The review of ITA’s ministry looks back at the close of November 2021 on a period of increasing opportunities in Rome and beyond to the rest of Italy, and even Europe. For this we are thankful, and yet, ITA is aware of the fact that they (these opportunities to serve) have not come without patient trust in the Lord.
We are now close to the year and a half mark of our transition from Sicily. It has been an adventure no doubt and continues to be a time of significant learning and maturing. It is still a period of waiting.
Perhaps, one area of particular encouragement is that associated to the reputation that our training ministry has among several of the churches in Rome and Italy (the latter referring to other areas of the country we are working in or that our students simply reach through word of mouth).
For instance, our recent in-person classes in Rome and in the city of Mantua/Mantova (northern Italy) earlier this November experienced very helpful feedback from the men and women who attended.
There is an overall appreciation for the manner in which the Word is taught with faithfulness to God’s intended meaning with respect to it, to each passage and book. It is, in light of this, simply remarkable to watch the Word work even during the classroom lecture (and class discussion) when Scripture is handled rightly.
Students are challenged to deeper reflection on how that particular principle before them from Scripture pierces and penetrates their minds and hearts in the way of Hebrews 4:12. The lecture, in this regard, is never just a lecture.
By the power of the Word accurately interpreted, the training becomes a moment of moulding and enhanced disciple making. We all (teachers and students) come out less focused on ourselves and more focused on God, Christ, and the mission bestowed to us in the great commission.
We are understanding more so through such experiences that this instruction is clearly not our doing but the Word exposited “in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thess. 1:5). Hence, humbled by God’s grace through us, ITA rejoices! So do our ministry partners in Italy, churches and believers both.
There is such a need for the above especially at a time like this: government restrictions and fear from the media continue to assault the church in Italy.
Daily we seem to be driven to an impotence humanly speaking by virtue of all the continued measures that wage war on what is most precious to the church, its gathering for worship. Many in the church here appear to be completely taken by the panic and thereby succumb to it, attending to the limitations religiously even at the cost of their own body’s edification not to mention the harm that behavior does to evangelism.
That is why, on a final note in this update, we have decided to hold our next pastors’ conference in late January of 2022 on that particular theme: contending earnestly for the gathering.
May the Lord allow it to come to pass and may ITA continue to be a blessed instrument for the Italian church.