ITA History

The Italian Theological Academy (ITA) is a pastoral-training ministry born out of the need to introduce the Italian evangelical church in Italy to expository preaching. In this light, Aurora Mission, a missions agency based in Florida but with Italian heritage birthed ITA in 2004 as The School of Expository Preaching. It was designed as a modular (part-time) pastoral training academy located in Sicily, Italy. Italian pastors and elders, bi-vocational church leaders, would travel to Sicily from all over Italy and stay in a remote facility for two weeks out of the year to attend a two year expository preaching program. The school was received with initial entusiasm from numerous churches and church leaders in Italy. It soon grew to become the Italian Theological Academy rather than the School of Expository Preaching. This growth consisted mainly of the addition of several theological disciplines besides expository preaching such as Bible Survey, Systematic Theology, and Biblical Counseling. Financial challenges and doctrinal controversies (particularly in the form of a growing resistance to the doctrines of election and predestination from local churches in Italy) led the leadership to re-visit and re-constitute the ITA in 2014. No longer under the umbrella of Aurora Mission, the ITA was re-established as a non-profit organization in Italy based out of the Bible Church of Messina in the city of Messina, Italy. Both an administrative and philosophical re-founding took place.

At present the ITA serves local churches throughout Italy by holding expository preaching classes locally in different parts of the country. In addition to its extension work in expository preaching, the ITA holds advanced level classes in Bible and Theology and Bible Exposition at its main location at the Bible Church of Messina.