FROGLEGS

Pretty shocking eh? I run into a lot of people that think that things are going well in Spain, that the church (both Evangelical and Catholic) has pretty much got a handle on things and that there is no real need in the country. Well, a survey done of 5,214 young people between the ages of 15 and 29 years old would tend to say that we should definitely start getting serious and that there is a heck of a lot of need around here. Please read on if you are up for a quick smack across the chops. If you aren’t interested, click here.

The survey was done between Sept. 8 and Nov. 14 of 2003. The goal of the exercise was to analyze questions pertaining to young people in the areas of family environment, quality of life, financial independence, values and religious belief.

There is a lot that could be said about the survey and its results, but I would like to focus on this 50% drop off in young people being involved in religion. The 50% decrease in practicing believers is actually directed at the Catholic Church (a great cause for concern when half of your young people disappear over a four year period… where is the future?). Some of you might not think that is a bad thing, depending on your opinion of the Catholic Church. But here is the thing… sometime between the year 2000 and the year 2004, roughly 130,000 young people in Spain stopped going to church altogether. And guess what? They didn’t come to an Evangelical church either! Maybe a few of them did, but I can tell you that the vast majority didn’t. The study shows that the Christian Church (both Catholic and Protestant) in Spain is bleeding young people.

I don’t wanna paint a picture of doom and gloom. I actually think that the outlook is pretty good. I am excited about what God is going to do on this particular “stage of life”. But I want to emphasize that the need in this country is great. We ain’t just here on vacation!!! The Church becomes less present in society and therefore less relevant with every passing year. I know loads of passionate young people across this country that are battling and sacrificing to put a stake in the ground and see this country turn around. We are all tired, financially strapped and in need of support. Would you pray TODAY about what you can do?

I know I don’t usually get this “in your face” on this blog, so I hope none of you are offended. But this survey touches very close to home and I think it is cause for a good rousing of friends and passers-by.

I’ve scanned the article that featured the survey and put it here. (Bryan, this scan is really just for you… thought you might be interested. If you can’t see it well enough, I have a higher resolution version that I can email you.)

I had a great time with Markus and Ian on Thursday. Ian was kind enough to get the three of us preview tickets to see “Ray“, the movie about the life of Ray Charles. Then Ian, Markus, Carla and I spent the day in Ian’s office atop his church’s offices dreaming and scheming about Europe. Not every day you do that about an entire continent.

From Guildford, a town outside of London, we headed down to Chichester. Chichester is famous for a lot of things (home of the most expensive cars in the UK, has a lovely cathedral), but I go there because it is home to a lot of friends at Revelation Church and the birthplace of 24-7 Prayer. I’d been invited down to take part in a Church Leader’s Weekend. The weekend went well, although I found some of it to be a little far away from where we are at in Sevilla. But that was cool. I met a few new people, got to pray with some people I’d never prayed with before, picked up my very own copy of the hotly sought after book “The Vision and The Vow” and stayed with the lovely and fantastic Roni & Christian Cheeseman down the road in Portsmouth.

The flight back was less than fantastic. It ended up getting delayed two hours and then cancelled. Then we got routed through Porto (that’s in Portugal) and I ended up getting into Sevilla at a quarter to 11 at night. About half way through the flight between London and Porto, I started having serious stomach pains. I started to wonder if that burger I bought at Garfunkel’s with the 5 quid that BA gave me to say sorry for losing 4 hours of my time was coming back to get me… Sure enough, by the time I got home I was pretty ill. I slept about 5 hours that night, my stomach was absolutely killing me. I never ended up throwing it all up, but I felt pretty terrible the whole night. Two days later, I am about back to normal, but it feels like someone has been buffeting my stomach for a couple days straight. I KNEW that burger looked a little weird.

It is so good to be home.

I’m in the UK this weekend. Went to see “Ray” with some friends in Guildford. Good movie, go see it. You’ll wanna get your hands on some Ray Charles music as soon as you walk out of the theatre.

Dreamed and schemed about Europe with friends most of Friday and then came down to the South Coast to visit some friends in Portsmouth. Was supposed to go to a meeting of church leaders on Saturday, but I skipped it for more hangin’ out time instead. Seemed like the thing to do.

