Episode 12 - TJ Lopez

Join us for another episode of Worship. Grow. Follow. as we talk with TJ Lopez about missions in Italy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hey, welcome back to Worship Profollow. We're excited today to be joined by a good friend of mine, TJ Lopez. He is an IMB missionary to Italy. He is a former colleague of mine, good friend of mine. I just wanted to bring him on today to introduce TJ to you as we begin this partnership with Italy and just see how God is moving in Italy, see the needs in Italy, and see how we can connect and partner with Italy and with missions in Italy in the future. TJ, we're so glad you're here with us today. Why don't you just start by introducing yourself to us, telling telling us a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Yeah, appreciate that. Happy to be here. So again, my name is TJ Lopez. I've got a beautiful wife, Andrea. We have two children, Alathea, who is five, and Luke, who is three. We've been here in Palermo for three years now, uh working alongside the local church and fellow believers with the hope of sharing the gospel, seeing people come to faith, and planting churches amongst uh the people here in Sicily. Um so uh Sicily is the is a triangle island that the boot of Italy is kicking. So it's the largest island in the Mediterranean, um, about 4.5 million people here. Um and of that, there's uh a large undercurrent of Catholicism um in the culture, of which most people are nominal Catholics, and then um of that there's a very small pocket of what I would say Protestant, evangelical, faithful believers that are involved in churches um across the island. And so um the the work is is grand, the work is big. Um, you know, for reference, it takes about three and a half hours to drive from one side of the island to the other. And so it's it's pretty large, but um, we're aware of churches that are that are um faithful churches that are in different places around the island. So, anyway, that's a little bit about the work, um, a little bit more about me. I grew up in California, moved to Indiana um and met my wife in college in Indiana. Um we went to Taylor University, small private Christian non-denominational school where we studied ministry. I was a youth pastor for three years in Memphis, then we did um university ministry at Covenant College, not too far from y'all, in uh Lookout Mountain, Georgia, Chattanooga area. Um, and then we've been here for three years, and so uh the Lord has been really faithful to provide opportunities for us to serve him. Um, and uh we're we're really happy to churches like you, um, Southern Baptist churches and churches that are willing to give their time, energy, resources for the advancement of the gospel around the world. So um, yeah, really appreciative of of of Gilliam Springs and and you guys have a great guy in Jake.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

So yeah, when we when we um you know we served together in in Sicily and when we left the field or made the decision to leave the field, it was scary. And literally, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but literally the day we resigned, Gillam Springs reached out to me the same day. Wow. So we you know we prayed about it and took a while to make the decision, but that initial contact was three hours after we resigned, and it was just the Lord, the Lord preparing work, uh showing us what he had already prepared for us to do. So I want to talk a little bit about Italy. Obviously, Italy is dear to my heart. I lived there for nearly a decade, you know. Italians, I love them so much. I just feel like I'm one of them. But yeah, before we get there, tell us a little bit about you said you grew up you were from California. Tell us a little bit about how you came to know Christ and just kind of that background.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Yeah, yeah. So I didn't I did not grow up in a Christian family. Um so growing up, we were just uh yeah, I grew up with a single mom, um, and it was just her and I for a while, and then I had a younger brother. Um, and we moved from California to Indiana when I was in high school, and I would say my high school experience then was kind of I would say a period of nominal faith, if you will. Um, it was kind of we were in small town rural Indiana, um, where it was just culturally um acceptable or culturally accepted that everybody goes to church. And so we started attending a church, um, but I didn't I I didn't have a true uh transformation of my heart until I went to college. Um I was the Lord was providential in in guiding me to this college where um it was a Christian college where there were lots of every professor was a believer, there was these chapel services, there was peers around me that were following the Lord, and and I just looked at their lives and said, My life does not look like theirs. They're living for Christ, and I'm still living for my own kingdom and my own glory and my own honor. And so um it really was that first semester of college, freshman year, I was really wrestling with man, things just seem so heavy and and everything seems wrong about this. And and I came to the conclusion it's because I'm being called to follow Christ by being at this college, and yet I'm not. Um, and so um kind of in between semesters there, freshman year, I I would say was when I became a believer, um, truly. And so from there, I I describe the rest of my college experience as kind of this greenhouse where the conditions were set perfectly for my maximum potential for growth. I had professors and and peers and chapel and and classes, all of these things about about the Bible, about how do you grow your in your faith, how you grow in Christ. And and so I just was like a sponge soaking up as much as I could. And then on top of that, not just learning knowledge, but I was being called to use and serve and sacrifice in ways that um I I think was putting that then knowledge into practice in ministry. And so I was really grateful for that time. Um, and so my wife and I got married uh shortly after university or shortly after college and went on to, again, as I said, serve as a youth pastor for three years. Um and that time was a lot of growth as well. Of okay, now we don't have the kind of safety net of a college that's that's providing lots of opportunities for growth in ministry. What does it look like to grow on your own in that and and learn how to serve in a church? Um, and and that was a really formative experience as well, and learning how to mentor youth and and uh yeah, different different elements of ministry in that. Um, and then we went on to this uh college ministry that we at Covenant um that again was um a little bit more my wife was was uh resident hall director, so she was in charge of one of the dorms there, and I was working maintenance and just doing ministry, kind of in a in a lay role of just mentoring and discipling the guys on the campus, and so it was really yeah, formative in okay, you don't always have to have a role in order to be the hands and feet of Jesus and doing ministry, and so that was that was a really encouraging time for that as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

