Thankful for God’s Faithfulness

As we pause this Thanksgiving Day to reflect on God’s goodness and mercy toward us, may we give God thanks for how he continues to make the light of the Word shine forth throughout the world, including Italy. Here in Milan, as the temperatures have dropped and the leaves on the trees have changed colors, we are mindful of God’s faithfulness with every changing season. Indeed, “the grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever” (1 Peter 1:24). Moreover, this week marks our fourth anniversary on the foreign mission field. We give thanks to God for his mercies to us as a family, and how he has sustained our congregation, Chiesa Riformata Filadelfia, with his Word and Spirit.

Milan Conference on Reformed Theology

On November 5, our church hosted our third annual “Conferenza sulla Teologia Riformata a Milano” (Milan Conference on Reformed Theology). Modelled after the Philadephia Conference on Reformed Theology started in 1975 by Dr. James Montgomery, the purpose of this conference is threefold: 1) To awaken interest in Reformed theology and the doctrines of grace amongst people in Milan and throughout Italy; 2) Establish a forum at which men and women in the Reformed tradition in Italy might meet and be encouraged; 3) Marshall resources in Italian to strengthen the Church in Italy.

This year, the conference theme was “Catholics and Protestants: What’s the Difference?”, a very relevant topic in Roman Catholic Italy. We were pleased to invite noted author and speaker Dr. Leonardo De Chirico, pastor of Breccia di Roma (a Calvinistic evangelical church in Rome), director of Instituto di Formazione Evangelica e Documentazione, and host of the Reformanda Initiative podcost. Dr. De Chirico is an expert on Roman Catholic theology and delivered an excellent lecture on how Rome and the Reformation differ on the gospel. Other speakers included myself and Rev. Gavino Fioretti, an Italian who is a minister in the Free Church of Scotland.

Like the previous conferences, this was a day filled with good teaching and warm Christian fellowship. We had a large number of people in attendance with many visitors. We give thanks to God that this annual conference has been a blessing to many. We pray that it will continue to bear fruit for our mission in Milan and Italy. Every generation must rediscover the Gospel and apply it to its own time. We hope to see a second reformation in the Christian church today, and especially in Italy!


Worship Services in Turin Continue

By God’s grace, we continue to hold monthly worship services in the city of Turin, which is about an hour and a half west of Milan. We have found a temporary home for the meetings in a small Brethren church that is willing to let us use their facility for an evening worship service on Sundays. We give thanks that there have been visitors the last two times we have met. We pray that, if it be His will, the Lord will bless this work, create a solid core group, and eventually provide a missionary to plant a Reformed church. The elders in Milan and I ask for your prayers, that all will be done to the glory of God, and that he will provide us with much wisdom.

Publication of “Core Christianity” in Italian

We give thanks to God that a project we began three years ago has finally come to completion. Michael Horton’s excellent book “Core Christianity” is now available in Italian under the title “L’essenza del Cristianesimo”. We are very excited to see this book in print as it provides the reader with a clear and helpful understanding of Christianity, of its most important doctrines as well as the redemptive- historical flow of the Bible. This is an important resource in Italy, a country with deep and ancient Christian roots, yet very little knowledge of the Bible or how it all speaks of Christ. In a land where less than 1% of the population identifies as Protestant, Core Christianity will help its readers know what we as Christians believe and why we believe it.
Prayer Requests:

1. Pray that our church in Milan will continue to grow spiritually and numerically, as we seek to make disciples of our Lord.

2. Pray for the continued development of CPRI, the coalition of Reformed and Presbyterian churches in Italy, that we will be able to establish a confessional denomination.

3. Pray for the new work in Turin, that the Lord will provide a missionary to plant a church there.

EMAIL PASTOR MIKE: mgbrown1543@gmail.com
VISIT OUR WEBSITE: missionmilan.org