Alabama-led revival brings church members to their knees

Roberto Velert gave up his pulpit one Sunday last November to let Sammy Gilbreath, director of evangelism for Alabama Baptist, preach.

“We had a revival in my church,” said Velert, pastor of Bona Nova Baptist, Barcelona, Christ” campaign with Alabama Baptists.

After Gilbreath made an invitation to consecration, half the church came forward and got down on their knees.

“I was thinking, I have been here 16 years and nothing like this has ever happened. Praise the Lord,” said Velert, who was also a pastor in Valencia for 17 years before coming to Barcelona.

“We are a Catalan congregation — not so open,” he said. “It is difficult for them to express in an outstanding way their feelings.

But there were even young people kneeling, praying and asking for forgiveness from the Lord and consecration to the Lord.”

Still, this type of reaction is not always the case, Velert said.

“The results of a team’s visit comes in time,” he said. “It is not always the next month or even the next year, but they will come.”

In fact, a church of about 30 people has sprung up in an area outside Barcelona where Alabama Baptists worked in 1998.

Velert, who hosted teams every year during the partnership, said he admires the humility and disposition of the people who came.

“It is amazing — a reason to praise God — the spirit of the people who came from Alabama to serve, even when they know the difficulty of language and the difficulty of background and culture,” he said.

And the teams always remind the Spanish Baptists that they are not alone, Velert noted.

Barcelona is a city of 4 million people, with only 12,000 of those being evangelical.

With a population close to that of Alabama, Barcelona Baptists are encouraged to have “other friends who are believers.”

Visits from Alabama Baptists also garnered media attention and heightened respect in the eyes of government officials for Spanish Baptists, Velert said.

While Spanish Baptists were encouraged by Alabama Baptists, Alabama Baptists may have also gained some insight from the Spanish, Velert noted.

“I think the people from Alabama learned to appreciate hospitality and relationships in the sense of friendship and fellowship,” he said.

“They have also learned that usually Christians in our churches are quite committed to the Lord in the sense that faith affects many parts of their lives,” Velert said.

Alabamians also saw he difficulty in reaching people. “I hope they will never be discouraged because every Sunday in America almost always someone comes to the altar,” he said. “But here we can preach Sunday after Sunday and never see anyone come.”