We praise God for the Church of the Living God. As we preach and build the Kingdom here in Spain we know that you are standing with us and praying for us. Thank you so very much.

The building felt pretty full as the last of the stragglers came into our main service on Sunday. Ednardo came for the first time. He´s a Brazilian immigrant who is going through some hard times. We arranged for one of our guys to bring him some groceries and after a few hours of sharing he turned his life completely over to the Lord Jesus. Cookie is also new. She accepted Christ recently in one of our Connect groups. She´s been having deep emotional problems but has been swept off her feet by the goodness and love of God. Miguel and Lucas mentioned in the last blog have been coming also. Continue to pray for them for a complete cleansing of occult, witchcraft and new age philosophies and practices.

Last month we took a picture of everyone who showed up for that service. That is the picture s... more

Miguel and his son Lucas sought us out today. They had tried to come to
church Sunday but got hopelessly lost. They have been involved in occult
practices and have been terrified by the manifestations and
consequences. They asked for our help. To make a long story short they
both turned their lives over to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Please
pray for these newborn babes in Christ because their heads are full of
superstitions and nonsense. Pray that they faithfully read and
understand the Word and immerse themselves in the life of the Church.
Pray that they press in all the way to full discipleship. Pray for God´s
protection from the Enemy´s fury.
Thanks so much,
John and Patti

Yesterday we had a wonderful gathering in the church plant here in Spain. Normally summer is a time of low numbers and low motivation, but God is doing something really wonderful here. Last May we had a prophetic brother, John Steele, passing through from New Zealand. One evening in the middle of his message he began speaking to a woman in the back. He said, 'you've never been here before and you don't know why you are here tonight but God knows, he's brought you here to give you a brand new life.' She was a Russian woman named Marina, none of us had seen her before except the sister who invited her and that night in a river of tears she gave her life to Jesus. Marina has kept coming to church hungrily devouring the Word and the fellowship. Now her Ukrainian partner has started coming too. Some Spanish men are starting to come and they are inviting their children and friends. One man, Angel, who was there with his grown daughter yesterday, found out about the church through our prison ... more

Greetings to CLG from your Spain Church Planters,
I have been writing for some time about our brokenness over sin and disobedience in the church. Of course there are many wonderful obedient saints here too. We are truly seeing results.

Sonia and Rodrigo were married in the church last February and it was glorious. We have now had another couple agree to separate and get their lives in line with God´s word. The woman, Marcia 19, has moved in with us in the mean time. We are planning for a May wedding. Marcia was baptized in the sea a couple of weeks ago.

One other couple has openly stated, ¨we´re making plans to get married¨ and another couple that we thought WERE married are saying the same thing. This is huge for the culture and the challenge we have been living with over the last 6 years.

You may ask, ¨what´s the big deal about getting married?¨ Well when almost all young couple live together and don´t get married, even the so called Christian ones it´... more

We have prayed, fasted, humbled ourselves, preached righteousness, even prepared ourselves to put some out of the church over issues of open sin. We have a long way to go in many cases, but I want to share with you the journey of Sonia and Rodrigo. He's Spanish, a new christian, she's from Brazil and has recently immigrated. They have been living together for a couple of years now. They faithfully went through our new members class and sat down at their interview with the pastor (me) ready to become members. Rodrigo hasn't been water baptized so we talked about that. We also talked about the problem of living together as man and wife without being married. I said, 'It's very simple. If you want to live in obedience to God and want to be members of the church you need to be baptized (which is a public, sincere repentance of all known sin and publicly declaring one's self to be Christ's slave), and you need to separate until you can be legally married. This was a tough one for them. We e... more

These are days of prayer, repentance, soul-searching, and brokenness for the church. We are praying and asking God to show Himself in a mighty way among our neighbors and church members. Over the summer attendance in the church dropped as it often does, but some of our people are enduring deep personal struggles. They have a desire to serve God and live the life of blessing He has for them. They also have a world of circumstances like a river trying to pull them in the other direction. Lately it hasn’t been a steady current, it’s been rushing, roaring whitewater. Sound familiar?

One couple has recently come back to the church after being away for a year. Doctors have given him only a few months to live. They have been living together for some time and are not married. They cannot marry because both of them are still legally married to other people. There are children in the picture. They have little money and are not in the country legally. They want to get their lives right ... more

Hi CLG family, I have been thinking about you and praying for you all for several days recently. The church family here is well, we had record low attendance for our prayer service last night, it was a holiday and all but about 10-15 people ran off somewhere with their families. We had a wonderful time anyway worshiping and praying. We also viewed one of the chapters of the video 'More than Dreams' put out by CBN. It is several testimonies of Muslim people who have had visions and dreams of Jesus and have been radically saved! God is powerful and sovereign.

I'm heading out soon for our weekly radio program 'el planeta ensimismado'. For the last few weeks I have been sharing about the family and how parents must use biblical principles to guide the family. Today I'm looking at the father-daughter relationship. If you ever doubted the importance of a father's love to his daughter take a look at www.lostdaughtersunited.org. Dad's, you make all the difference for your little girls... more

It's 10 am on Sunday morning and I have a little time for a short blog. What? Are you backslidden, pastor? No, it's just that our service here in Spain starts at 1 pm. Spanish folks don't like to get up early on Sunday mornings. I'm referring to the apartments that share walls with our meeting space not our members!

Today we're thinking a lot about the Lordship of Christ. Jesus' powerful words in Luke 6:46 'why do you call me Lord, Lord and don't do what I say?' are ringing in the air for all of His church. Here in Spain many believers want the benefits of salvation but have both hands and both feet and their teeth in a vice grip on the steering wheel of their lives. Yet in Isaiah the Lord assures us that like the heavens are higher than the earth so His ways are higher than ours. Like the Sun and the Stars are higher than the top of your head so God's plans and direction for your life is better than your own.

The church here is going on full steam a head. Friday as ... more

We're in that special week between Christmas and New Years, a great time to call family and friends and bring to mind those relationships that are most important to us. We have had a good year here in the new church in Spain. It's been a tough year full of important (sometimes painful) lessons, but the church has grown and the light of the Gospel has not been snuffed out in our community.

For the first time we put on a real christmas program with a choir and a live band. We installed a new lighting system to add to the drama and celebration. Patti wrote a powerful cantata combining PowerPoint, recorded and live narrative, solos, and powerful hymns sung by the 9 voice choir and congregation. Afterwards I presented a succinct evangelistic message and three people raised their hands to indicate that they wanted to surrender their lives to Christ the Messiah for the first time.

New Year's Eve we'll have a special prayer and praise night and immediately kick off three day... more