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about a “Spanish Evangelical” prayer meeting that I was running off to attend across town. I was sceptical, to say the least, about whether or not the meeting would be worth checking out. As I said, those sorts of meetings are famous for having the worst worship, the worst preaching and little (if any) actual prayer.

I have to admit, I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was GREAT! Just 6 friends, getting together to pray and let God do whatever it was he wanted to do. The thing that everyone had in common was that they were tired of trying strategies that don’t work and spending loads of time humouring people rather than seeing God’s Kingdom expanded. We prayed for about an hour and a half. After that, some of us went out for a drink and a late dinner (around 12.30). As we sat in a pretty dumpy little café as I realised that these guys I had been praying with were definitely part of my tribe. Friends in unexpected places.

We got together again this past Thursday… in our house! This time, there were a lot more than 6 people… Our living room, which we had THOUGHT was pretty big. After about 15 people filed in, we realised that it wasn’t as big as we had thought. It was, again, a pretty good time of prayer. It felt like we were learning to pray together. Young people from different churches and ministries from all over the city, seeing each other’s faces, praying for each other, talking with God together.

I felt like hanging out a bit more with some of the guys from the group, so I invited them out for a drink on Saturday. We had a great time! Spanish Evangelicals tend to be about as square Wyoming and their humour tends to be about as flat. I usually have a really hard time getting along with them, because I have such a hard time with “religious” people. But the longer that we hung out, the more I realised that we had a lot in common. It was like a dream come true. I realised that I was finding good friends in places I never thought I would!

I don’t talk to much about Macs on my blog (although I am an avid user and Mac Addict), but I have got to say something today.

Pretty much everyone in the blogging world (and all the techno freaks and gadget geeks out there) are up to speed on the stellar unveilings that Steve Jobs, Apple CEO made at the San Francisco MacWorld convention yesterday. I’d known for a while what was going to go down yesterday, but have been holding my tongue for about 2 weeks just in case I was wrong.

But I wasn’t… Apple are quickly poised to harvest off MILLIONS of frustrated Microsoft Windows captives. Tired of seeing that all to frequent blue screen? Even the big BG has got to be tired of it after Windows XP has crashed on him in the middle of his last two public appearances!!! Tired of virus scanning, Spyware and constant attacks on your cybersecurity? What about all the overpriced software? Driven into piracy because you can’t fork out the $350 for Office? Are you ready to be free?

Apple has made that possible. They’ve brought out the cheapest Mac ever. For $499, you can have a no frills, plug and play Apple Mac. Just plug it in to your existing monitor, keyboard and mouse and you are ready to rock. You can get also pick up a software suite that is 100% compatible with MS Office, works ten times better and only costs $79 (rub your eyes to see if you are dreaming… You’re not! And that’s not the upgrade price!!!

To see what the experts are saying, click here and here. Both these guys have been very accurate in their predictions, both use both PCs and Macs… and both say that Apple has just pulled off a massive Coup dé état on Microsoft.

To start your journey to freedom, click here. But beware, there is no going back!

Don’t know what a siesta is? Would you like to? Is the best thing about spanish lifestyle in danger of extinction? Has it always been this way? Here is a very good article that appeared in the New York Times this morning about the siesta in Spain. You’ll need to create a user account to read the article, but it is free and the NYT is probably the best paper I’ve ever read… well worth a couple minutes to register!

It seems to me that the main tenet of those wanting to get rid of the siesta is that it is not “modern” or “productive”. Hmmm… Those are two extremely sinister words in my vocabulary. I have nothing against either, but when they begin to define how we live our lives, I get very concerned. What is the point of being modern and productive if you are also meaningless and stressed? I’m not saying that siesta or a “very long lunch” do either of those things. But time for socialising, relating, rest and reflection are surely not bad things.

I don’t think that getting rid of the siesta would make for a shorter workday either, as Sr. Buqueras of the Fundación Independiente says. It certainly doesn’t in the US! I guarantee that if Spain were to get rid of the siesta, the family structure would begin to break down at a higher rate than it already is. The family would fragment into seperate busy activities even more and the only real time of the day that they spend together would be gone. That’s what is great about siesta! There is nothing to do but spend time with family and friends, have a nice sit down meal, take a nap and chill out! CULTURALLY ENFORCED QUALITY TIME! Surely the western world could use more of that. Why doesn’t the rest of Europe adopt the siesta instead of us conforming to them? It would seem that our society is a bit healthier…

Any other comments?