I finally realized how counter-cultural Jeremiah’s statement actually was. The writer of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah saying that the Lord will write his laws into the hearts of his people. He will write them in their minds.
This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.
Hebrews 10:16
Within the book of Jeremiah, he actually goes on to finish this covenant statement by saying “I will be their God and they will be my people.”
This should have been a pretty heavy statement if you were an Israelite reading the words of Jeremiah.
Why?
Because the Jews already had the laws of God written down. Moses had taken the words of God and written them down. The laws were, in fact, written in stone. From a human perspective, it doesn’t get much more permanent than that.
And yet, Jeremiah is now saying that his words – God’s words, God’s laws – are going to be written into his people’s hearts, into his people’s minds. Neither God nor Jeremiah are simply referring to the Israelite people any longer. God is referring to the people who truly have God’s word living within them, both within their hearts and their minds. Through the Holy Spirit, they would receive God’s laws living within them.
This is a brand new kingdom. He isn’t just referring to the kingdom of Israel any longer, he is referring to a whole new kingdom, the kingdom of God. It is this group of people who will be the ones who will carry God’s word, and it is this people who will have God as their God and they will be his people.
But who are these people? If we back up into the verse before, it says that the Holy Spirit testified through Jeremiah:
The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this.
Hebrews 10:15
So it is those who have the Holy Spirit who are the ones who will receive these laws. The Holy Spirit writes them on our hearts and minds. The Holy Spirit is he who is doing this work. It isn’t a written law. It is the law that lives by the word. Or even better said, it is the law that lives by the Word, with a capital W.
Jesus Christ, himself, is the Word of God and those who have been saved and live with Christ as both their Lord and Savior have been purchased out of the kingdom of darkness to come into the kingdom of God. These people are the ones who have received the law of God written on their hearts and minds.
When we have been wronged, the feelings, the emotions, can run very deep. When someone has done something wrong against us, we want justice for them. We want them to pay. We want retribution.
But when we remember what God has done for us, another side should emerge. Grace and mercy must also be considered.
I think that is the case with Philemon and Onesimus. Onesimus was a servant – in reality, a slave – in Philemon’s house. Philemon was a believer that, through an interaction at some point in time, had come to faith in Christ through Paul.
Yet Onesimus had shown up in Rome where Paul was a prisoner and had become a helper to Paul. Through their interaction, Onesimus also became a believer, but was now returning back to Philemon with this letter from Paul who was asking Philemon for mercy upon Onesimus.
So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me.
Philemon 1:17-18
Paul does two things in this case. First, he sends Onesimus back to face justice for what he has done. He had become useless to Philemon and he had run away from Philemon’s house. He may have even stolen from Philemon. He should pay. Onesimus should receive justice for what he had done.
Yet, on the other hand, Onesimus had become a believer and had changed. He became just as Philemon had become. He now followed and served Christ.
We can only begin to imagine what Philemon must have thought when he saw Onesimus returning back to his house. Maybe he felt those emotions in a desire for justice for Onesimus. Maybe he actually wanted to harm him. Maybe he was ready to do even worse for what Onesimus had done against him.
But Paul, through his letter, pled for mercy for Onesimus. He reminded Philemon that Philemon even owed him, Paul, his very life.
Why? Because Paul had prevented him from getting hit on the road?
No, it wasn’t this type of saving that Paul did for him. Instead, Paul had led him to eternal life in Christ, and it was with this perspective and the value of knowing Christ in this way that Philemon owed his life to Paul.
So, because Philemon had been given grace, he should also give grace to others.
This situation is a direct practical application to the parable that Jesus told of the unforgiving servant:
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
“At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
Matthew 18:21-35
Each of us, if we are in Christ, have had our debts cancelled. Our sin is a great debt that hangs around each of our necks but Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross was payment for that debt. It was a cancellation of the debt caused by our sin and God has given us great grace and mercy as a result. There has been justice, but that justice is has been placed upon Jesus instead of upon us.
So we also must forgive. We must do what is unjust and give grace and mercy because we have been given grace and mercy. We must overcome the emotions and feelings, our desire to exact revenge when we are feeling the need for justice, and instead offer forgiveness to others. We were forgiven and so we must offer forgiveness as well.
The disciples had come to Jesus to ask him who was greatest in the kingdom of God, but Jesus helped them to understand just how little they actually understood and how the kingdom worked. He said that they must become like a little child, and they must not cause that child to stumble or lose being part of the kingdom, or else they themselves would be severely punished.
Jesus explained that his Father does not want anyone to be lost, neither they, the disciples, nor any other person. He wants everyone to be saved, and so we must do everything that we can to bring people into connection with him.
Jesus said that the way in which we must do this is to go to the people who are sinning. Speak to them directly, pointing out their fault just between the two of you. Hopefully they will listen and you will have won them over, having won them back into the kingdom.
But if not, then try again. Take a couple of witnesses to talk with them. Hopefully they will listen.
But if not, try yet again! Take them and go before the entire church, the whole community of believers.
But still, if they won’t listen, at that point, you must put the person out of the community.
If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
Matthew 18:15-17
This is, of course, a very simple methodology prescribed by Jesus to confront people in their their sin. First to the person directly, then with witnesses, and then finally before the entire church community. In this way, the person can understand their sin and be held to account for it by many people. The point, of course, is not merely to hold the person to account, but instead that they would be won over. We desire that we would have the same desires that God would have, that none would be lost and that each can be won over and be brought back into the kingdom of God.
In chapter 3 of Nehemiah, there are 38 individual workers and 42 different groups of people who are mentioned as being among those who did the work. Nehemiah is not among those who are named. We don’t know if he did any of the construction work, or if he didn’t, but he isn’t named amongst those who did the building. Instead, Nehemiah called the people into service. He called them to do the work.
Some came from towns a certain distance away or from a certain district. However, many of them simply stepped out of their homes and did the work that was right there in front of them to do:
The repairs next to him were made by the priests from the surrounding region. Beyond them, Benjamin and Hasshub made repairs in front of their house; and next to them, Azariah son of Maaseiah, the son of Ananiah, made repairs beside his house.
Nehemiah 3:22-23
So we see that the work that is done by the people that come from other areas is important. But we also see that it is important to simply do the work that needs to be done right within your own neighborhood.
God has a work that he wants to have done. In our case today, the work is to make disciples of Jesus who will go on to make more disciples. It is a work that everyone is called to do, a work that everyone is to be a part of. Just as Nehemiah called all of the people into the work of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, so we each also have been called by Jesus to enter into the work of making disciples as Jesus builds his kingdom.
I’m listening to an audio book, a reading of John Piper’s book, Don’t Waste Your Life. I’m only a couple of chapters in, but I thought that the way that he opened the book was not only appropriate, but spoke to me because I have thought similar thoughts.
He said that his father, who was a traveling preacher, told a story about an elderly man that the local church had prayed for over many years. He would come to church, but he had never accepted Christ, never turned his life over to Jesus.
But one day after having preached, the man came to the front, took his father’s hand and believed.
But having done that, the man looked back at his life and realized that what he had done was for naught. There was no meaning.
“I’ve wasted it! I’ve wasted it!”, the man said.
For many years, I thought I had done the same thing. I had made money. I had acquired many things. I had scaled the ladder in my job. But in the end, what was it? It was nothing, nothing that would last. It was a waste.
And so I couldn’t continue in that way. I couldn’t continue down that same road. I didn’t want to come to the same point that this man had come to. I didn’t want to say that I had wasted my life. That was not an option, so we changed, and changed dramatically.
Why is it that we don’t seek meaning? Why is it that we prefer that which is material and that which is temporary. The only things that are meaningful and lasting are the things that are those that are eternal. These are the things that are worth pursuing. These are the things that are worth giving our lives to. All else is nothing but a waste.
Da un po’ di tempo pensavo che fosse importante scrivere in modo più dettagliato le ragioni dell’espansione del lavoro di Agape Bici, un progetto che abbiamo intrapreso negli ultimi mesi. Ho pensato che avrei potuto provare a scrivere diversi post, ma più ho iniziato a scrivere, più penso che sarebbe meglio se creassi semplicemente un post più lungo qui per esporre tutto il mio pensiero in una sola pagina. In questo modo, spero di creare un insieme coeso di pensieri tra tutte le varie parti che ho in mente, invece di tentare di mettere insieme diverse parti in un insieme coeso. Vediamo come andrà a finire… 😉
Se stai leggendo quello che ho scritto e vuoi passare a una certa parte, ecco una serie di link che ti permetteranno di andare alla sezione che vuoi leggere:
La situazione – Cosa ci ha portato qui in Sicilia? Qual è il contesto in cui abbiamo deciso di rimanere qui e di lavorare a lungo termine?
Il nostro arrivo e il nostro lavoro – Si tratta di un approfondimento teologico su come vediamo la nostra presenza e il nostro lavoro in Sicilia.
