WELS’ first online Spanish Reformation service streamed live
Filed Under: Reformation, Spanish Outreach, Streams
For the first time, WELS will utilize online video streaming to provide live coverage of a Reformation service in Spanish. Roger Sprain, one of the first WELS missionaries to Latin America, will be the guest preacher at the service from Risen Savior in Milwaukee on Oct. 31, at 7 p.m. CDT. Seth Haakenson, pastor at Risen Savior, will deliver the liturgy.
“We need to make alive our Reformation day,” says Gonzalo Delgadillo, director of Spanish publications at WELS Multi-Language Publications and coordinator of this online Reformation celebration. “This service is something that is amazing. For the first time in WELS history, a confessional Lutheran Spanish service will be broadcast live to all the world.”
Risen Savior is hosting the joint service of three Milwaukee area congregations with large Hispanic memberships. Others from the community are invited to attend. “Many people, maybe for the first time in their life, will hear about the Reformation,” says Delgadillo. “And for our congregations [watching online], this will be a way to encourage them to study and promote all the teachings and blessings of the Reformation. We have that beautiful responsibility of letting the world know what happened in Wittenburg in 1517.”
And the Reformation message can reach all corners of the globe with the ability to stream this event live. “Technology today is no different than at the time of the Reformation when we saw how God used the printing press to broaden the reach of his Word,” says Martin Spriggs, WELS’ chief technology officer. “We are seeing the same thing today with internet video streaming—another broad channel through which God allows the gospel to reach eyes and ears all over the world.”
Live coverage of the Reformation service is available on Streams, WELS’ Internet media network at streams.wels.net. Another special service, celebrating 50 years of WELS mission work in Japan, can be viewed on Streams Nov. 2 at 9 p.m. CDT. The liturgy will be conducted in Japanese, and former WELS president Karl Gurgel will deliver the sermon in English.