So yeah, it's cool to hear that story of how God just drew you to himself. What what about what about missions? How did you end up on the mission field? How specifically Italy, how how did that all take place?

SPEAKER_02 8:04

Yeah, so I'll backtrack a little bit. When I was in Memphis as a youth pastor, um, we had some friends that came and knocked on the door uh of our apartment complex to share the gospel with us. And you know, I was serving on staff at a church, and I said, you know, I'm I'm a believer, I'm serving on staff at a church. And they then said, Well, that's awesome. Like, so you're a believer, you believe what the Bible says. What are you doing to like share the gospel with people? And I kind of it kind of I kind of sat back and was like, What am I doing? Like, like I have these youth that I am sharing the gospel with, but it it's mostly Christian families here that are coming to the church, they're already bought in because they're coming to the church events. What was I doing actually outwards of how am I engaging non-believers and lost people? How am I um growing relationships so that they can get to the gospel? And I kind of through some of the questions with these friends, realized, yeah, I wasn't really doing anything in that regard. And and they helped teach me a lot. They trained me in just like, okay, well, why don't you come with us? We're going out and we're going to share the gospel with people. And so I was going out with them regularly to share the gospel. They they showed me some different ways and things that they were doing. And so that kind of started something in me, where then when we ended up going to Covenant College, um, that continued to grow of, okay, how can I implement some of these things? These and and how can we go out and share the gospel as I've got these college students? How can I teach them some of the things that I've been taught? Um, how can we go out and share the gospel with people? How can we be involved in ministry? You know, oftentimes we get into Christian bubbles, if you will, and we just stay inside because it's comfortable and and we enjoy that. But Jesus is like, no, I want my people to go. I want my people to go and tell, right? Um, and and we'll get into that in maybe in a little bit. But that really was was formative in, okay, so as we knew that our time at Covenant was coming to an end because our daughter was born and it just wasn't living in a dorm with a newborn is not ideal. Um, and so so as we were thinking about what was next, we were praying, and and honestly, we were applying for lots of different ministry positions, and we said, well, what if we just started the process of seeing what missions could look like? Um, and and we had the intent of maybe we'll just go somewhere for three years. We'd kind of lived our married life in three year segments up to that point. So we were three years in Memphis, three years in at Covenant, and let's go do three years maybe somewhere else overseas. Um, it wasn't really ever ever something I thought of. My wife and I, you know, some people like missions because they get to travel. We were not travel people. We we were kind of homebodies, we didn't have much of a desire to like go see the world. Um, and so it was it was really one of those things we're like, uh, is this gonna be good for us? I don't know, but maybe we could just start the process and see what happens. And as we as we kind of went through the process, the IMB has a really good vetting process of of asking people to really think through their motivations behind it. Um, and and at the end of the day, our motivation was we wanted to see more people follow Jesus. We want more people to hear the gospel, have access to the gospel. Um, you know, they're in the United States, especially if we think of the Southeast, right? There's there's churches on every street corner in a lot of places, and so theoretically, there's a lot of access to the gospel in that people can hear the gospel. Whereas when you start thinking abroad, all of a sudden there's places where there's very few churches as a percentage of the population, and so they don't have very meaningful access to the gospel. And so we wanted to go somewhere where we could where we could have an impact in that way. Um, and so we we continue the process with the IMB. Um, eventually get connected with our former team leader that said, Hey, we would love to have you come join us and work here. Um, you know, honestly, he said, All right, we're in Palermo, Sicily, and I'm like, I have no idea where that is on the map. Uh Sicily, like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