Una nota politica – L’immigrazione è un tema scottante in questo momento. Vorrei soffermarmi un attimo sulla politica che circonda il lavoro che svolgiamo.
Una storia del nostro lavoro – Questa è più che altro una descrizione pratica del lavoro. Non si tratta di un racconto storico, ma di un tentativo di darvi un’idea di dove siamo arrivati.
La conduttura del Grande Mandato – Qual è il nostro obiettivo come organizzazione? Per cosa stiamo lavorando, pregando e cercando di costruire?
La squadra Ten:Two – Come possiamo mobilitare più operai e prepararli a entrare nel campo della raccolta?
Agape Bici – È il ministero delle biciclette che abbiamo aperto a Catania nel 2020. Vediamo questo lavoro come parte integrante per aiutarci ad aprire nuove chiese e lanciare nuovi lavoratori mentre andiamo avanti qui a Catania.
Chiesa – Abbiamo avviato una chiesa in cui stiamo ricevendo operai e da cui stiamo lanciando operai. La nostra visione è che questa chiesa si replichi, sia a Catania che fuori Catania, e che pianti molte altre chiese.
Credo che il punto di partenza migliore sia fare un passo indietro e parlare della missione generale di Search Party e di ciò che stiamo cercando di fare qui in Sicilia e oltre. Partiamo dal motivo per cui siamo venuti qui.
La situazione
Nel 2015, un mio amico mi ha fatto conoscere la crisi dei rifugiati nel Mediterraneo, dove persone provenienti da tutta l’Africa, dal Medio Oriente e dall’Asia stavano arrivando in Europa attraverso varie rotte e porti. Molti di loro passavano dalla Libia utilizzando vecchie barche da pesca che i contrabbandieri e i trafficanti di esseri umani prendevano per portare le persone in Europa. Prendevano i soldi delle persone, promettendo loro una vita migliore in Europa, e le mettevano in mare con poco più che una speranza e una preghiera.
Per darti un’idea di ciò di cui sto parlando, potresti trovare interessanti questi articoli e video:
Anche se entrambi gli articoli dei media risalgono al 2015, la situazione continua ancora oggi. Ecco l’ultima situazione in Italia secondo l’Alto Commissariato delle Nazioni Unite per i Rifugiati. Vedrete che anche l’anno scorso, il 2023, è stato il più alto degli ultimi anni, dopo che il governo aveva adottato misure significative, comprese quelle definite “ballare con il diavolo“, nel tentativo di fermare o rallentare significativamente il flusso di migranti in arrivo in Europa.
Il nostro arrivo e il nostro lavoro
Arrivando in Europa, ci siamo resi conto che c’erano pochi operai che si occupavano della situazione in Sicilia e nell’Italia meridionale, e ancora meno che consideravano le questioni spirituali che questa situazione avrebbe presentato. Così, venendo in Sicilia, abbiamo cercato di guardare a questa situazione di rifugiati con gli occhi dell’apostolo Paolo quando disse quanto segue agli Ateniesi:
Egli ha tratto da uno solo tutte le nazioni degli uomini perché abitino su tutta la faccia della terra, avendo determinato le epoche loro assegnate e i confini della loro abitazione, affinché cerchino Dio, se mai giungano a trovarlo, come a tastoni, benché egli non sia lontano da ciascuno di noi. Difatti in lui viviamo, ci muoviamo e siamo, come anche alcuni vostri poeti hanno detto: “Poiché siamo anche sua discendenza”.
Atti 17:26-28
Nel caso della crisi dei rifugiati del Mediterraneo, come in molti altri movimenti di persone in tutto il mondo, vediamo che le linee di confine di cui parlava Paolo si stanno spostando e, pensando a queste situazioni, ci siamo chiesti il perché. Ci sono diverse ragioni, naturalmente, tra cui la guerra, la povertà, la fame e il semplice desiderio di una vita migliore, ma ci siamo resi conto che se non avessimo considerato ciò che Paolo ha detto qui in Atti 17, ci saremmo persi qualcosa di importante, anzi, di fondamentale.
Paolo dice che Dio ha segnato i tempi stabiliti nella storia per tutti i popoli affinché lo conoscano, lo cerchino, lo trovino. Dio non è lontano, ma mette le persone intorno a noi per aiutarci a trovarlo.
E allora, cosa sta succedendo nel caso della crisi dei rifugiati? Le linee di confine si stanno spostando. E perché? Crediamo che sia perché Dio stesso si sta facendo conoscere. Vuole che coloro che non lo conoscono lo conoscano, e quindi Dio intende usare il suo popolo per farsi conoscere.
Questo è il motivo per cui abbiamo trasferito la nostra famiglia in Sicilia nel 2016. Siamo venuti a Catania per poter essere parte di ciò che crediamo Dio stia facendo oggi nel mondo, facendosi conoscere da persone che non lo hanno conosciuto. La maggior parte delle persone che arrivano in Europa provengono da luoghi che hanno opposto resistenza al Vangelo. La maggior parte proviene da nazioni musulmane. La maggior parte proviene da quella che viene definita la finestra 10/40, e di fatto la Sicilia stessa si trova proprio all’interno di quella finestra, rendendola una posizione strategica sia dal punto di vista della migrazione di persone che entrano in Europa, sia dal punto di vista di raggiungere il resto di quella finestra.
Una nota politica
Non vorrei interrompere il flusso di ciò che sto cercando di comunicare qui, ma l’immigrazione è una questione politica importante in questo momento, quindi penso che sia importante per me prendermi un momento per affrontare l’elefante politico nella stanza, come si dice. In realtà seguo la politica abbastanza da vicino. Mi interessa e osservo i movimenti politici sia negli Stati Uniti sia dove viviamo noi, in Italia e altrove.
D’altra parte, so anche che la politica non porta mai un cambiamento vero e duraturo. Lavorare in politica o desiderare un cambiamento politico non cambia il cuore di nessuno. La politica è soprattutto potere qui sulla terra, ma questa terra sta passando. È temporanea.
Pensando alla situazione dell’immigrazione in cui ci siamo trovati qui in Sicilia, non ho potuto fare a meno di ripensare a una situazione simile che si sta verificando al confine meridionale del mio Paese negli Stati Uniti. Non la vedo come una cosa positiva. Penso che sia sbagliato permettere alle persone di infrangere le leggi di un Paese, semplicemente non facendo rispettare le leggi già scritte. Ho sempre pensato che, per quanto riguarda l’immigrazione, dovremmo avere le leggi che abbiamo e farle rispettare, oppure cambiare specificamente la legge. Non diciamo una cosa e ne facciamo un’altra.
Quindi non siamo venuti a lavorare in mezzo al flusso migratorio perché siamo necessariamente d’accordo con quello che fanno i rifugiati e gli immigrati. Non siamo d’accordo sul fatto che debbano semplicemente presentarsi sulle coste italiane e dire “siamo qui”, aspettandosi che il governo si prenda cura di loro.
Ma, d’altra parte, questo è ciò che è accaduto e continua ad accadere, e le persone sono qui. Questa è la realtà. E così, guardando a questa realtà e vedendo da dove provengono queste persone, abbiamo dovuto guardare la situazione con occhi molto diversi, gli occhi del Regno di Dio. Guardando la situazione con questa prospettiva, consideriamo la provenienza di queste persone e riconosciamo che non hanno compreso la verità su Cristo. Non hanno capito il piano di Dio per loro. Non sanno che Cristo ha già dato se stesso per loro, per strapparli dal regno delle tenebre e renderli parte del Regno di Dio.
E così, per questo motivo, siamo venuti in Sicilia e ci siamo inseriti nel flusso dell’immigrazione in Europa. Non perché ci piaccia quello che è successo e quello che sta continuando a succedere, ma perché vogliamo essere parte dell’opportunità di vedere il Regno di Dio espandersi tra i non raggiunti, coloro che non hanno mai sentito il Vangelo, in una parte strategica del mondo che ha un accesso geografico relativamente vicino e relativamente poco costoso a gran parte del resto del mondo non raggiunto.
Storia del nostro lavoro
Da quando ci siamo trasferiti a Catania, abbiamo lavorato principalmente per raggiungere gli immigrati e i rifugiati. Inoltre, però, abbiamo anche lavorato per formare e cercare italiani siciliani che lavorassero con noi, sia per raggiungere i rifugiati e gli immigrati, sia per raggiungere altri siciliani che conoscevano.
Abbiamo cercato di evangelizzare e discepolare nuovi credenti e di formare gli operatori esistenti. Abbiamo tradotto in italiano il materiale di formazione di Zume e abbiamo scritto il nostro materiale di formazione, traducendo anche quello in italiano per riflettere più da vicino il processo di discepolato che usiamo qui a Catania, basato sul processo di discepolato e di impianto di chiese dei Quattro Campi.
