What will be your legacy?

Posted on Tuesday, February 4th, 2020 by Jonathan
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What will be the most valuable use of our time as missionaries?

I can’t remember exactly when it happened…was it during the spiritual gifts course that I took at church? Was it during a missionary presentation?  
Probably partly both.  All I know is that God made it crystal clear to me one day that not only was He leading me back to Italy as a missionary but that I would be there “Equipping the Italian Church of the Next Generation to Reach the World for Christ.”

I love the quote that goes something like this:

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.


Since our last conversation, God has reminded me again and again that there is no better use of my time.  We need to invest in others.
This year has the promise of being just that.

We inaugurated the year welcoming Danilo as our pastoral intern for the year.  He will be spending many hours with us as a pastoral team and missionary team.  We are really excited to see how God will use it in his life and where God might lead him in the future.  I know that my one-year internship at Calvary Baptist Church was one of the most life-changing experiences of my life…it’s hard to believe it was almost twenty years ago!

Francesco and Kollin

Right on Danilo’s heels is another great brother, Francesco, who came to Christ through the ministry of Baptist Mid-Missions in Peru, though he is Italian!Just last Sunday we welcomed him and his wife as members of our church as they desire to grow and serve and see where God will lead them in ministry.
A couple of weeks ago we led a group of six men to a conference in Messina held by the Italian Theological Academy that helps us with courses several times a year.  The theme was unity among leaders in the local church.  

We enjoyed growing together with these men from our church and men from almost twenty churches in Italy and the United States.  I particularly enjoyed sitting next to my brother Jeremy, who is an avid note taker and deacon in our church.  We were also asked to help with the music; it was a lot of fun to accompany a room full of Italian church leaders in worshiping our Lord!

Speaking of the Academy, this year will be our third and last year of the preaching program.  We have several men involved and we look forward to seeing them grow in their preaching!
Lastly, on February 9th we will be celebrating the extinguishing of the mortgage of our church building, and my Dad will officially become a Pastor Emeritus of the church. 
Of course, hopefully that won’t slow him down, but we are looking more and more at developing and bringing in Italian leaders.
My Dad said it best when he announced this new phase in the life of our church. “Just as geese fly in formation, and at some point the leader must take a step back and allow another to take the brunt of the air stream, so we as leaders must be ready to develop those who will take our place and bring the Italian church further than we could have imagined!”  The time to develop leaders is now.  We thank the Lord for the faithfulness of my parents, who gave everything to bring us to this point.
May we be counted faithful as they have and have as rich of a legacy.What will be your legacy?

BMM Italy Team
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Three things that change the world

Posted on Thursday, September 26th, 2019 by Jonathan
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Blame it on the inevitable process of aging, blame it on having kids, blame it on some major health problems in my not-so-remote past…or maybe just plain laziness (it takes a lot of work to be lazy)… I’m always looking for ways to be efficient with my energy and time and resources.

Eva

Fortunately, I don’t have to feel guilty about it because even the Apostles had to prioritize their time! Do you remember when they had to STOP doing things in Acts 6:2 in order to focus on the things that made the most difference?

With a growing ministry, the risk of burnout is great, both for us as missionaries and the people we serve with at Centro Evangelico Battista.

An Italian, Vilifredo Pareto, summed up this idea of how to do the best things, observing that as a rule of thumb 20% of what we do makes for 80% of the results.

So we have had to ask ourselves:  “What makes the greatest difference in our life and ministry?”

Our prerogative certainly cannot be too far off from what the apostles considered their main priorities.

The body of Christ has many responsibilities and commandments to follow, but at the end of the day there are three things that we cannot stop doing if we want to obey Christ and make the greatest difference.

  1. Preach and teach the Word of God
  2. Pray
  3. Share Christ

1. Preach and teach the Word of God

2 Timothy 2:15

This summer I had the opportunity to finish our preaching series from the book of Ephesians.  How exciting to preach on the armor of God from deep behind enemy lines!
I was also privileged to spend over a week teaching spiritual disciplines as part of a discipleship course that my good friend and mentor Giorgio De Angelis hosted in his church in Torino for young people from all over Italy and even Albania!