You'd be amazed at the number of people who think Sicily is a different country. It's actually part of it's part of Italy, but people think it's a country.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I had no idea. I I think my you know, my idea of Sicily was oh, probably the Godfather movies, the mafia, um, and and which is I think that's a lot of our ideas. I think, yeah, I think that's a lot of our ideas. Um, and so it was interesting. I'm like Googling on a map, okay. So it's this island. Um, what do you know what are some what do I know about it? And and after being here, I'm like, wow, this is an amazing place. If you if you take the time to Google it, you'll see is it's a beautiful, beautiful place. I mean, I'm I'm I'm so grateful just of the natural beauty that I get to enjoy here. Um so in that regard, I I feel really, really lucky. Um, but then on top of that, there's amazing food here. The people are super warm and welcoming. So like there's a lot of really great things. Um and sometimes it's hard to communicate to people, like, but there's also really hard things, especially when you think about the the challenge of of missions and ministry. So anyway, uh we can maybe get into that in a sec, but that's kind of how we ended up here. We we interviewed with Steve, um, and he he was like, hey, come join us here, and and we were glad to glad to come. And and and then we got a little bit delayed, and so Jake ended up even joining the team and and coming to to this city and because we'd come and welcomed.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

We were in central Italy before Sicily, so but we ended up there. Steve is our team leader. I'm gonna talk a lot about Steve, but then never get him on the podcast. Uh just just because if you knew him, that would that'd be hilarious. He's a unique, he's a unique guy. Oh, yeah. One day, Steve, one day.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

So let's talk about it. So yeah, it was felt good to be welcomed by by uh Jake and Deb and the and the GoForth family, as well as uh the other folks that were here. So yeah, it was it was a good good landing city and team to join.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

So when you were looking at that job, we were we were doing our adoption. We were taking a leave for our adoption, and we were actually looking at the job that you have now, and then we decided that our girls needed some more time to learn English in America, and then you took that job, and then there was another job that came available that we took, but it was just God working it out so we could all be there at the same time. And I was just thinking back to our time there. There's been so many times where you and I specifically would, you know, we would go to the university, we'd go prayer walking, different places. I was thinking about the guy that that day that we talked to for an hour, just you think of you think of unreached places. You know, that that unreached title is less than two percent born-again Christian. And you think, surely, surely that's not Europe. You know, Europe, Europe has churches everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

And you think, you know, America is not is not unreached. Sure, there's lost people everywhere. They're not people are not saved everywhere, but they have access to it. Exactly. But Italy, if you look at these stats of born-again Christians in Italy, I don't know the latest numbers, but it's under one percent born-again Christians out of out of 60 million Italians. And I'm thinking of Palermo specifically, the city where you live, city where we lived, where we're gonna where Gillum is gonna partner. There's around a million people, right under a million people. And you can you can correct me, but to my knowledge, there are four like-minded evangelical churches in in that million people.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Yeah, I would say so.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

I mean, there are a lot of churches.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Yeah. And and those churches are also small, less than 50 people for majority of them.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

The biggest of the four is fifty or sixty at the on on Easter, you know, on the biggest Sunday or whatever. And then it goes all the way down to less than 10, probably. They're very small. Exactly. Very small. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about what is your what is your ministry look like? What are you what kind of things are you doing to try to reach Italians?