Abbiamo reclutato in modo massiccio operai missionari che si trasferissero in Sicilia per lavorare con noi, arrivando ad avere fino a otto famiglie diverse che lavoravano insieme, per poi ridursi, attraverso un processo e una serie di anni, a tre famiglie negli ultimi 2-3 anni. Per fare questo, abbiamo e continuiamo a gestire programmi di gruppo a breve termine e stage estivi nel tentativo di continuare a reclutare lavoratori.
La maggior parte del lavoro si è concentrata sulle camminate di preghiera, sulla condivisione del Vangelo, sul battesimo di nuovi credenti e sull’insegnamento a coloro che abbiamo raggiunto a tornare nelle loro comunità con il Vangelo.
La nostra équipe ha ora un centro nel centro di Catania dove gestiamo un negozio di biciclette, guidiamo una piccola chiesa di persone provenienti da diverse nazioni e offriamo regolarmente studi biblici e formazione al discepolato. Inoltre, i nostri compagni di squadra hanno anche un ministero di orto comunitario sia nella città di Catania che in un terreno di proprietà di una delle nostre chiese partner.
Utilizzando il nostro centro di Catania, abbiamo anche sviluppato un programma di formazione sul campo missionario per aiutare i missionari in arrivo in Italia a imparare a vivere e lavorare in modo interculturale utilizzando il processo dei Quattro Campi. Fortunatamente, Dio ci ha anche dato l’opportunità di usare il programma con altri missionari provenienti da nazioni non raggiunte, per rimandarli sul campo dopo averli addestrati a fare discepoli e a piantare chiese secondo il processo che usiamo qui a Catania.
Infine, abbiamo estensioni del nostro lavoro anche in altre parti d’Italia e stiamo lavorando per continuare a formare e inviare lavoratori, sia che si tratti di lavoratori missionari in arrivo dagli Stati Uniti o da altre nazioni anglofone, sia che si tratti di lavoratori italiani o di qualsiasi altra località.
Siamo stati veramente benedetti da ciò che abbiamo visto fare da Dio, sia in noi che attraverso di noi fino a questo momento!
La conduttura del Grande Mandato
Qualche anno fa, ho visto un video creato da Troy Cooper per la rete NoPlaceLeft e mi ha fatto pensare che questa è la visione che vorrei promuovere anche per il nostro lavoro, compresa la visione primaria di Search Party, l’organizzazione che abbiamo avviato nel 2019. Ecco il video che ha realizzato:
Il video parla dello sviluppo di un movimento di discepoli e di chiese nella nostra zona di origine, per poi inviarli nel campo successivo, dove altri gruppi di persone non raggiunte possono essere raggiunti dal Vangelo, facendo più discepoli e piantando più chiese.
Questo è ciò che crediamo che Dio voglia fare attraverso di noi. Vogliamo portare persone dal nostro Paese d’origine a lavorare con noi qui. In questo senso, stiamo creando una conduttura dalle nostre chiese d’origine ai non raggiunti dove ci troviamo.
Ma non finisce qui. Infatti, il lavoro è solo all’inizio. Da qui, infatti, vogliamo inviare i discepoli che abbiamo creato in altri campi. Lo vediamo accadere quando lanciamo i lavoratori da Catania in altre parti d’Italia e d’Europa, ma soprattutto quando lanciamo i lavoratori nel resto della finestra 10/40, dove possono essere raggiunti altri gruppi di persone non raggiunte. Qui a Catania siamo in contatto con i non raggiunti, ma possiamo raggiungere un numero ancora maggiore di persone inviando lavoratori nei Paesi d’origine delle persone che sono arrivate qui in Europa.
Il nostro desiderio è quindi quello di creare una conduttura del Grande Mandato verso Catania e di sviluppare una conduttura del Grande Mandato anche fuori da Catania. Per fare questo, crediamo che dovremo collegare insieme alcuni pezzi di un puzzle strategico, e questo mi porta al primo pezzo del puzzle: Mobilitare e preparare gli operai.
La squadra Ten:Two
In Luca, capitolo 10, Gesù invia settantadue dei suoi discepoli per annunciare e dimostrare il Regno di Dio. Questa storia mi ha sempre affascinato per il modo in cui Gesù invia i suoi discepoli, ma per i miei scopi in questo articolo voglio concentrarmi su una certa parte della storia.
Mentre Gesù inviava i discepoli, disse:
E diceva loro: «La mèsse è grande, ma gli operai sono pochi; pregate dunque il Signore della mèsse perché spinga degli operai nella sua mèsse.
Luca 10:2
Gesù stava mandando i suoi discepoli, ma la prima cosa che dice loro di fare è di pregare per avere più operai perché la messe è abbondante.
Domanda da considerare: Da dove verranno questi operai che i discepoli devono pregare?
I discepoli sono gli unici operai a questo punto. Non ci sono pastori. Non ci sono missionari. Non c’è nessun altro. Sono solo loro.
Ovviamente, l’unico posto da cui potrebbero provenire gli operai sarebbe il campo di raccolta stesso. Quindi, il campo di raccolta in cui Gesù manda i discepoli è anche la fonte degli operai.
Ora, ai nostri giorni, abbiamo pastori e missionari e molti altri tipi di lavoratori, ma la messe è ancora abbondante e gli operai sono ancora pochi. Quindi, dal nostro punto di vista, preghiamo per avere più operai e lavoriamo per prepararli e inviarli. Questo è l’obiettivo della squadra Ten:Two. Pregare per gli operai, mobilitarli e inviarli. Che vengano dagli Stati Uniti, dall’Europa o da altre aree non raggiunte… Che provengano da ambienti credenti o non credenti… Il nostro desiderio è che il Vangelo venga predicato e che vengano fatti discepoli di Gesù tra le persone di tutte le nazioni che stiamo toccando qui a Catania.
Come già detto, abbiamo avuto programmi di squadra a breve termine, programmi di tirocinio e programmi di formazione missionaria che abbiamo utilizzato in diversi contesti. Stiamo procedendo per aggregare e riunire questi programmi in una squadra che chiameremo La squadra Ten:Two, che lavorerà per pregare e mobilitare gli operai, formarli e mandarli a svolgere il lavoro. Questa sarà una parte significativa dello sviluppo della pipeline della Grande Mandato qui, continuando i programmi formalizzati per ricevere e inviare lavoratori nel campo di raccolta, e nel frattempo continuare a sviluppare discepoli a livello locale per fare lo stesso, inviandoli nel campo di raccolta di Catania, o mandandoli fuori da Catania per fare il lavoro anche altrove.
Agape Bici
Nel mezzo della liberazione dalle chiusure pandemiche del 2020, abbiamo aperto un nuovo centro comunitario nel centro di Catania. Inizialmente era la sede di diverse attività, tra cui un negozio di biciclette, ma all’inizio dell’anno scorso abbiamo deciso di concentrare i nostri sforzi per essere semplicemente – e solo – un negozio di biciclette. Da quel negozio di biciclette possiamo ovviamente svolgere altre attività, ma invece di essere conosciuti come un luogo in cui si svolgono molte attività, abbiamo deciso di trasformarlo in un’unica attività dal punto di vista di ciò che gli altri vedono.
Per questo motivo, abbiamo rimosso le pareti che separavano il negozio di biciclette dal resto del centro e abbiamo creato un unico grande negozio. In questo luogo abbiamo riparato biciclette, ricevuto biciclette in donazione per ripararle e distribuirle gratuitamente, e fatto outreach dal negozio, portando le creazioni dei nostri compagni di squadra in piazza per entrare in contatto con le persone attraverso il divertimento su “crazy bikes”, biciclette che probabilmente non dovrebbero essere in strada ma che sono divertenti da portare in piazza per provare a guidarle. Per saperne di più su ciò che abbiamo fatto finora con Agape Bici, potete visitare la nostra pagina Facebook o la galleria di immagini del sito web.
Nel corso del lavoro con il negozio di biciclette, e più in generale nel lavoro di missione che abbiamo svolto, c’è sempre stata una sfida particolare: avere i fondi necessari per poter fare ciò che il lavoro ci chiama a fare.
Da un certo punto di vista, si è trattato di una sfida solo per tenere aperto il centro, la sede fisica. Abbiamo avuto diversi donatori generosi e intendiamo certamente continuare a ricevere donazioni per continuare a espandere il lavoro che stiamo facendo, ma abbiamo anche il senso di responsabilità di cercare di capire come rendere il lavoro del negozio di biciclette autosufficiente. Invece di continuare a richiedere donazioni per avere la sede e continuare a svolgere il lavoro, riteniamo che sia giunto il momento di trovare un modo per aiutare a sostenere e supportare almeno una parte del lavoro qui in Sicilia.
