Understanding the lack of churches in this historically rich nation and the call of Christ to plant them
written by robert krause
Italia is an extraordinary nation. Her history is not centuries but millennia old. The cultural impact of her traditions, religion, and kitchen can be found all over the world. And yet, with so much global influence, she has been little influenced by the gospel itself. The majority of the over 60 million people who reside within her borders would consider themselves religious, but like the decorated masks of Venice, their religious history is more of a cultural covering to hide their dark and lost hearts. Indeed, there is very little personal knowledge of God and His Scriptures which leads us to the grim estimation that the overwhelming majority of over 50,000 built-up areas (ranging from a cluster of houses to large cities) remain without a healthy, Bible-teaching, gospel-formed church for their people.
This indeed is the main crisis of Italy — the lack of gospel-formed communities where people might see others from their same neighborhood actively following the Lord Jesus Christ so they, too, might also begin to inquire about the gospel of grace.
It is very easy to read this and have a first impression of a “country that is too closed and too hard to reach.” However, the Apostle Paul himself showed us through his own ministry that such a country has not existed since the time of the Resurrection of Jesus. In fact, the gospel works in an upside-down and missional way by calling us to even greater challenges and opportunities through what we initially might see as impossible. The work of church-planting in Italy is arduous, yes, but it is not impossible because of our Lord’s heart for the Italian people and His right to rule over them.
More specifically, the church-planters in Italy face an embedded, Roman Catholic mindset. This does not mean that everyone they meet is a practicing Catholic, rather, this means that whoever was raised in Italy grew up with a cultural, religiously-Roman identity. To be Italian is to be Catholic and not the other way around. From birth, the standard Italian learns “all things Roman”. This identity leads most people to think of the Church as an institution or a religious business more than the concepts of a family or a spiritual community. It also leads them to become post-Catholics believing mostly that there is no need for the Church (apart from holidays and funerals), sin is just committing a simple mistake, and God is going to welcome everybody to Heaven anyway as long as they didn’t kill anybody or similar while on Earth (a form of universalism). For those who remain more devoted to Catholicism, they are strongly led into an adoration of the mother figure of Mary who vastly overshadows her son in power and glory. Therefore, the challenge for any church planter is to patiently learn these cultural, syncretistic, and universalist forces behind the pretense of authentic faith.
Planting churches in Italy means learning to speak and practice the 5 solas of the Reformation into the modern-mind and to commend the biblical Jesus to the Italians more than a Roman one.
An added challenge resulting from the Roman mindset is the way that authority is practiced and viewed. In Italy, authority is hierarchical and top-down in every sphere of society meaning you will always feel like you are placed under someone’s thumb. So, the Italian church-planters have to learn an almost entirely new way to lead their churches from what they have seen all of their lives. The Lord requires servant-shepherds who channel His gracious authority whereas the popular Italian approach to authority is to lead with a heavy hand, hold onto power, or to avoid any role of leadership at all even though they might be very capable and qualified. If churches are to be planted, they must also be healthy churches led by men who sacrifice their lives and love the Bride as Jesus loves her.
However, in numerous regions of Italy, there are very few men (if any in some regions) who have modeled what it looks like to plant a movement of compelling, healthy churches. There are very few seasoned men we can point our new planters toward to observe and follow in their footsteps, and this means that much of the work to be done is pioneering into towns and cities which have remained content in their sin for centuries. This will require men and women with a long-term vision for the cultivation of biblical truth and gospel living to be perpetually presented inside of a dominant, works-righteousness culture.
Have you considered that you might be one of those men or women? We hope that your reaction to reading this will not be to abandon Italy but to be burdened for her. This is a Kingdom enterprise and you may be able to join us by being one of our regular intercessors for those men and women who are pioneering deep into their culture for Christ. You may have been blessed with resources and your desire is to fuel church-planting through what the Lord has graciously given to you. You might also consider raising awareness and assistance where you are for the growing churches in Italy. Or, your desire might be to take a vision trip and to come and see what it would be like to join a strategic, planting team so the Lord Jesus might have a glorious harvest one day from the cities of Italy. However the Lord may be burdening you through this challenge for Italy, please connect with us and tell us about it. Our church-planting teams are extremely grateful for any help they might receive.