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Yeah. Um, you know, can I can I talk a little bit about maybe why before I get into the what? Is that all right? Yeah, yeah. So one of the things that um we're kind of uh doing is is thinking through, okay, we want to see the the island reached. How does that happen? Is through local Italians, because at the end of the day, as foreigners, there's always gonna be a barrier between us and them as we're trying to communicate the gospel, as we're trying to just communicate in general. There's a language barrier, but then there's cultural barriers, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

And so no matter how long you've been there, how good your language is, you are not one of them. You're always a foreigner. I mean, unless you're there for 40 years, you're you are not seen as one of them.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so with all of those barriers, we think that the best methodology is trying to equip and mobilize the locals to be reaching their neighbors, the locals to be going out and sharing the gospel. If we can if we can equip them and train them in some just like healthy practices of doing ministry, of sharing the gospel, of of discipling, of raising up leaders, and and of planting churches, then those things will be kind of grassroots. And and what that also does is then things aren't dependent upon us as the foreigner missionaries, because oftentimes we've seen historically and still even today, missionaries that come in from abroad, they plant a church and they pastor a church, and then if anything happens where they have to leave, the church falls apart. Um and unfortunately that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

One thing about missionaries is no matter what your intention is, there will be a point when you're not there anymore. Even if you stay till you're 70, there still will be a point when you're not there. We thought we would be there forever. We planned, we literally planned to be in Palermo until we were 65, 70 years old, but we don't know the future. We don't know, we never our plans change. Exactly. Our ways are not God's ways, our plans are not his plans. So we never know. So what I hear you saying is I completely agree. We have to set it up in a way that when the missionary steps out, the ministry keeps going and it doesn't collapse because it wasn't ever based on us to start with.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Exactly. Exactly. So when we look at uh like let's let's look at the scriptures real quick. We think about God's heart, God's desire. Uh, when I say heart, I mean his his heart for the people, his his desire, and many of you know this, but his his desire is to see people follow him. We see this from the beginning in Genesis 1.26 when when he tells people to, when he tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, right? Why do they need to be fruitful and multiply? It's because he wants more people that can glorify him, that can reflect his image, that he can experience this sort of love relationship that he has with humanity. Um then that continues into Genesis 12, 1 and 3 with the coven the covenant that he does with Abraham, right? In that covenant, he says he's gonna bless all people. So he doesn't he says, through Abraham, right, through this seed, I'm gonna bless all people. And and that seed we know is Jesus, right? Um as we think about this uh the Christmas season, um, that Jesus is coming to fulfill the prophecies, right? Um and so he he makes his covenant with Abraham, and Jesus comes as a fulfillment of that. And then Jesus, what does he say in the in the famous Great Commission passage, Matthew 28, is that I want all people from everywhere to know me. So therefore, as you're going, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey. And so in this, we again see the heart of the Father, the heart of God is to see all people. And then the final image, Revelation 5, 9 and 7, 9, both give us this idea of people from every tribe, nation, tongue, language worshiping at the throne. So God's heart is to see all people come to know him, all people proclaiming him, all people glorifying him. And so we see our role as believers, and and so as missionaries, yes, but also for those of you in at the church in Gillam or or in Arab, but at the church in Gillam Springs Baptist, like your role, my role as a missionary, Jake's role as as a as a church leader. Um, our role then is how can we help more people to glorify God's name, to proclaim his word, his message. Um, and then we also see in 2 Corinthians 5, um, we is kind of this famous passage where it says, We're made into a new creation, and so we're giving this a new idea. identity and as a new creation then we are ambassadors. So an ambassador is someone that represents somebody else to a people. So we are representing God to the people, to lost people. And so we're glorifying his name through being ambassadors. And so God's heart is for us to be doing this work. And so that's how that's kind of the why behind how we ended up here and what how we ended up in this line of work if you will but how all of us are then called to be if we are new creation if we are saved then this is our role. Yeah. So that's that's kind of the why behind it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

That really is the heartbeat of Gillum Springs. A lot doing a lot of missions, doing a lot of global missions, domestic missions, local stuff. But doing it vocationally is something that's still even if we've been on a short-term trip, doing it vocationally is a completely different mindset. So yeah that's a that's a good word. I just wanted this little side note you talked about me coming to Arab Alabama. I don't know if you remember this but last fall when we told you guys that we were leaving and I told you we were thinking about going to Gillam Springs in Arab, you said, I know Arab Alabama. And you had listened to Henry Cho. I'm only mentioning that because everybody in the church knows that bit from Henry Cho and it's hilarious. But so you knew all about Arab so that's hilarious. Anyways I'm not trying to sidetrace no no that's great.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Yeah. Okay so yeah go ahead yeah so so that's what I see as as kind of God's heart is for this work to be happening right and and so then we think about okay right and so then we think about okay but how does that actually practically play out that's kind of a little bit of of what you asked um and and obviously that happens through the proclamation of the gospel the good news that Jesus came and died and rose again.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Yeah but are you like preaching on a street corner you know yeah is this like the Wesley brothers in the 1800s or like how do what does it look like?