Inoltre, abbiamo sempre affrontato la sfida di chiamare le persone al lavoro ministeriale, ma di costringerle a trovare il proprio sostegno per vivere. Per certi versi, lo considero un aspetto positivo, in quanto può essere parte della conferma di una chiamata a lavorare per Cristo, ma nel complesso è una vera sfida. È difficile avere qualcuno che non può mangiare e tuttavia chiamarlo a guidare l’opera nelle proprie comunità. A ciò si aggiunge il fatto che lavoriamo con immigrati e rifugiati che, nel luogo in cui viviamo, hanno una rete relazionale scarsa o nulla e non hanno un percorso ovvio per creare o gettare un’ampia rete di relazioni, date molte delle barriere culturali, linguistiche e relazionali che esistono tra la gente del posto e gli immigrati in qualsiasi luogo, e questo è certamente vero anche qui in Sicilia, dove esiste una cultura familiare relativamente chiusa che spesso è pronta ad abbracciare lo straniero in superficie, ma chiusa allo straniero a un livello più profondo.
Per questo motivo, abbiamo iniziato a valutare la possibilità che Agape Bici possa essere un modo per aiutare a sostenere il lavoro a Catania, almeno in parte, e almeno in relazione ai due punti sopra citati. Se volete saperne di più sul piano generale che abbiamo messo insieme, potete farlo da questa pagina, ma vi farò notare che mentre pregavamo, pensavamo e continuavamo a indagare, ci siamo resi conto che c’erano tre cose principali che volevamo realizzare mentre sviluppavamo Agape Bici per il futuro:
Stabilire una sede conosciuta e fidata a Catania
In Sicilia si parla spesso di “punto di riferimento”. Un luogo conosciuto dal quale si può continuare a navigare anche verso altri luoghi. Ciò che è stabilito e conosciuto è considerato affidabile.
Nel nostro lavoro iniziale, l’unica cosa conosciuta, e possibilmente affidabile, eravamo noi stessi, ma era difficile costruire una comunità, e soprattutto una comunità di pratica a partire da noi individualmente.
La cosa peggiore è che lavoriamo con persone che hanno ben poco di consolidato in termini di rapporti con la cultura locale e, se vogliamo, di rapporti con altri immigrati e rifugiati. Come osservatori esterni, spesso pensiamo che gli immigrati facciano comunità tra di loro a causa del loro comune background di provenienza da altri Paesi, ma in realtà abbiamo scoperto che all’interno di alcuni gruppi ci può essere una distanza ancora maggiore tra di loro a causa di uno spirito competitivo o della mancanza di sapere di chi fidarsi nel contesto di questa cultura nuova e straniera. Tutto è nuovo e niente è facile, quindi tutti sono in tensione.
Quando abbiamo aperto il centro nel centro di Catania, abbiamo notato che alcune delle nostre relazioni hanno iniziato a cambiare. Siamo stati in grado di sviluppare un senso di connessione e di fiducia più profondo perché si trattava di un luogo conosciuto. Era un luogo in cui le persone potevano entrare in contatto con una comunità di persone che conoscevano. Sapevano cosa potevano aspettarsi quando venivano, così sono venuti per continuare a far riparare le loro biciclette e per approfondire il loro rapporto con Cristo.
Abbiamo quindi iniziato a stabilire e sviluppare un luogo che è conosciuto nella zona e vogliamo continuare a svilupparlo ulteriormente. Vogliamo che Agape Bici sia un luogo che offra un servizio alla comunità ma che sia anche autosufficiente. Vogliamo che sia un luogo dove si riparano le biciclette, ma anche dove si creano relazioni interculturali. Vogliamo che sia un luogo in cui ci incontriamo e siamo equipaggiati nella Parola di Dio, ma anche un luogo da cui inviamo operai nel campo di raccolta.
Inoltre, riteniamo che Agape Bici sia un punto di riferimento in quanto ci permette di entrare in contatto con un maggior numero di persone. In quanto entità conosciuta e fidata nella comunità, avremo l’opportunità di raggiungere altre istituzioni della comunità usando le biciclette come piattaforma.
L’esempio che fornisco abitualmente a questo proposito è che potremo entrare in contatto con un campo profughi per offrire biciclette alle persone che vi abitano. Oppure, possiamo offrire corsi di riparazione di biciclette in inglese o in italiano per fornire ai rifugiati nuove competenze spendibili sul mercato. Oppure potremmo offrire ai rifugiati di fare un giro in bicicletta sull’Etna, per conoscere una parte della Sicilia che raramente, se non mai, hanno l’opportunità di sperimentare.
E oltre a questo, possiamo considerare anche altre opportunità. Perché non insegnare ai bambini i corsi di ciclismo? Perché non offrire programmi di doposcuola incentrati sulla bicicletta, sia in ambito fisico che scolastico? Con il personale e le risorse giuste, possiamo farlo, dandoci l’opportunità di essere non solo una forza positiva nella comunità, ma anche una forza positiva per il Vangelo, in quanto parliamo della nostra fede nel mezzo delle attività che svolgiamo.
Ma questo accesso alla comunità può avvenire solo quando si è un’entità fidata, una quantità conosciuta.
Il nostro desiderio è che Agape Bici sia un punto di riferimento per le biciclette a Catania, ma anche un punto di riferimento spirituale, dove qualcuno possa conoscere Dio ed essere attrezzato per dirlo agli altri. E per fare questo, abbiamo bisogno che Agape Bici diventi un punto di riferimento nella comunità, in modo che non ci sia solo oggi, ma anche domani e in futuro, finché Dio non vorrà chiudere quest’opera perché non è più necessaria.
Fondi sostenibili per un investimento finanziario continuo nell’espansione del Regno
Il nostro desiderio è quello di essere in grado di pagare le operazioni correnti di Agape Bici e di fornire un lavoro che aiuti a sostenere i lavoratori, i lavoratori di Agape Bici e i lavoratori del Regno.
Vogliamo che l’opera sia autosufficiente. Ciascuno degli ex lavoratori missionari continuerà a ricevere sostegno per il proprio lavoro, ma dal punto di vista dei costi operativi del lavoro sul campo, non legati al sostegno personale, il nostro desiderio è quello di essere in grado di coprire tali costi e sostenerli attraverso i fondi che ricaviamo dal contesto del lavoro stesso.
Inoltre, il nostro desiderio è di avere la possibilità di sostenere i lavoratori del Regno di Dio fornendo loro un lavoro fisico. Possiamo riparare le biciclette. Possiamo noleggiare biciclette. Possiamo insegnare corsi. E molto altro ancora… Ci sono molte cose che possiamo fare insegnando alle persone un lavoro fisico e delle abilità che possono usare per fare soldi che permetteranno loro di usare quei fondi per mantenersi mentre fanno discepoli di Cristo tra coloro che sono i meno raggiunti nel mondo.
In generale, il nostro desiderio è che i fondi che saremo in grado di raccogliere attraverso le attività del negozio di biciclette possano essere reinvestiti nell’opera del ministero qui a Catania e utilizzati per inviare persone da qui in altre località. Per noi i fondi hanno un ruolo tangibile nell’aiutare a espandere il Regno di Dio qui in Sicilia e oltre.
Creare un modello riproducibile da utilizzare in altre località
Il nostro desiderio è che questo modello possa essere costruito qui a Catania, ma che alla fine possa essere riprodotto anche in altre località. Ci sono alcuni modi in cui potremmo vedere questo accadere:
In primo luogo, potremmo immaginare la possibilità che Agape Bici apra sedi in altre città. In questo caso, se questa dovesse essere la direzione che decidiamo di prendere, potremmo aprire una filiale di Agape Bici in una nuova località, consentendo a qualcuno che è controllato e fidato e che conosce sia il modo in cui lavoriamo insieme dal punto di vista del negozio di biciclette sia la missione di ciò che stiamo cercando di fare, raggiungere i non raggiunti con il Vangelo. In questo caso, Agape Bici potrebbe essere un modo per qualcuno di prendere ciò che ha imparato lavorando a Catania e riprodurlo in altri luoghi, guadagnando un reddito e lavorando allo stesso tempo per piantare chiese nella nuova città in cui vivrà.
Una seconda possibilità, però, è quella di formare qualcuno che lavori nell’industria della bicicletta, acquisendo così le competenze necessarie per la riparazione delle biciclette e per la gestione di un’attività commerciale, e che le utilizzi per sostenersi quando si sposterà in altre località per essere un ambasciatore di Cristo in quel nuovo luogo e con quelle persone. In effetti, abbiamo già creato e fatto alcuni tentativi iniziali di un programma di apprendistato. Il programma ha bisogno di ulteriori sviluppi e perfezionamenti, ma è qualcosa che possiamo usare in connessione con i programmi di formazione della squadra Ten:Two per preparare gli operai ad andare sul campo, dando loro un modo pratico per mantenersi mentre fanno discepoli e fondano chiese in altri luoghi.
Il nostro desiderio è quello di regalare il modello, affinché venga utilizzato per far progredire l’opera del Regno a Catania e oltre. Le biciclette sono utilizzate ovunque e il loro uso è in continua crescita. Possiamo immaginare che lavorare nel mondo della bicicletta potrebbe essere un’abilità utile che potrebbe essere usata in modo significativo nel Regno e quindi non vediamo l’ora di vedere come Dio la userà in futuro.