This weekend instead we will be hosting the Exegesis classes for men from our church and other surrounding churches.
Please pray as we identify and train men for pastoral and teaching ministry.  With the majority of the cities in our region still unreached, there is no time to lose.

2. Pray

Ephesians 6:18
Call me a broken record, but our life and ministry depends on prayer. As a church we just made an big decision: we moved our main prayer time to Sunday mornings after the worship service (the time traditionally set apart for Sunday School.)  If people can’t come on Wednesdays, can we afford for our church to not have a well-attended prayer time?

We concluded our study on Ephesians gathering the entire church in a circle in true Baptist Mid-Missions fashion (story for another day), praying for us a church to be united in being faithful servants of the Gospel, of God and of each other.

All the great works of God since Pentecost and even before have been bathed in prayer.

3. Share Christ

Ephesians 6:19-20
One of the most frustrating things is to evangelize until we’re blue in the face and yet not see conversions!  God must have heard my prayers of frustration…this summer we had two unexpected blessings.  In one of our “Sunday school prayer times” I prayed with a young teen in our church.  We will call him David. I asked him about his faith and he prayed to be saved on the spot!  Even more than that, in July Melodee and I had the joy of being together with Noah when he prayed to receive Christ as his Savior!  It just doesn’t get better than that!
This, plus the reminder of Ephesians 6:19-20 has convinced us further that we need to pray for boldness in our witnessing.
Every day we are out with people we love and care about, and we desire for them to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Every day people are going to hell because Jesus Christ is not their Lord and Savior. 

Every day people are hopelessly trying to get to God by their own strength.

PLEASE PRAY FOR BOLDNESS!!
Drop everything else and pray for boldness in sharing our faith!
Pray for opportunities to meet with unbelievers to study God’s word.
Pray for open doors.

Thank you for what you do to make a difference here in Italy!

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Working Hard or Hardly Working?

Posted on Monday, July 22nd, 2019 by Jonathan
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Summer is an interesting time in Italy…if traditionally we had a “siesta time” (to borrow a Spanish term), in many ways summer feels like three months of siesta.

It’s understandable because of the sweltering heat and the fact that many people chooses to go on vacation during this time.

However, there has been little siesta for us. Despite having to give up our Radio Luce radio frequency because of the maintenance costs and diminishing gifts (it cost us $5,000 a month to run), we have not really had time to slow down.

We had a WONDERFUL vacation Bible school in June, after school go out, continued teaching and preaching and ministering to people here.

VBS 2019 Staff “Treasure Island”
Venice with Mimi and Pappy

As a family we will be able to take a week off, then back for a wedding of a couple in our church and preparations begin for fall ministry already. The kids have enjoyed time with their grandparents( including grandparents from America!!), reading and playing!

Saturday I head to Avigliana (Torino) to participate in a discipleship course. They have asked me to preach and to teach on the subject of Spiritual Disciplines. I now have three days to finish preparing the course, so I need your prayers!!

Thank you for your prayers!

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Pray for this weekend!

Posted on Friday, April 12th, 2019 by Jonathan
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I sat down to work on my Bible Study for Sunday about an hour ago.  Compared to preparing a sermon it’s not nearly as challenging…yet I couldn’t get started!

I realize that I need wind for my sails and gasoline in my tank! God uses your prayers to make it happen!

So here I am taking a “break” to get you on board and praying!

Here are five vital and strategic prayer requests:

Entering Foligno
Entering Foligno

1. Church plant in Foligno
Foligno is the third largest city of Umbria, and most unreached of the larger centers in our region.