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Yeah yeah great question so as I kind of alluded to earlier there's there's a combination of of ways and and and honestly we're still trying different things to see kind of what works in this context. It's a hard context yeah yeah there's there's definitely challenges and and so there's some things that we're still trying out but there's some things that we feel like okay if we look at scripture what do we see Jesus doing what do we see Jesus's followers doing so we look at Jesus' method of ministry we you know he was he was doing ministry for three years and that's recorded in the gospels four different people have recorded this and and we see him going not and again it's it's important that we have pastors but we don't see Jesus pastoring a church we see him as kind of an itinerant preacher if you will he's traveling around teaching different people about the kingdom of God okay and so he's declaring the kingdom of God is at hand I'm the Messiah tell tell people sometimes he even tells people not to tell people but that's a that's a different story. He's telling people hey the kingdom is here. So we see him as kind of this itinerant preacher um then immediately after he dies rises and ascends to heaven we have the book of Acts um that's a continuation of the book of Luke and in the book of Acts we see all of God's people and how the early church were doing ministry. So the people that were closest to Jesus and his time and his ministry what were they doing? And we see them over and over again entering new places where there's no work going on there's no gospel there's no churches people don't know maybe that Jesus is the Messiah maybe they've heard about Jesus he was kind of famous in that region of the world but maybe they don't know the full aspect of who he was and what he's done. And so we see Jesus's followers going into these places and saying okay we're gonna come and we're gonna proclaim that Jesus is the Messiah we're gonna proclaim that Jesus brings new and eternal life we're gonna proclaim the gospel the good news and so um kind of thinking about okay what then are the elements that the core of the gospel what's the main the main core of the gospel so um in in 1 Corinthians 15 1 through eight it says I will remind you brothers of the gospel I preach to you, which you received in which you stand and by which you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain, for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures that he was buried that he raised from he raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas then to the twelve then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time most of whom are still alive though some have fallen asleep then he appeared to James then to all the apostles last of all as to one untimely born he appeared also to me and that me being Paul. So the core of the gospel is that Jesus was crucified that it was ordained according to the scriptures he repeated multiple times that Jesus rose again that there was evidence of all of this as he appeared to all these different people and then lastly that there was a response that people believed so kind of the the that's the main core of the gospel. And so that can be shared in different ways I'll I'll explain the the nitty gritty if you will the the practicals of what we are doing um is we are training Italians Sicilians to share the gospel essentially and then I'm going out with them. And so we it it doesn't look like preaching on the street corner but it does look like going into places where there are crowds if you will and walking up to strangers and talking to them and saying hey can we pray for you today and the how can we pray for you and that question is a little bit shocking at first to somebody that's just culturally out and about yeah but anywhere in the world really I mean in the United States it would be weird if you walked up to somebody right like um it's just a shocking question of like oh okay you're asking how can I pray for you I don't know what religion you belong to I don't know who you are I don't know who you're praying to there's there's lots of things that might go through somebody's mind when you ask them that. And so usually they are like okay but who are you what are you and and immediately one of their questions probably especially in this context where people are already culturally Catholic religious and some type they ascribe to some sort of faith typically and often it is in relation to Jesus and so they might ask well who who are you praying to bam that's an open door to share the gospel oh let me let me tell you who I'm praying to I'm actually praying to Jesus let me tell you about Jesus bam there's there's an open door to share the gospel and I'll explain a little in a little bit how we share the gospel it's really simple how we how we have been training people to share the gospel. So the the strategy is I'm hoping that as this continues to go that I'll connect with more and more pastors of churches and they might even be churches that I personally wouldn't attend because maybe they wouldn't align with me theologically but if I have an opportunity to teach them the true gospel that we find in the scriptures then all of a sudden now their people are thinking about hey that guy told us from the scriptures what the real gospel is when I read 1 Corinthians 15 to them and now they have to wrestle with okay I see that in scripture and maybe my pastor is telling me something different where do those two things collide how do I manage those so so the hope is that we can connect with more churches more pastors kind of through networking and and different ways of building relationships with churches and pastors that are already existing train and equip them to share the true gospel and so that that's the hope. And yeah I'd love to I'd love to share more um about what then it looks like practically um so you're you're doing actual trainings in churches right you've started right yeah you've done that in some of some of our partner churches even like shalom I know you did one there exactly yeah so it was really it was really encouraging time with Shalom um actually it was it ended up being a combination of Shalom and Chentro Agape okay so for for gillum for Gillum people Chentro Agape is uh Agape Agape Center is how you'd say it in English that is the church that we are partnering with as a church where Deb and I were members and then Shalom is a sister church of theirs yeah and so we were able to train them in some practical tools on how they can share the gospel essentially um and with again with the hope of that more people have the opportunity to hear the gospel more people hopefully then as you share the gospel come to faith and then hopefully that multiplies into more churches more um more people out proclaiming again like we said earlier God's heart and God's desire for the nation is that all these people would be worshiping at the throne so the things that I trained like for example Shalom and Chentro Agape that was a really really special night it we had I I thought it was going to be a very low key maybe there'd be 10 people there ended up being over 50 people that came out that night 50 Sicilians that came out that night um and I know yeah it was it was really special so they all came out and I had my my local Sicilian with me that I had already taught these things. So again we're thinking we're always thinking towards multiplication right so I'm teaching him so that he can teach them actually so I'm up there with him and I'm doing some of the talking but then as much as I can I'm deferring to him because a the language he's just better he's he's a local right Marcello was that who it was this was this was actually Nicola oh okay he's nice guy yeah yeah Marcello also was involved with he had already heard the training prior and he's the connection that we had to be able to um work with Shalom and Chicago is the friendliest person I've ever met he just he's so loving. That's cool that you're involved with him in that full of joy yeah yeah yeah full of joy um definitely transformed by the spirit and and and so yeah super I'm super glad to have him as a as a friend but also as somebody that to work alongside so I've equipped him in some of these things on how to train others and so you know we think about Paul trained Timothy Timothy is then training other people and and so we see this kind of generational training happening and and so that's that's what I'm doing is as we went to this training I talked and then I handed the mic off to Nicola and said Nicola you trained them in this and and then he handed it back to me and we kind of had this back and forth of how and and and so what we trained them on again was okay I want to encourage you guys to come out with us. So we've been going out to do street evangelism twice a week um for this entire fall semester and I'm I'm happy to report that probably in this fall semester over 250 people have heard the gospel. Wow it's yeah it it's it's it's been really amazing even to see people uh local Sicilians that have been open to coming out that I would have never expected you know some really quiet timid introverted guys to some really you know guys that you'd like oh okay I thought they were really busy but they made the time because they see this as a value and an importance as the king the more we talk about it the more we kind of cast vision that this is a really important aspect of our identity as believers as new creation ambassadors then then the more people start to say man I should really do that. And so yeah it's it's really really been encouraging to see just the faithfulness of believers globally. So now we have these these few brothers Sicilian brothers that you know if I text them hey do you want to go out and share the gospel tomorrow yeah they're they're on board that's awesome so it's really really encouraging. So what we're training people in you honestly the probably the hardest part is breaking the ice yeah and so one the way that I like to break the ice is asking people if we can pray for them as I mentioned earlier. Yeah um and it it breaks the ice in a way that moves the conversation in a spiritual direction sometimes there can be let's break the ice but then it's hard how do I turn the conversation towards the spiritual right and and so instead we're we're just walking up to people and saying hey I'm TJ this is my friend Nicola today we're out praying for people in our community how can we pray for you today?