Chiesa
All’inizio del 2022, abbiamo iniziato a pensare e a sognare la possibilità che Dio desse vita a una nuova chiesa che si riunisse nel negozio di biciclette. Facevamo parte della nostra chiesa italiana sponsor, ma sentivamo che era importante per noi avere una comunità ecclesiale che rappresentasse i valori che stavamo insegnando e promuovendo alle persone con cui lavoravamo, oltre a fornire un esempio di ciò che stiamo cercando di vedere impiantato anche in altri luoghi.
Prima di allora avevamo visto nascere quattro chiese distinte. Queste chiese erano guidate dalle persone a cui avevamo insegnato e che avevamo istruito, ma quando queste persone hanno lasciato la zona per trasferirsi in altri luoghi, cosa che accade spesso con i rifugiati e gli immigrati, i gruppi si sono sciolti perché il leader non c’era più.
Trasferendoci in Sicilia, non abbiamo mai avuto l’intenzione di fondare o dirigere una chiesa, ma data la situazione, e dato che avevamo bisogno di trovare un modo per dimostrare cosa significasse “chiesa” nel senso che stavamo cercando di comunicare, abbiamo deciso di andare avanti e iniziare una nuova comunità che si sarebbe riunita al negozio di biciclette la domenica sera.
Abbiamo insegnato un’idea molto semplice del significato di chiesa, con l’idea che ogni persona dovrebbe essere in grado di riprodurre la chiesa anche nel proprio contesto. Non vogliamo complicare eccessivamente l’idea di creare una chiesa. Vogliamo invece aiutare coloro a cui insegniamo ad avere un modo semplice e chiaro per guidare i propri gruppi che diventeranno chiese. Come riferimento, ecco uno strumento che usiamo spesso come visione per la nostra chiesa sana, che fornisce una visione per altre chiese sane in futuro:
La chiesa che abbiamo avviato è cresciuta lentamente, ma dal punto di vista di portare le persone nella comunità cristiana e di sperimentare quella comunità, al di là della semplice descrizione a parole, ora abbiamo un esempio attraverso il quale siamo in grado di mostrare una comunità in azione. Abbiamo molto lavoro da fare, ma stiamo andando avanti con le persone che Dio ci ha dato finora.
Il nostro obiettivo è quello di sviluppare una rete di chiese in tutta Catania, inserendo e sviluppando lavoratori nell’ambito di tale rete, per poi inviarli a fondare nuove chiese a Catania o in altre località. Crediamo che guidare una chiesa, e alla fine sviluppare una rete di chiese, ci permetterà di preparare dei leader che entrino nella vita e nell’opera di Dio qui a Catania, imparino e siano equipaggiati per fare lo stesso altrove, e poi li mandino in altre località. Queste persone possono essere americani di passaggio come missionari nell’ambito dell’addestramento sul campo, italiani che vengono a imparare e a partecipare a ciò che stiamo facendo, o immigrati e rifugiati che si trovano in Italia, essendo arrivati dall’altra parte della finestra 10/40 in Italia.
Mettere tutto insieme
Speriamo che si possa già vedere la direzione da cui siamo venuti e dove speriamo di andare. Il nostro obiettivo è quello di vedere un movimento, se non movimenti, di discepoli tra i rifugiati e gli immigrati qui in Sicilia, ma sarei certamente felice se vedessimo la stessa cosa accadere anche tra i siciliani e nel resto d’Italia, perché avremmo così le persone che potrebbero insegnare ad altri a raggiungere i rifugiati e gli immigrati. Stiamo pregando che Dio operi tra tutti loro.
Per realizzare questi obiettivi, stiamo mettendo in atto alcune componenti diverse:
Primo, la chiesa. Stabilire una chiesa che riproduca leader e riproduca chiese è fondamentale per vedere l’espansione che speriamo di vedere. Dobbiamo sapere e sperimentare come possiamo essere operatori all’interno del Regno di Dio e inviare persone all’esterno.
In secondo luogo, la mobilitazione e la formazione. La squadra Ten:Two ha lo scopo di mobilitare i lavoratori per entrare nel campo di raccolta e di insegnare loro cosa fare una volta arrivati sul posto.
In terzo luogo, la sensibilizzazione pratica, il finanziamento e il sostegno. Ci possono essere diverse risposte a questa esigenza, ma crediamo che Agape Bici possa essere una risposta significativa a questa domanda.
Credo che Agape Bici ci offra una piattaforma dalla quale possiamo raggiungere gli altri nella nostra zona e in qualsiasi area in cui potremmo portare l’organizzazione. Possiamo condividere il Vangelo, fare discepoli e piantare nuove chiese da questo punto di partenza.
Ma vogliamo anche usare il dono che Dio ci ha dato per sviluppare i finanziamenti per l’opera del Regno da portare avanti, sia che si tratti di spese per il lavoro direttamente a Catania, in altre località, sia che si tratti di aiutare a sostenere le persone che vogliamo mandare a fare il lavoro di fare discepoli e piantare chiese.
Mentre facciamo tutto questo, vediamo l’opportunità per altri operai di venire a lavorare con noi per aiutare a stabilire ulteriormente ciò che stiamo facendo e poi ricevere e inviare operai da qui a Catania in altri campi di raccolta, che siano qui in Italia, nel resto d’Europa, o oltre nel resto dei Paesi della finestra 10/40, che rappresentano i meno raggiunti del mondo.
I came across this substack email by Anthony Bradley recently, and given that today was a “review” day for our Band study, meaning that we’re not reading a particular chapter in the Bible today and should instead be looking back on what we read, I thought this seemed like a good point of reference from which to share a couple of thoughts.
The main point that I took out of what Bradley wrote was that The Gospel Coalition’s movement had failed because it focused on preaching the Gospel only. I don’t know the specific details here, but Bradley and others that he quotes suggest that those who purport to belong to the the Coalition, those that have focused solely on preaching the Gospel, have also failed in at least two great ways:
First, they have failed in the sense that they have turned a blind eye to the sin of the church around them. The issues of our day, such as sex scandals or abuses in the church have gone unaddressed, they say. Or other cultural issues such as those raised by Black Lives Matter or Covid are woefully unaddressed.
Second, the article seems to say, preaching the Gospel only gives a sense of how to be liberated from our sin, but doesn’t give us a sense of how to practically live. It is woefully wanting in this regard.
I don’t intend to try to defend any of the people that are being associated with The Gospel Coalition. I don’t know them. I don’t follow their work that closely, so I can’t really say. Bradley and those that he is quoting may be dead on in these regards.
But the part that struck me in this article is similar to a thought and a discussion that we have had quite frequently here where we live and work. Our discussion has been: Which Gospel do we want to preach?
Wait, what do you mean? There’s one Gospel, right?
Well, yes. In one sense that is right. But in another sense, we frequently lack completion in the Gospel that we preach.
On the one hand, the Gospel that is frequently focused on and preached in our churches today is the Gospel message that we see focused on through Paul’s writings in the New Testament. We speak of Christ’s death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins. And that is true. It is an amazing reality to be forgiven of our sins. It is incredibly good news that God has loved us and has given us forgiveness.
But very often, we stop there, and I think that the impression that our stopping gives is that this is the end of the message. Even for those that have read through the Bible many times, they will still focus on the fact that God came to earth in the form of Jesus to give himself for us. To save us. Because he loved us.
Do you see a pattern in the discussion?
Us.
Me.
God is serving me.
Hang on. I think we need to back up because we’ve missed something along the way. Are we really saying that God is doing everything He is doing just to raise me up? Just because he wants to give me forgiveness?
Yes, His grace has come to us freely. Agreed. We haven’t deserved anything. Agreed. But God is doing something significantly more, and if we ignore these other things that He is doing, I think that we end up with situations like what we see here. We end up with people saying that the message of the forgiveness of sins doesn’t give us a way to live.
And they would be right. It doesn’t.
But what does give us a way to live is the more full and complete picture of what God is doing. That Gospel that I have explained above, which again, let me be clear, I do believe is good news and is Biblical, is an incomplete telling of the story.
I believe that the New Testament is nothing without the Old Testament. We need to back up to the time of the Old Testament, to the time of the Israelites, to be able to understand the context of the story. You see, God was the King over His people, the Israelites. They had prophets who spoke to them from God, their King, but they didn’t have a human king. They were a people unlike every other people.
The Israelites, though, looked around themselves and said that they wanted to be like the other peoples around them. They liked the lives that the others were living. As we frequently do today, they even thought that those lives, which were sinful in so many ways, were what they wanted to participate in, how they wanted to live. And what that led to was a rejection of God as their King and an embrace of the idea that they wanted to be like the other nations around them. They wanted a king who is a human, just like those other nations.
God allows it. He says that the people have rejected Him and, with many warnings, He allows them in the direction that they want to go.
And the Israelites pay the price. They are eventually destroyed and carried off into distant lands. This was God using the might of these other nations to punish and swallow up the Israelites, sending them out of the land that God had promised them.