  • This Sunday, April 14th, we will have our third monthly Bible study at 5 pm.  Pray for me as I finish preparing my study!
  • We are also meeting for prayer on Tuesday afternoons at 11 AM EST  (5 PM our time) to pray for that city in the home of a lady there.  Our hope it to encourage the few believers in that city to begin to build the foundation for a future Baptist church there.  Most of the ladies are members of an Evangelical church in Assisi, because there isn’t a solid testimony in their town.  Would you be interested in praying for Foligno during that time too?
  •  My Dad, Daniel, and I are also taking turns going to Foligno once or twice a week to work at a Coworking desk, in the same location where we  do our Bible studies.  We’ve made friendship with several people there.   Slowly but surely we are able to start some spiritual conversations! 
  • We have a core of people from our church who are involved, but as you can imagine their lives are very full! Pray for perseverance for all involved!
  • I also try to play in the local symphonic band every chance I get.  Melodee is even accompanying Cristina Ransom in a violin competition! Pray for the many musicians we are in contact with. 
  • In May I will be playing with my horn teacher and his wife too!

(Because of new European laws, I am not able to put names here like before, but feel free to drop me a note and I can get you more details).

2. Theological Training
We just concluded our first theological trainingseminar of the year at our church.  We have several men attending, though some are getting discouraged because of the hard work.  Our friends at the Italian Theological Academy are doing a great job at bringing these directly to our church for us.  Please pray for them too!  Daniel has done an outstanding job organizing it for us despite his busy schedule including running our radio station.

3. Spiritual attacks
Ever since we started the Foligno project we have seen several minor attacks:

  • I had a small accident the day of our first event.
  • Another day, in Perugia, they attempted to break into our car.
  • Donatella’s husband fell last week too, so she is not able to participate in the prayer meetings in Foligno or the Bible Study (she is one of our core participants).
  • I have had eye problems, sciatic nerve problems, back problems. Yesterday I even had to go to a cardiologist!
  • For the last two meetings Melodee has not been able to come because Noah suddenly got sick on Saturday night/Sunday morning.

Coincidences?


4. Preaching
I have been doing a lot of preaching in Perugia since the beginning of the year, which has been wonderful but also brings an added intensity and weariness to our life.  During the Easter season we asked my Dad to pick it back up.  I’m excited for the break, and we’re glad to hear him preach too!

5. Family
Please continue to pray for our family:

  • for the salvation of our children,
  • for a strong marriage
  • for wisdom in our planning and budgeting, especially in light of a probably move of our family to Foligno at some point. 
  • We need prayer for time management too…with all that has been going on I feel like I have neglected my family a bit!

There’s so much more I could say and want to say, but I probably should get going on my study for Sunday afternoon, since I only get one shot a month!!

Thanks for being God’s instrument for making it happen!

Jon and Melodee, Noah and Eva

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Football Outreach Update

Posted on Wednesday, March 6th, 2019 by Jonathan
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Thank you for praying for the Football Outreach!
What an exiting day!  How can I keep it short?

Even before we got to the field we could sense God working.

Here are a few highlights:

When I first walked in to our church building I saw several ladies of our church already busy preparing tables and decorations for the dinner with the football players in the evening.

As we were waiting for the bus with the Christian NFL players to arrive, Daniel and I were able to share the reason for our faith with some journalists that had come to do a documentary on the event for NFL films.  One of them in particular asked many great questions.  Pray that God would use God’s Word in her life!

We had several teams from different cities in Italy participate in the training and outreach with these Christian Pro Athletes.  The enthusiasm was in the air.

We were able to give away several Bible calendars, Bibles and books on the Gospel.

In the training huddles the players shared their faith as well as their skills.  In particular I enjoyed listening in as Jeremiah Sirles share quite clearly and the players were quite engaged.  Being a hopeless Buffalo Bills fan since the Superbowl days I was doubly excited to see him here.

After the training, another player, Justin Simmons shared a testimony about how God has worked in his life.

We concluded the evening with Daniel sharing the Gospel.  People were quite engaged and even applauded at the end!

After the camp we invited the team of NFL players and their sponsors from Olive Baptist Church to have Pizza with the Perugia team at our church.  More fellowship ensued until almost midnight!

Needless to say, our hearts are full for what God did here.

I am sure God used your prayers.  Many of you told me you were praying before, during and even after the event!
We serve a mighty God!
Pray that the seeds that were sown will blossom into an amazing work in the hearts of the many who had never heard the Gospel before.

Thank you for your part in this adventure!
Eventually I’ll have time to tell you more about Foligno and everything else that is happening!

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