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Yeah yeah the way we always broke the ice the way we always broke the ice was we would introduce ourselves and tell them that we work with evangelical churches and without fail because they're all Catholic even though they're nominally Catholic and never go to church they're Catholic I mean they've done baptism in the Catholic Church they've done communion different things so they always ask what's the difference in evangelical and Catholic every time they'll ask that.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

Yeah and so it's just an open door to share the gospel yeah exactly exactly so that's yeah that's how we've been breaking the ice but I've also done it in other ways like the other probably last week we were at the university and we were talking to university students and we were breaking the ice by just saying hey what do you think about the person of Jesus yeah just really simply like what what do you you've heard about this person throughout history throughout your life what do you think about him and they'll probably give you an answer that's not even Catholic because they're they're uneducated about it. For sure for sure and you know in the college setting here the colleges tend to be very liberal left progressive and so many of a lot of atheism yeah yeah exactly and so many of them would say well maybe he was a good teacher maybe he was a real guy or maybe he wasn't even a real guy you know they're they're so far removed and and uninterested that they would even maybe deny that he was a real person.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

Yeah um and so it gives us an opportunity to talk about that yeah I remember one time I was I was up in Abruzzo when we lived up there trying to share the gospel with this guy on the Kieti University campus and I we did a survey and I asked him what religion are you and he said Catholic because my parents are do you believe in God?

