Philosophy that we have been posting.  Enjoy!

Scott Newton is a church planting missionary to Spain.  He is currently on deputation raising his support.  You can visit Scott's website and blog to learn more about he and his family.  Scott started a topic on his blog called, "10 Things Every Christian Should Know About Spain."  We have asked Scott if we could re-post the topic here on our blog and he agreed.  We are now collaborating together on the "10 Things Every Christian Should Know About Spain."  Here is the first:

10 Things Every Christian Should Know About Spain(#1) - By Scott Newton

1: Spain is approximately 1.5 % evangelical Christian.

Spain has a population of 46 million, with approximately 600,000 Evangelical/Protestant church-members (FEREDE). Over half of these are members of Pentecostal churches which teach a perverted form of the Gospel that tells people that their salvation is dependent upon their continued faithfulness.

This leaves at best around 300,000 church members of various gospel-preaching churches. To put that in perspective, there are approximately 1 million Muslims in Spain, and 9.2 million who claim no religion (CIS, 2009).

Many times people assume that a first-world country like Spain, in a continent that we associate with great spiritual movements of the past, would have no great need of a Gospel preaching movement. That assumption is terribly terribly wrong.

Would you pray that God will raise up more laborers for Spain, and that He would use our ministry and that of every other missionary in Spain to lift high the name of Christ?