¡Vamos a Iglesia!

So there are a lot of things that I really miss about being home. No doubt about that. But one of the most evident is the Christian atmosphere that I’m surrounded with at the U. Just to give everyone a little heads up about what last semester consisted of in relation to this idea, I attended weekly meetings for both Campus Crusade for Christ (Thursdays) and Truth Business (Mondays), partook in a sweet Monday night Bible study, and co-led an AMAZING prayer group on Wednesdays. So that’s a fair amount of stuff that took up a lot of my time. Thus this summer was weird enough not being around any of that, let alone while actually being at school. I have both my usual Bible and a Spanish version up here that I read a few times a week (not as often as I should or would like to, however), but I’ve really been missing the fellowship aspect of Christianity whilst aquí.

There’s tons of churches up here, though, so it would seem that it wouldn’t be too much of a task just to get up and go to one. But the problem with that is that ALL the iglesias in Toledo are Catholic. Now I’m not going to get into the whole Catholic spiel here because it’s not worth it and honestly I waver a bit in my thoughts about the Church sometimes. I have no ill-feeling toward them and there seems to be little doubt (usually) that they get the main message right about the Bible (Jesus = Lord and repentance of your sins and accepting His gift of salvation = eternal life), but nonetheless, let’s just say that I’m not a Catholic.

I was raised in a legit Presbyterian church and confirmed as such, but these days I consider myself to be a non-denominational follower of Christ. I mean, let’s be real here, denominations don’t make any sense. It’s all the same book (again, not getting into Catholicism). So anyway, point here is that I’m a Christian in need of fellowship and a solid church to go to.
T’was last Friday (the 12th) that I met Andrea down here while going to the mall in Poligono, which is another town about fifteen minutes from Toledo. We got to talking and soon realized that we were both Protestants looking for a church. She had been told of one by her boyfriend who had studied here in the past and hence, relayed this information to me. I became quite excited at the prospect of going to a legit church and by Thursday she had seemingly had all the specs figured out, so we decided to hit up today. What follows is the account of today’s activities.

Andrea and I had agreed to meet in the Plaza de Zocodover at the hour of 10 in am (as we believed the service started at 10:30). As per usual, I arrived at my destination substantially early (like 9:50). Turns out this was quite perfect as I caught her as she was walking toward the Fundación (my place of residence; she’s living with a family while here). She told me that she hadn’t been able to really get the directions to the place because her family had come and visited her this weekend, and since she didn’t have internet at her host family’s house, she needed to hit up the Fund to check it all out.

Después de regresar, we struggled around the computer for a solid 10 or so minutes trying to figure out where this church was and how to get there. We found out within this sleuthing that the church we were going to was different than the one we thought we were going to rock. Huh. That could pose some problems. Nevertheless, we printed off some basic directions, asked the receptionist which bus we should take (either the 61 or the 62), and headed off. At this point the time was 10:13 and was pretty apparent that we weren’t going to make any 10:30 service as it takes like 15 or 20 minutes to get to Poligono. Meh. We were determined to figure this out and figured that we could go sharing or something if it didn’t all come together. We arrived back at the Plaza de Zocodover just in time to see the 61 close its doors and drive away after picking up some people. Fail.

Undeterred, we continued walking way down to another bus stop in hopes of catching the 62 in the near future. We quickly made our way to this parada and took a gander at the bus routes and schedules. The 61 and 62 come every half hour it said. Ohhh. That could be mal, but whatevs. Thanks to the directions we’d printed off, we knew that the church was on the corner of Estenilla and Río de Alberche. That only did us some good as there were like 5 stops on Alberche and we really had no idea which was the correct one for us. We stared at this thing momentarily trying to figure it all out but soon thereafter the 62 showed up and we hopped on. The time, 10:30 exactly.