SPEAKER_02 37:15

No I'm an atheist and then the final question was on a scale of one to ten what is your desire to know God and he said ten and I was like man this is the most confusing thing I've ever heard but I think he I think he was you know confused and had a lot of turmoil but yeah it's just yeah the younger generation it's completely different than the older generation yeah yeah definitely definitely so pretty simply we we are breaking the ice of the conversation and sometimes people are open to us praying for them sometimes they're not but even there even if they're not we can kind of turn the conversation of okay well why are you not open to prayer what what what do you believe where are you you know have an opportunity to ask a question and and wait for a response um but then also we want to get to maybe um we've we another thing that we have practiced and trained people on is something we call 15 second testimony so it's liter yeah literally in the name where we share our testimony in 15 seconds so we share two things that we were prior to knowing Christ how two things of how Christ changed our lives and two things of now how do we live in know with that reality of who Christ was so it might be you know there was a time in my life I was arrogant and selfish then I saw in the scriptures that Jesus talks about humility and peace and now I try to think of others and I try to put others before myself. Yeah that's a good that's a good great way yeah and it's just this really simple way of sharing a brief version of a testimony and then following it up with have you ever experienced something like that? Do you have a story similar? Yeah do you know of something have you ever been impacted or changed by that?

SPEAKER_00 39:05

And so it's an opportunity again to share my own personal experience because that's a really big thing right in this new generation is um you can't question somebody's personal experience right well and and all these young the young generation in Italy specifically they grew up and their parents were forcing them into Catholicism and the fact that you made a choice on your own to follow Jesus is is speaks a lot to them and that it's something that you've experienced. I think that's a great way to share the gospel I mean we could do that here you could do that in any any culture.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

Yeah yeah and I and I did like these are some of the things that I learned when I lived in Memphis from these friends that came knocking on my door that they were teaching me this. And so then from there we do want to get to the gospel though right so as we read in 1 Corinthians 15 the gospel isn't our our testimonies aren't what saves people it's an important aspect and we even look as we read in Acts we see the test our testimony we see like Paul and Stephen and different people sharing their testimony as a method of telling people about who Jesus is and what he's done in their lives is so I don't I think it's important and valuable but at the end of the day if we're not proclaiming Jesus death life death resurrection then we're not truly sharing the gospel yeah and so we I like because my mind is simple I like the the we utilize I don't know if any of you people have if your church has ever studied this thing that's called the three circles. Yeah it was that's what we teach for mission trips yeah okay yeah yeah yeah so that's that's what we've been utilizing here um and so our we've trained the people in it and and I think also uh the the level of education here in the southern Italy is a little bit lower than than some of the other parts so it's a visual thing. I yeah so the simplicity of it is really really helpful and and it's not just educational thing I think that it's really helpful just to have simple biblical tools simple biblical things that people can reproduce and so we share the three circles with people if we can I don't always draw it out sometimes I just have it in my mind of God made a perfect world we live in a broken world now we try to escape it but Jesus came and and so we for those of us that believe we can become new creation so again walking through kind of the three circles method without actually drawing out the full three circles um and and then but the important aspect is always following it up with a question of giving people an opportunity to respond to the gospel so where are you where are you are you living in brokenness in this broken world or have you put your trust in Jesus and and then if you have how are you sharing the gospel with people how are you telling people how are you proclaiming because we want to find more people you know Jesus Jesus said that the the laborers are few right so we want to find as many laborers as we can to help uh again as we talked about earlier the God's desire to see all people worshiping and glorifying Jesus' name so that asking for a response is the hard part right for sure for sure I'm thinking of a specific person in Palermo a year ago that I shared the gospel with and I asked him to respond to it and I have not heard from him since then.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

That's the hard part but it's gonna be hard we've got to push through that because that person's worth it there it's worth it for them to hear the gospel. Yeah and you know you never know you never know where you are in that person's journey either.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