But God wasn’t done. As Jesus came, what did he preach and speak about the most? The Kingdom of God. God’s Kingdom was being reestablished on the earth. Jesus came announcing, proclaiming, and demonstrating the Kingdom of God. And this is what Jesus called the Gospel. Very simply, the Gospel of the Kingdom.
Living as subjects of the Kingdom of God gives us the way to live. It shows us the direction. In fact, the King, Jesus himself has given us instructions on what we should be doing until he returns. We can decide to reject those instructions and then claim that we don’t have a way to live, but that doesn’t mean, by any means that we don’t have a practical way forward. We absolutely do. Not only in obeying commandments and avoiding sin, but in proactively moving forward, a purpose and a reason for doing what we’re doing, and thus we should make decisions and take action based on those purposes.
The Gospel of the forgiveness of sins is part of the Gospel of the Kingdom, but it is only the first step. It would be as if we saw the front door of the house, and the only part of the house we could see was that door, but we say, “Here is the house!”. We’re only looking at the door. The door is amazing. The door is marvelous, but it is still only the front door.
God has given us forgiveness of sins through Christ because that was the payment to bring us into the Kingdom. Jesus’s first proclamation and preaching told the people to repent and believe for the Kingdom of God is near. If we repent and believe, the Gospel of forgiveness of sins, we have come to the front door, but a mansion awaits. Christ has given us access to an incredible house.
However, it is HIS Kingdom. It is HIS. It is not ours. We are, in one sense, subjects to the King, and in another sense, His children. And Jesus has given instructions to his servants / children while he is away.
And yet, he is returning! And he has work for us to do in the meantime. And all of this should speak directly to the practical realities of the Gospel on our daily lives. If we live in the Kingdom of God instead of the kingdom of America, or the kingdom of the world, or the kingdom of the church, or the kingdom of Ryan, we see how things should be and we work for change. We see injustice and we work for justice. We see unrighteousness and we work for righteousness. We work for it because we have a purpose. We dedicate our lives to it because we see the overriding flow of eternity through the time that we are living now and we want our lives to have a purpose within that flow.
My reply and perspective, then, to Bradley article, is that we must see what he is saying, but then we must look at the true story that God is telling and realize that there is a big missing piece to our message. We have thought that the story was about us, the forgiveness of our sins, when in fact, the story is about Christ and his Kingdom. Our part becomes much clearer in the context of the bigger story and the Gospel of the Kingdom.
I have thought for a little while that it is important to write in greater detail the reasons for expanding the work of Agape Bici, a project that we have undertaken over the last several months. I’ve thought that I might try to write several posts, but the more that I have started to write, the more that I think it would be best if I simply create one longer post here to lay out my entire thinking on one page. In that way, my hope is to create a cohesive set of thoughts amongst all of the various parts in my mind instead of attempting to cobble together several different parts into a cohesive whole. Let’s see how it will go… 😉
If you’re reading through what I’ve written and want to jump down to a certain part, here are a series of links to allow you to go to the section that you want to read:
The Situation – What brought us here to Sicily in the first place? What is the context for our deciding to stay here and work long-term?
Our Arrival and Work – This is more of a theological underpinning of how we see our presence and work in Sicily.
A Political Note – Immigration is a hot issue right now. I want to take a moment to make a point about the politics that surround the work that we do.
A History of Our Work – This is more of a practical recounting of the work. Not so much an historical retelling but just attempting to give you a sense of where we have come from
The Great Commission Pipeline – What is our goal as an organization? What are we working toward, praying for, and trying to build?
The Ten:Two Team – How can we mobilize more workers and prepare them to enter into the harvest field?
Agape Bici – This is the bike ministry that we opened in Catania back in 2020. We see this work being an integral part to helping us open new churches and launch new workers as we move forward here in Catania.
Church – We have started a church to which we are receiving workers and from which we are launching workers. Our vision is that this church will replicate itself, both in Catania and outside of Catania, and plant many more churches.
I think the best place to start would be to take a step back and talk about the overall mission of Search Party and what we are trying to do here in Sicily and beyond. Let’s start with why we came here in the first place.
The Situation
Back in 2015, a friend of mine introduced me to the Mediterranean Refugee Crisis, where people from across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia were coming to Europe through various routes and ports. Many of them came through Libya using old fishing boats that smugglers and human traffickers would take to bring the people into Europe. They would take the individual’s money, promising them a much better life in Europe, and would set them out onto the water with little more than a hope and a prayer.
To give you a sense of what I am talking about, you might find these articles and videos interesting:
Even though both of those media items are from 2015, the situation continues on even today. Here is the latest situation in Italy according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. You’ll see that even last year, 2023, was the highest over the last several years after the government had taken significant steps, including those referred to as “dancing with the devil” in an attempt to stop or significantly slow the flow of migrants coming into Europe.
Our Arrival and Work
Arriving in Europe, we understood that there were few workers addressing the situation in Sicily and southern Italy, and fewer yet considering the spiritual issues that this situation would present. So, coming to Sicily, we have attempted to look at this refugee situation with the eyes of Apostle Paul when he said the following to the Athenians:
From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.
Acts 17:26-28
In the case of the Mediterranean Refugee Crisis, like many other movements of people around the world today, we see that there are people that the boundary lines that Paul spoke of are moving, and thinking about these situations, we asked ourselves why that would be. There are several reasons, of course, including war, poverty, hunger, and just a simple desire for a better life, but we realized that if we didn’t consider what Paul said here in Acts 17, we would be missing something important, something, in fact, fundamental.
Paul says that God marked out the appointed times in history for all peoples so that they will know Him, that they would seek Him, that they would find Him. God is not far, but He places the people around us to help us to find Him.
And so, what is happening in the case of the refugee crisis? The boundary lines are moving. And why? We believe that it is because God Himself is making Himself known. He wants those who have not known Him to know Him, and so God intends to use His people to make Himself known.
This is the reason that we moved our family to Sicily in 2016. We came to Catania so that we could be part of what we believe God is doing in the world today, making Himself known to people who have not known Him. Most of the people arriving in Europe are coming from places that have been resistent to the Gospel. Most are coming from Muslim nations. Most are coming from what is referred to as the 10/40 window, and in fact Sicily itself sits just inside of that window, making it a strategic location both from the perspective of the migration of people entering into Europe, but also from the perspective of reaching into the rest of that window.
A Political Note
I hate to interrupt the flow of what I am trying to communicate here, but immigration is a signficant political issue right now, so I think it is important for me to take a moment to address the political “elephant in the room”, as they say. I actually follow politics quite closely. It interests me and I watch the political movements both in the U.S. as well as where we live in Italy and elsewhere.
On the other hand, I also know that politics never brings true and lasting change. Working within politics, or yearning for political change doesn’t change anyone’s heart. Politics are primarily about power here on the earth, but this earth is passing away. It is temporary.
As I’ve thought about the immigration situation that we have stepped into here in Sicily, I couldn’t help but think back to a similar type of situation that is occurring on the southern border of my home country back in the U.S. There are people streaming across the border by the thousands, and even hundreds of thousands in those areas. I don’t see this as a good thing. I think it is wrong to allow people to break the laws of a country, to simply not enforce the laws that are already written. My sense has always been that, with regard to immigration, we should either have the laws that we have and enforce them, or specifically change the law. Let’s not say one thing and do another.
So we haven’t come to work in the midst of the flow of immigration because we agree, necessarily, with what the refugees and immigrants are doing. We don’t agree that they should just show up on the shores of Italy and say, “we’re here” expecting that the government will take care of them.
But, on the other hand, that is what has happened, and that is what is continuing to happen, and the people are here. That is just the reality. And so, looking at that reality, and seeing where these people have come from, we have needed to look at the situation with much different eyes, the eyes of the Kingdom of God. Looking at the situation with that perspective, we consider where these people have come from and we recognize that they haven’t understood the truth about Christ. They haven’t understood God’s plan for them. They haven’t known that Christ has already given himself for them, to purchase them out of the kingdom of darkness and make them part of the Kingdom of God.
And so, for this reason, we have come to Sicily and have inserted ourselves into the flow of immigration in Europe. Not because we like what has happened and what is continuing to happen, but because we want to be part of the opportunity to see the Kingdom of God expand among the unreached, those who have never heard the Gospel before, in a strategic part of the world that has relatively close, and relatively inexpensive geographical access to much of the rest of the unreached world.
A History of Our Work
Since moving to Catania, we have primarily worked to reach out to the immigrants and refugees. In addition, though, we have also worked to train and look for Sicilian Italians who would work along with us, both to reach out to the refugees and immigrants as well as to other Sicilians that they know.
We have sought to both evangelize and disciple new believers as well as train existing workers. We’ve translated the Zume Training materials into Italian as well as written our own training materials, translating those as well into Italian to more closely reflect the discipleship process that we use here in Catania, based on the Four Fields discipleship and church planting process.
