Locations

Spain

Ministry Description

Word of Life first began in Spain in 1977 with Rick and Linda Warken as the director of this ministry. Marcelo and Nelly Gajardo currently direct this work. Word of Life Spain practices the Great Commission in four step ministry vision: Connect - Witness - Disciple - Send. Connect: Meeting people where they are at, in a way that is relevant to them. Witness: after connecting with people, we introduce Jesus in a natural way. Disciple: we walk side by side with believers as they learn to live a daily Christ centered life. Send: we equip the saint to carry the Gospel and make disciples to the ends of the earth.

Location Information

Spain is not only the country of flamenco, bullfighting and fiestas, but also extraordinary art, culture and literature. Art lovers will easily recognize names of the controversial artists like El Greco, Goya, Picasso or Dali. This 505,000 sq. km landscape ranges from deserts to green lands, to many highly developed areas, and picturesque mountains cover half of the country. Spain conforms about 80% of the Iberian Peninsula in the far southwestern edge of Europe.

However, behind the beauty of this nation, there’s an undeniable spiritual reality that not many know about.
In a country of over 49 million people, roughly 1% of the population knows Jesus as their Savior. From the over 8000 towns and cities in the country, only about 1000 of them have at least one Gospel-preaching church. Atheism is increasing rapidly amongst the youth, as more than 60% declare that they don’t feel inclined to any particular form of faith. The teenage years are key, as most kids stop believing in God by 14 years old. Even Roman Catholicism, deeply incorporated in many aspects of Spanish Society for generations, struggles to keep their affiliates, dropping to a 40% of the current Spanish population. The history of persecution of Spanish Jews, Evangelicals and American Indians caused the church to become associated with tyranny and bigotry.

On the other hand, there are estimated to be about 300 active cults in the country, and a strong influx of muslims has raised their numbers to over 3 million. The latest policies of massive regularization for illegal immigrants is soon to drastically change that number. But we believe that God’s not done with Spain just yet. We want to be part of the ministry work that turns the tide for the spiritual panorama in this country. We want to see the next generation finding Jesus, and strengthening the church.