They may hear exact they may have other people sharing the gospel with them after you just and at the end of the day no go ahead go ahead I was just gonna say at the end of the day the Holy Spirit is the one that draws people right the Holy Spirit's the one that saves people he's the one doing the whole thing so we just have to be faithful.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

He just lets us be a little part of it so we're we're getting running out of time here but just if you could if you could give one word of encouragement to our church as we start this partnership with with Chenturoagape and with you and with team Sicily we want we we want to focus on Genturoagape but also other parts of the island if we can somehow expand it and see the gospel come I I know there's uh the church in Chefaloo is is close to my heart. It's about an hour away from Palermo. There's other churches around we could definitely do something with so what's one word of encouragement to our church as we wrap up and then what's one thing we can pray for Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

My my word of encouragement is uh John fifteen which is uh kind of uh you know the popular passage of abiding in Christ um it's it's it it's not necessarily in particular to missions well it is because it's in particular to everything um right in john 15 jesus says that I am the vine you're the branches apart from me you can do nothing and this that specific uh part in verse 5 or 6 i I can't remember off the top of my head struck me one day of man apart from him we can do nothing yeah we can't be missionaries we can't be faithful followers of Jesus apart from him apart from Jesus obviously but we can't even be good spouses good parents good friends good students good employees good employers we can't apart from him we can't do anything unless we are abiding in him and and in that passage he even mentions multiple things he says abide in me then he repeats abide in my word so spending time in the word then he repeats abide in my love a little bit later and so it's a it's a combination of abiding in the word spending time in God's word so dwelling uh making our our our our dwelling place is what abide could mean and so we're dwelling in the word but then also dwelling in God's love reminding ourselves of God's love for us yeah um I think it's the I I once heard it said that the fight of faith is for us to believe that God loves us as much as he says he does. And so it's this abiding in God's love is just reminding ourselves that he loves us as much as he says that he does. And so we're abiding in his word we're abiding in his love and then it says ask of me anything so we're abiding through prayer and then lastly I would add with with John 15 also first John 1 8 and 10 which is the passage about walking in the light. So as we are abiding then also walking in the light and confessing our sin is another aspect in which we we dwell with God by by confessing our sin and being people of the light and walking in the light. And so these two together I think uh are are the message that I want all Christians to hear is that as we abide in Christ and it's so easy to say and and I I forget and and prioritize other things just as much as everyone else um but man up when we remind ourselves that apart from him we can do nothing then it becomes so much more vital right I can't be a good father and husband and and anything else apart from him and so I need to abide in his love and in his word and abide in him through prayer. And so that would be my my encouragement to to all believers and you know people at Gillam Springs people everywhere. Yeah um so yeah I'll say that is the encouragement and then and then you you had a a second question in relation to just our partnership can you remind me of what that was just uh something we could be praying about as we begin this partnership yeah yeah um pray that the Lord would send more laborers yeah um uh he's he is the Lord of the harvest the Holy Spirit is the one that saves people but God wants to use his people he wants to to do his work through his people and so we're praying that the Lord would would would call more people to this type of work whether that is missionaries from abroad it could be some people even in your congregation of Gillam Springs that feel called to come and join the work here but also that the Lord would call up people here in Palermo that want to see more people hear the gospel that want to see churches planted that want to see that want to equip and mobilize more people to hear but also that want to like I just said want to abide and want to teach people how they can abide that's part of the you know the discipleship process as well and so yeah that that that there would be more more laborers in the harvest um is is definitely our prayer request yeah so well thank you so much TJ I I really enjoyed this chat uh I hope I hope this gives our church a a good context for what Italy is like what the work there looks like so I I really appreciate it and we'll definitely see you in the future and as we say as we send teams we'll see you there and maybe we can bring you here at some point.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

So yeah yeah yeah this summer uh unfortunately we'll be stateside when if if you all end up coming out this summer in July but uh we are going to be stateside and so we hope we hope to be able to come over to to Arab and and and see you all and meet you all and um and and and give everybody a hug and so uh that would be that would be our joy is to to come and worship alongside you all so definitely we'll do it well okay thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Worship World as we start this partnership with this consider your part in the partnership and maybe if you want to get your trip with us maybe one day there okay it's gonna be lead to you recording your case