We have heavily recruited missional workers to move to Sicily to work along with us, having as many as eight different families working together at one point, then through a process and series of years reducing down to three families over the last 2-3 years. And to do this, we have, and continue to run short-term team programs and summer internships in an attempt to continue to recruit workers.
Most of the work has been focused on prayer walking, sharing the Gospel, baptizing new believers, and then teaching those that we have reached to reach back into their own communities with the Gospel.
Our team now has a center in the downtown area of Catania where we run a bicycle shop, lead a small church of people from several different nations, and offer regular Bible studies and discipleship training. In addition, our teammates also have a community garden ministry both in the city of Catania as well as at land owned by one of our partnering churches.
Using our center in Catania, we have also developed a missionary field-based training program to help both incoming missionaries to Italy learn to live and work cross-culturally using the Four Fields process. Thankfully, God has also given us the opportunity to use the program with others coming from unreached nations, to send them back into the field after having been trained in doing the disciple-making and church planting process that we use here in Catania.
Finally, we have extensions of our work also in other parts of Italy and we are working to continue to train and send workers, whether they be incoming missional workers from the US or other English-speaking nations, or from Italy, or any number of other locations.
We have truly been blessed by what we have seen God do, both in us and through us up to this point!
The Great Commission Pipeline
A few years ago, I saw a video created by Troy Cooper for the NoPlaceLeft network and it made me think that this is the vision that I would like to promote for our work as well, including the primary vision for Search Party, the organization that we started in 2019. Here is the video that he made:
The video talks about developing a movement of disciples and churches in our home area and then sending them to the next field where more unreached people groups can be reached with the Gospel, making more disciples and planting more churches.
This is what we believe God wants to do through us. We want to bring people from our home country to work with us here. In that sense, we are creating a pipeline from our home churches to the unreached where we are.
But it doesn’t end there. In fact, the work is only beginning. Instead, from here, we want to send the disciples that we have made out to other fields. We see this happening as we launch workers from Catania into other parts of Italy and other parts of Europe, but even more importantly, launching workers back into the rest of the 10/40 window where more of the unreached people groups can be reached. We are connecting with the unreached here in Catania, but we can reach even more people by sending workers back into the home countries of the people that have arrived here in Europe.
So our desire is to create a Great Commission Pipeline in to Catania, and develop as well a Great Commission Pipeline out of Catania. To do this, we believe that we will need to connect a few different pieces of a strategic puzzle together, and that leads me to the first puzzle piece: Mobilizing and preparing workers.
The Ten:Two Team
In Luke, chapter 10, Jesus sends out seventy-two of his disciples to proclaim and demonstrate the Kingdom of God. This story has always captivated me in the way that Jesus sends his disciples, but I want to focus on a certain part of the story for my purposes in this article.
As Jesus was sending the disciples, he said:
“The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
Luke 10:2
Jesus was sending his disciples out, but the first thing that he tells them to do is to pray for more workers because the harvest is plentiful.
Question to consider: Where are these workers that the disciples are supposed to pray for going to come from?
The disciples are the only workers at this point. There are no pastors. There are no missionaries. There is no one else. They are it.
Obviously, the only place that the workers could come from would be the harvest field itself. So, the harvest field that Jesus is sending the disciples into is also the source of the workers.
Now, in our day, we have pastors and missionaries and many other types of workers, but yet the harvest is still plentiful, and the workers are still few. So, from our perspective, we are praying for more workers, and we are working to prepare them and send them out as well. That is what the Ten:Two Team is all about. Pray for workers, mobilize them, and send them out. Whether they come from the U.S., from Europe, or from other unreached areas… Whether they come from believing or unbelieving backgrounds… Our desire is that the Gospel is preached and disciples of Jesus are made amongst people from all of the nations that we are touching here in Catania.
As mentioned above, we have had short-term team programs, internship programs, and missionary training programs that we have used in multiple contexts. We are moving ahead to aggregate and coalesce these programs together underneath a team that we will call the Ten:Two Team, working to pray for and mobilize workers, training them and sending them to do the work. This will be a significant part of the development of the Great Commission Pipeline here, continuing the formalized programs to receive and send workers into the harvest field, and in the meantime continue to develop disciples locally to do the same, sending them into the harvest field of Catania, or sending them out of Catania to do the work elsewhere also.
Agape Bici
In the midst of releasing from the pandemic lockdowns in 2020, we opened a new community center in the downtown area of Catania. Initially, it was the home of several different activities, including a bike shop, but in the beginning of last year, we decided to focus our efforts to simply – and only – be a bike shop. From that bike shop, we can, of course, do other activities, but instead of being known as a place where a lot of activities happen, we decided to make it into one activity from the perspective of what other people see.
For that reason, we removed the walls that separated the bike shop from the rest of the center and instead created one large shop. In this location, we have fixed bikes, received bikes in donation to fix them and give them away for free, and done outreaches from the shop, taking the creations of out teammate into the piazza to connect with people through fun on “crazy bikes”, bikes that probably shouldn’t be on the street but are fun to take in the piazza to try out riding. You can see more about what we have been doing with Agape Bici up to now on our Facebook page or by launching into the picture gallery from the website.
In the midst of working with the bike shop, and even more generally with mission work that we have done, there has always been one particular challenge, to have the funds that are needed to be able to do what the work is calling us to do.
From one perspective, this has been a challenge just to keep the center, the physical location, open. We have had several generous donors, and we certainly intend to continue to receive donations to keep expanding the work that we are doing, but we also have a sense of responsibility to try to figure out how to make the bike shop work self-sustaining. Instead of continuing to require donations to have the location and continue to do the work, we feel that it is time for us to find a way to help support and sustain at least a portion of the work here in Sicily.
In addition, we have also consistently faced the challenge of calling people into ministry work but forcing them to find their own support so that they can live. In some ways, I see this as a good thing as it can be part of confirming a calling to work for Christ, but on the whole it is a real challenge. It is difficult to have someone unable to eat and yet still call them to lead the work into their own communities. This is compounded in the fact that we work with immigrants and refugees who have little to no relational network where we live and don’t have an obvious path for creating or casting a wide net for relationships given many of the cultural, language, and relational barriers that exist between locals and immigrants in any location, and this is certainly true also here in Sicily where there exists a relatively closed-loop familial culture that is often quick to embrace the stranger on the surface but closed to the foreigner at a deeper level.
So, given the above, we began to investigate the possibilities that Agape Bici could be a way to help sustain the work in Catania, at least in part, and at least in connection with the two points above. If you would like to learn more about the overall plan that we put together, you can do that from this page, but I will note that as we prayed, thought about, and continued to investigate, we realized that there were three main things that we wanted to accomplish as we developed Agape Bici for the future:
Establishing a known and trusted location in Catania
In Sicily, there is frequent discussion about a “punto di riferimento”, a point of reference. A place that is known from which you can continue to navigate to other places as well. That which is established and known is considered to be trusted.
In our initial work, the only thing that was known, and possibly trusted, was us ourselves, but it was difficult to build a community, and especially a community of practice from us individually.
What was worse is that we are working with people who have very little that is established in terms of relationships with the local culture, and for that matter, relationships with other immigrants and refugees. As an outsider looking in, we frequently think that the immigrants would have community with one another because of their common background in coming from other countries, but we have actually found that there can be, within some groups, an even greater distance between them as a result of a competitive spirit or a lack of knowing who to trust within the context of this new and foreign culture. Everything is new and nothing is easy, so everyone is on edge.
When we opened the center in the downtown area of Catania, we noticed that some of our relationships began to change. We were able to develop a deeper sense of connection and trust because it was a known quantity, a known place. It was a place that people could come and connect with a community of people that they knew. They knew what they could expect when they came so they came to continue to have their bicycles fixed and to grow deeper in their relationship with Christ.
So we have an initial start in establishing and developing a location that is a known quantity in the area and we want to continue to develop this even further. We want Agape Bici to be a location that offers a service to the community but is also self-sustaining. We want it to be a place where bicycles are fixed but also cross-cultural relationships are made. We want it to be a place where we meet and are equipped in the Word of God but also a place from which we send out workers into the harvest field.
Furthermore, we see the fact that Agape Bici being a point of reference in that it can also allow us to connect with more people. As a known and trusted entity in the community, we will have the opportunity to reach into other institutions in the community using bicycles as a platform.
The example that I routinely provide on this point is that we will be able to connect with a refugee camp for the purpose of offering bicycles to the people that are living there. Or, we can offer bicycle repair courses in either English or Italian to provide new marketable skills to the refugees. Or we could offer to take the refugees on a bike ride up onto Mt. Etna, to experience a part of Sicily that they rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to experience.
And beyond this, we can look at other opportunities as well. Why not teach bicycle courses to children? Why not offer after-school programs that focus on bicycles, whether in physical fitness or in scholastics? With the right staffing and resources, we can do this, giving us the opportunity to not only be a positive force in the community but a positive force for the Gospel as we speak about our faith in the midst of the activities that we are doing.
