This is exactly the situation the pastor of our church in La Coruña faced on more than one occasion this last week. One week ago, on Sunday night, during a new members class, the local police showed up at the door of Vida Nueva with orders to evict the church from their building. The building was not closed down, but everything was removed from the worship center.
On Wednesday the police returned during a training session for missionaries in Galicia. This time the worship center (sanctuary) was closed down, and they sealed the door with official tape barring entry. The church offices were allowed to remain open.
On Friday afternoon the police returned to close the offices. Instead of having a class session with other missionaries in Galicia, we helped remove important items from the church that would be needed. Imagine you knew you had two hours to get as much out of your house before fire hits - this is similar to how the church staff operated on Friday. Whatever we did not remove Friday afternoon is now sealed inside the church. Print and television media came Friday to cover the event. I didn't see it, but the local news report was favorable towards the church.
The church leaders still are not entirely certain what is going on, or where the pressure to close the church is coming from. In the eyes of many Spaniards evangelical churches are cults, so the evangelicals are viewed with suspicion. There has been some friction in the past with one neighboring business over noise issues. The order to evict the church from the building had something to do with sanitation. At any rate, it feels and smells of repression and persecution based on religious beliefs. Certainly, Vida Nueva is a very active church, and is involved in a number of significant ministries. There is no doubt that whatever human activity is driving this opposition, there is a more important spiritual battle going on.
So, today, for the first time in my life, I was privileged to experience a worship service with a church body who had no home as a result of religious persecution. It was both surreal, and surprisingly normal. It was obviously a little more emotional than most services. It was a little strange I think for the neighborhood residents to see a church service outside. And it's not every Sunday service that gets covered by the local media. But, the overall hallmark of the service was that of community, peace, and joy. There was no public display of anger or bitterness. There were a few tears. But we worshiped, shared communion, passed an offering basket, and listened to a sermon on the body of Christ just like any other Sunday. It was a concrete reminder that Christ lives and works in and through people. The church is the community of believers, and does not need a building to worship and minister together.
I've already written a lot, and there is much more I could say. I don't have pictures or video of the events to post at the moment, but if I can gleam any from other sources, I'll post them here.
What I do have is the photo above (I recognize it's not perfect, but will give you some sense of the staging). Faith and Ryan are at the door to the church offices. The door to the sanctuary is the white door in the center. The church has a front courtyard/parking area that is big enough for three Euro-sized cars. This is the space in which we worshiped on Sunday morning.What happens next? It's uncertain at best. Truly, God only knows where it goes from here. But I'll close by describing a short conversation that truly struck me in the midst of this. It was on Friday afternoon, there were no less than four police cars and 8 uniformed policemen at the church. The pastor and secretary were in the offices, and no one else was allowed to enter the building. There was a medium sized crowd of folks milling about outside the church uncertain of what to do, or what would happen next. Our friend Jerry arrived and walked into the crowd with a large smile on his face. He has decades of ministry and life experience. He was positively beaming and said, "Isn't this exciting?" I checked his face for humor or sarcasm - there was none. He was as genuine as could be. Then he said this - "God is up to something. Whatever happens here, His name will be honored. It's very exciting"
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