An essential for ministry progress and perseverance is the presence of a godly group of advisors providing oversight for the work of the ministry.
This November 2018 our ITA update is grateful to offer some highlights from our recent meeting of the advisory board / council in Sicily during the second week of the month, November 13th through the 16th.
All of the men involved, Carey Hardy, Rick Holland, Shane Koehler, Christian Andresen, and Jean-Marie Fahmy, left very busy agendas (their own pastoral and training ministries at home) to travel some distance, overseas for the majority, in order to assist the ministry from its primary location, Sicily, southern Italy.
Each man brings with him to ITA’s training in Italy not only invaluable theological depth and knowledge of the Word but tremendous experience in pastoral ministry, and in training men to be Bible expositors specifically. Added to these outstanding qualifications is an enduring love for the Church in Italy.
Our recent week in Sicily thus focused principally on renewing ITA’s overall commitment to theological and pastoral training in Italy. We understand that men have to be trained for the pulpit and for the people (they are to be preachers and shepherds).
In Italy, we also understand, and have come to the conclusion, that the Church itself needs biblical training. Beyond men for the pulpit and the pastorate, all the members of a local church, both men and women, at a more basic level, need to be strengthened in sound theology and doctrine.
Hence, through the help of our sister school in Berlin, Germany, The European Bible Training Center (EBTC), we resolved to implement a new curriculum beginning in 2019 to meet the need of the overall church, local churches. This curriculum consists in its first year of a Bible Survey class (OT & NT) for the church wide. Our prayer is that, in addition to strengthening the local church in Italy, we hope to draw from its ranks gifted men for the pulpit and pastoral ministry.
Finally, an additional highlight, was simply the rich fellowship and unity that developed during the week between the men of the advisory council, the ITA administrative team in Messina, Sebastian Mendez and Simone Marini, and the ITA professors (missionary church planters in Italy) that joined our meeting midway.
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