The number of evangelicals in Spain, as well as the amount of churches planted, continues to increase, according to figures for 2023 published by the ministry Evangelism in Depth (EVAF), which studies the statistical evolution of evangelicalism since 1996.

Its director, Máximo Álvarez, confirmed to Spanish news website Protestante Digital that evangelical growth has been remarkable in recent years, but expressed his hope that the materials they are distributing will help churches to “become aware” of the great need to evangelise and plant new congregations.

Two decades of strong growth

In terms of decades, the strongest growth has mainly taken place in the first two decades of the 21st century, thanks especially to the arrival of migrants from Latin America, Africa, and Europe. Joint evangelism and church planting initiatives are also driving this steady growth.

“For many decades there have been churches and ministries with this vision of planting churches where there is still no evangelical place of worship”, explained Álvarez.

EVAF stresses that there are already over 1,000 municipalities with an evangelical church, but 7,124 municipalities have not yet been reached.

Moreover, “there are 542 towns with over 5,000 inhabitants without an evangelical church", in addition to “large neighbourhoods in the cities, where there is no church in large areas”.

Much to achieve

Alvarez believes that the vision of church planting is being strengthened “with platforms such as Multiplication Network, M4 and others”, but there is still a great need to “encourage leadership to pay more attention to domestic mission, and this means facilitating the training of church planters”.

In order to make churches more aware of the present challenge, Alvarez encourages holding “mission weeks” where the data provided by EVAF is shared. “Each church has to plant one or two congregation, and in 2035 we would have a full map”, explains Álvarez.

An example of an evangelistic initiative is the massive distribution of literature that has been taking place in Seville and Cadiz these weeks, as part of a joint action plan with the collaboration of local churches and the missionary organisation OM. The plan is to repeat this in all the provinces of Andalusia and to extend it to the whole country.

You can see all the data published by EVAF here (in Spanish).