But this reach into the community can only happen when you are a trusted entity, a known quantity.
Our desire is that Agape Bici is a point of reference for bicycles in Catania, but it is also a spiritual point of reference, where someone can come to know God and be equipped to tell others. And to do this, we need Agape Bici to become a point of reference in the community so that it will not only be here today but also tomorrow and into the future until it will be God’s will to close this work because it is no longer necessary.
Having sustainable funds for ongoing financial investment in the expansion of the Kingdom
Our desire is that we will be able to pay for the ongoing operations of Agape Bici as well as provide work that will help to support the workers, the workers of Agape Bici and the workers in the Kingdom.
We want the work to be self-sustainable. Each of the ex-pat missional workers will continue to receive support for their work, but from the perspective of the operational costs of the work on the ground, unrelated to personal support, our desire is that we will be able to cover those costs and support those costs through funds that we make from within the context of the work itself.
Even further, our desire is that we have the ability to support workers in the Kingdom of God by providing physical work for these workers. We can fix bicycles. We can rent bicycles. We can teach courses. And much more… There are many things that we can do by teaching people a physical work and skills that they can use to make money that will allow them to go on to use those funds to support themselves while they are making disciples of Christ amongst those that are the least-reached in the world.
Overall, our desire is that funds that we may be able to raise through the bike shop activities can be reinvested back into the work of the ministry here in Catania as well as be used to send people out from this place into other locations. We see the funds as playing a tanglible part in helping to expand the Kingdom of God here in Sicily and beyond.
Creating a reproducible model that we could use in other locations
Our desire is that this model could be built here in Catania, but eventually reproduced in other locations as well. There are a few ways in which we could see this happening:
First, we could imagine the possibility that Agape Bici opens locations in other cities. In this case, should this be the direction that we choose to go, we could open a branch of Agape Bici in a new location, allowing someone who is vetted and trusted and that knows both how we work together from the perspective of the bike shop as well as the mission of what we are attempting to do, to reach the unreached with the Gospel. In this case, Agape Bici could be a way for someone to take what they have learned while working in Catania and reproduce it in other places, making an income while also working to plant churches in the new city where they will live.
A second possibility, though, is that we could train someone to work within the bicycle industry, thus gaining skills for bicycle repair and how to run a business, using that to help support themselves as they move into other locations to be an ambassador for Christ in that new place and with those people. We have, in fact, already created and taken some initial stabs at an apprenticeship program. The program needs additional development and tweaking, but it is something that we can use in connection with the training programs from the Ten:Two team to prepare workers to go out into the field, thus giving them a practical way to support themselves while they are making disciples and planting churches in other locations.
Our desire is to give away the model, that it would be used for the Kingdom work to move forward in Catania and beyond. Bicycles are used everywhere, and their use is only growing. We can imagine that working within the bicycle world could be a useful skill that could be used in a signficant way in the Kingdom and so we are looking forward to seeing how God will use it in the future.
Church
In early 2022, we began to think and dream about the possibility that God would start a new church that would meet there in the bike shop. We had been part of our sponsoring Italian church, but we felt that it was important for us to have a church community that both represented the values that we were teaching and promoting to the people that we were working with as well as provide an example of what we are trying to see planted in other locations as well.
We had actually seen four separate churches started before that time. These churches were led by the people that we had been teaching and coaching, but as those people left the area to move on into other locations, which frequently happens with refugees and immigrants, the groups fell apart because the leader was no longer there.
Moving to Sicily, we never had the intention of starting or leading a church ourselves, but given the situation, and given the fact that we were needing to find a way to demonstrate what “church” meant in the sense that we were trying to communicate, we decided to go ahead and start a new community that would meet at the bike shop on Sunday evenings.
We have taught a very simple idea of what church means with the idea that each person should be able to reproduce church in their own context as well. We don’t want to overcomplicate the idea of creating a church. Instead, we want to help those that we are teaching have a simple and clear way to lead their own groups that will become churches. For reference, here is a tool that we frequently use as a vision for our own healthy church, providing a vision for other healthy churches in the future:
The church that we’ve started has grown slowly, but from the perspective of bringing people in to Christian community and experiencing that community, beyond simply describing it with words, we now have an example through which we are able to show a community in action. We have a lot of work to do, but we are moving forward with the people that God has given us up to now.
Our goal is to develop a network of churches throughout Catania, bringing in and developing workers within the context of that network, and then sending them to start new churches either in Catania or in other locations. We believe that by leading a church, and eventually developing a network of churches, will allow us to prepare leaders to enter the life and work of God here in Catania, learn and be equipped to do the same elsewhere, and then send them out into other locations. These people may be Americans who are passing through as missionaries as part of the field training, they may be Italians who are coming to learn and participate in what we are doing, or they may be immigrants and refugees who are in Italy, having arrived from across the 10/40 window into Italy.
Putting it all together
Hopefully you can already see the direction of where we have come from and where we are hoping to go. Our goal is to see a movment, if not movements, of disciples among the refugees and immigrants here in Sicily, but I would certainly be happy if we saw that same thing happen from amongst the Sicilians and the rest of Italy as well as we would then have the people who could teach others to reach out to the refugees and immigrants. We’re praying that God will work amongst all of them.
To help accomplish these goals, we are putting in place a few different components:
First, church. Establishing a church that will reproduce leaders and reproduce churches is critical to seeing the expansion that we are hoping to see. We need to know and experience how we can be the workers within the Kingdom of God and send people out.
Second, mobilization and training. The Ten:Two Team is designed to mobilize workers to enter into the harvest field and teach them what they should do when they get there.
And third, practical outreach, financing, and support. There may be several responses to this need, but we believe that Agape Bici can be a significant answer to this question.
First, I believe that Agape Bici gives us a platform from which we can reach out to others in our area, and in any area that we might ultimately take the organization. We can share the Gospel, we can make disciples, and we can plant new churches from this starting place.
But we also want to use the gift that God has given us to develop the funding for the Kingdom work to go forward, whether that is related to the expenses for the work directly in Catania, in other locations, or in helping to support the people that we want to send to do the work of making disciples and planting churches.
As we do all of this, we see the opportunity for more workers to come and work with us to help further establish what we are doing and then receive and send workers from here in Catania into other harvest fields, whether they would be here in Italy, in the rest of Europe, or beyond into the rest of the countries in the 10/40 window, representing the least-reached of the world.
We took this trail over the course of two and a half hours, including a time to stop for lunch. There are nice views of the Etna peaks and a walk through both the lava fields as well as through the woods.
This hike would be OK for our purposes with the people that we want to take. The only thing that I didn’t like about it was that, to complete it as a loop, the second half is primarily paved and, unless we did it incorrectly, returns on a road. Here is a map of the path that we took, starting and ending at Sentiero Naturalistico Rifugio della Galvarina. Here is the page on the Parco dell’Etna website for the trail.
In the Jewish law, ceremonial washing was required to allow a man or a woman to be ceremonially clean before God. There were several situations in which a person could be considered to be ceremonially unclean and need to be washed. Those might include:
A woman’s menstruation
A man or woman’s discharge of sexual fluids
Contact with a dead body, either an animal or a person
In addition, ceremonial washing was also frequently performed in advance of celebrating the sabbath, or important days such as Yom Kippur or the festivals when the Jews would make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
A new convert to Judaism would also need to be washed.
And finally – so to speak – they would also generally perform a washing for the dead prior to burial.
In these, and probably also other scenarios, the washing would need to be performed through full immersion in what they would call “living water”, meaning water that was running and continually refreshed. That might be a river, but was most frequently done in a pool or a bath that was connected to a fresh water spring, thus allowing the water to be refreshed by the continual running of the water from the water coming from the spring.
I mention this because today I have been reading in John 3 where both John the Baptist and Jesus were at the Jordan baptizing. Jesus and John had both been preaching a message of repentance from sin, and for this the people came to be baptized – probably in their minds, ceremonially washed, similar their prior Jewish custom.
But this washing was, indeed, different. In the Jewish custom, you don’t see cleansing from sin as one of the reasons to be washed and yet here, they are washed as a sign of repentance from sin.
Earlier in the chapter, Jesus points out to Nicodemus, who had come to him in the night from the Jewish ruling council, that if you want to enter the kingdom of God, you must be born of the water and of the Spirit. Jesus is talking about a washing that occurs from the outside – a demonstration of your repentance from sin and belief in Christ through the washing of baptism – and through the washing and rebirth of the person’s spirit by the Spirit of God.
“Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’
John 3:5-7
This lasts even up to today. Jesus isn’t calling us to follow all of the requirements of ceremonial washing and by “ceremonially” clean. The ceremony of the rituals of sacrifice has been completed through God’s sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
Instead, he calls us to be completely clean, both inside and out, through a washing by water as well as a new birth – from death to life – by the Spirit of God’s work within us. Praise God that he comes for us to give us new life!