We rolled into Poligono and started earnestly watching for any signs of a church. Apparently, the Good Lord had our backs as the bus drove right past one that looked unbelievably promising. La Iglesia Evangelical Bautista. An Evangelical Baptist church?! That had to be right. The front entrance seemed to have a gate in front of it, though… Even so, we jumped off the bus in excitement and started heading toward it. There was a sign there that said that service was at 11. I looked at my watch, 10:48. Score! We were actually early somehow. Thus we walked across the street so Andrea could get some quick sustenance as she hadn’t had time to eat breakfast this morning.
After exiting the local tienda, we saw a woman opening the doors to the church. Awesomeness in a can! We exchanged pleasantries with the woman and I awkwardly performed the Spanish cheek-cheek-kiss thing. Over this preliminary foolish-looking-ness on my part, we went in and sat down. It was a small, quaint looking room. Certainly not a giant, ornately decorated sanctuary. It appeared to be more of a small converted dining hall. There were about 10 small rows of pews on either side of a walkway and then a stage-ish thing up front. The wall behind the pulpit was ordained with the following:
JUAN 14:6 Y JESÚS DIJO, YO SOY EL CAMINO, LA VERDAD, Y LA VIDA
NADIE VIENE AL PADRE SINO POR MI.
A huge smile appeared on my face upon seeing that. I had actually been wondering the other night while praying how to say that verse in Spanish and the BOOM there it was. I nodded my assent with it all as I often do when something like that pleases me. This could very well be home, I thought.

Andrea and I took our seats on the on the right half of the room on the near side of the pews as people slowly started walking in. Everyone was super-friendly and seemingly very interested to talk to these two American strangers in their church. I was more than happy to converse with these locals. We learned quickly that the normal pastor was off doing something that weekend and couldn’t attend, but that didn’t bother us at all. Everything seemed legit as a man walked up to the pulpit.

There were actually two services. This first one was more of a lesson and kind of possible application thing aimed more toward adults. The man noticed us right away and greeted us from the pulpit in an amiable manner. Soon thereafter, one of the members of the congregation prayed and we began.

The preacher wasn’t too hard to understand. He spoke quite slowly, so that was nice. As seems customary in Spain, though, he didn’t really say his “s’s” at all. That made him a bit hard to follow as sometimes his words would sort of jumble together, but overall he was good. He spoke of conflict and giving glory to God throughout it while referencing Acts several times. It was solid, but I wasn’t overly excited about it.

That service ended at 11:44. The next was to start at noon, so we just sat around and waited for its commencement. At around that time, the same man got up and walked back to the pulpit. After some sweet songs and some really passionate and awesome prayers said again by members of the congregation, another man meandered to the front of the room.
He started talking and I must say that he had the most perfect diction and enunciation abilities of any person I’ve heard yet in this country. A welcome relief. I could pertnear perfectly understand this guy. Yay!

He opened his sermon by reading Luke 18:18-29. This centers on the rich ruler who asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. The man says that he has kept all the laws after Jesus tells him this. At this point, Christ tells him to sell all his possessions and to follow Him fully.
I was quite enamored with all the goings-on at this point. This guy seemed solid. As he continued talking, I found out even more so about how legit this man and this place were. How so, you ask? The man used this story as a backdrop to fully and clearly explain the gospel. There’s no way that sentence can come anywhere near to completely conveying the meaning and importance that it actually deserves unfortunately, but let’s just say this: That’s THE message from THE book (i.e. the most important thing in the world is to understand and accept this concept). Like he summarized the entire Bible and basically how to introduce Jesus into your life. It was amazing. It was like being back home again.

Just a quick summary of the four main points of the Bible for anyone reading this:

1. God loves you and has an amazing plan for your life and a desire to know you personally.
2. However, people are sinful and thus are separated from God. This makes it impossible for them to experience everything that God has for them.
3. Jesus Christ is God’s only way to bridge this gap. Only through Him and Him alone can we experience all that God has for us.
4. One must pray to repent of their sins and accept Christ into their heart to be able to connect to God and to enjoy all of the gifts and the plan that He has for us.

So yeah, that’s what the guy basically talked about. This is just a quick little succinct summary of it all. Point is, AWESOME. I’m so glad that the guy did that. It makes me know that this is a legit church and one that I’m going to want to go to in the future. The people here were great and friendly, the atmosphere was very welcoming, and it’s a Scripturally-based church that’s focused on Christ. Amazing. We rolled out of there at about 1:20 (a long couple of church services, indeed, but you’ll receive no complaints from me) and headed back to the Fund. I can’t speak for Andrea here, but I can certainly say that I think I just found a little piece of Minnesota in España, and more importantly, a very apparent Godly presence.

And as a sidenote, if anyone has any questions about Christianity or anything, please don't hesitate to ask me.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20).