Church Planting (and great pizza) in Torino, Italy

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Ben Kreps:

Welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our Executive Director, Mark. Guys that follow this podcast know a few weeks ago we talked about a Mandarin speaking church plant that's happening in South Carolina. We've also talked about how Living Hope Church, our church, is planting an English speaking church, of course, in the Central Pennsylvania area. But there is "all manner" of church planting activity happening now in Sovereign Grace. Isn't that right?

Mark Prater:

There is; in fact, we have 20 church plants planned over the next couple of years. And if you just look at those church plants, there is not a cookie cutter model that we are following because we're planting churches not only in different languages in the states, but also in different nations, in different cultures. And what works in terms of a church plant model doesn't fit all of those church plants. Now there are principles that we use that every church planter wants to use, but, it's not a cookie cutter approach. And I think that's a really good thing, because it keeps us very dependent upon God. It puts us on our knees and we need to pray for these 20 church plants that we have planned for the next few years. Pray for Perry's (Wong) church plant in the north side of Charleston, South Carolina, that Mandarin speaking church that you mentioned; your church plant, Ben, that you're sending out in September to plant on the west side of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Pray for that church plant. And one of those church plants that we have planned over the next couple of years is just beginning to get some momentum. And that one is in Europe, actually.

Ben Kreps:

Yeah. Excellent. I just love how we are eager to see the gospel advance and are then eager and willing to engage in all manner of church planting and activity, because Jesus is worthy of every effort to make his name known across this globe. So we're planting in Europe. Tell us about this Europe church plant.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, the Europe church plant will actually be in Italy. Many of our listeners might remember Ed O'Mara who was a senior pastor of a Sovereign Grace Church in the Arnold, Maryland area. He and his wife Robin and their family moved a little over a year ago to Italy with the purpose of planting a Sovereign Grace Church in that nation and to hopefully plant more churches in Italy over the next several years. They've been doing cross-cultural training, obviously language training, becoming fluent in Italian. And Ed just recently sent an update and was talking about how he's gotta take his driver's exam again. He felt like a teenager back in high school taking his driver's exam to be able to drive in Italy.

And they are gonna be joined by Rocco and Maddie Dalia, Italians, that are currently at the Pastors College. They will graduate in June and move to Italy to join the O'Maras in planting this church. And they've already targeted a city in the north part of Italy; Torino. And their desire to plant in Italy is really one that is filled with a lot of faith. Here's why: there's over 60 million people that live in Italy and statistics say less than one and a half percent of the people know the truth of the gospel. And, less than 5% of the cities and villages in Italy have gospel preaching churches. So as the Dalias and the O' Maras prayed, they zeroed in on Torino because there aren't very many gospel preaching churches there.

Torino happens to be the fourth largest city in the nation. There's a large university there, there's several corporate headquarters that are based there, and they've actually zeroed in on a particular neighborhood where they plan to plant. I believe Lingotto is the district or neighborhood where they zeroed in on the plant. And that positions in a good cross section to reach many adults who may be working in the corporate world, but it's close enough to university, they can reach students as well. So they are busy looking for a home there. They hope to actually start services either this fall or early winter in 2024. And I mentioned this to you because as we just mentioned a moment ago, please pray for the church plant in Torino, Italy and If you would pray for the O'Maras and for the Dalias.

We are very dependent upon the Lord because we've never planted a church in Italy as a family of churches. We want to do that together through prayer. But also, if you'd like to financially support this church plant, there's a couple ways that you can do that. You can give to the Europe Development Fund on the Give page of the Sovereign Grace website, because some of the funds for this church plant will come from the Europe Development Fund. We also have a Global Church Planting Fund dedicated to church planting. You can give to that on the Give page of our website as well. Those are a couple of resources we will tap for financial support and if you'd like to give to those, that would be very meaningful to the OMaras and to the Dalias.

And let me just end with this just as a reminder, and I think it's important for us to hear this again and again. We plant churches, not to grow Sovereign Grace. We're not interested in numbers. I mentioned numbers earlier to give you an idea of what's happening, but we're not really interested in numbers. We plant churches to reach the lost with the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And Ben, we are recording this podcast the day before good Friday, the day we remember that Jesus Christ shed his precious blood for all of our sins. And it's that good news that we must declare. It's why we want to continue to be a family of churches who have decided to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's why we plant churches and that's why I'm asking to please join us in praying to reach those who don't know Christ with the good news of the gospel. Not only in Charleston, not only in the west side of Harrisburg, but in Torino, Italy as well.

Ben Kreps:

Yeah. Excellent. I had the joy of meeting Rocco at the Pastors College earlier this year, connected with him a little bit, heard about what they're up to. And so shout out, (I don't know if they pay attention to the podcast), to Rocco and Ed. God bless you guys. We're praying for you. It is gratifying to be a part of a family of churches where we are making every effort because we love the lost and because we love the glory of Christ. Whether it's an immigrant community in the U.S. or sending men from the U.S. to plant in Europe, whether it's equipping and helping indigenous church planters, wherever it may be; we are up for participating in it because Jesus is worthy and the gospel must reach the lost.

So thank you, Mark, for the update. And we thank you for all the efforts that are being made throughout Sovereign Grace globally when it comes to church planting. Thanks for watching or reading this. We'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.