Who We Are

The Italy Collective (IC) exists to facilitate the development of meaningful partnerships that will enhance planting and growing gospel-centered churches throughout Italy that are characterized by:

• Theological Clarity
• Cultural Engagement
• Missional Innovation

Our Areas of Focus

1. CHURCH PLANTING

We are a single issue organization. We exist to plant gospel-centered, church-planting churches throughout Italy. Everything we do exists for this aim.

2. CHURCH GROWING  

We desire to equip both new and existing churches to be healthy and sustainable. In order to do this, we must train up next-generation pastors and leaders and cultivate a culture of churches planting churches. 

3. RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT/SPECIAL PROJECTS

From creating a local-church based theological residency program, to hosting sports camps, to writing and translating books and resources, to serving the needs of the poor and destitute, there is endless gospel work to be done. As we plant and grow churches, we aim to holistically meet the needs of Italy.

What Defines Us

While we believe it is vital that the elders of each of our churches determine where they stand on doctrines of second importance, we do have the following theologically-driven core values:

• Gospel centrality in all of life
• The sovereignty of God in saving sinners
• The work of the Holy Spirit for life and ministry
• The equality of male and female as well as the principle of male headship
• The local church as God’s primary mission strategy

CURRENT REALITY

We believe we are at the beginning of a great movement of God in Italy. The time is now to initiate an aggressive, Spirit-led strategy to impact the nation through church-planting. As of now, this is our current reality:

KEY EFFORTS:

6  current locations of Impatto churches (we'll highlight 3 here):

Salerno - growing new church-plant with up to 40 people, a indigenous pastoral intern, a growing vision for church-planting, growing influence with families in city, and a campus ministry/focus about to start

Fontanafredda (Pordenone) - established church (over 100 people with a growing church-planting vision and focus, hosting Percorsi (Porterbrook in Italy), developing a strong regional coalition of like minded churches and church-plants

Budrio - new church-plant backed by two local church-planting churches, lots of groundwork done in the local social fabric and lots of open doors and relationships, core group formed, about 15 adults attending regularly

1  formal pastoral intern (in Salerno)

2  strategic resources implemented for equipping the Italian church:

Percorsi (Porterbrook Learning in Italy) is a growing training opportunity for churches. This has been implemented as a training platform for believers in the local church to grow in character, theology, and mission.

ImpattoPrint - an ambitious printing project aimed at producing theologically-rich resources. 10 titles planned for the first three years. 

Plus:

• A growing number of strategic relationships with churches throughout Italy
• An initial, but functional infrastructure to guide the Impatto and Italy Collective systems

PROJECTIONS FOR 2015/2016

By God’s grace, we hope that your partnership with IC will accomplish the following:

KEY EFFORTS:

6  (at least) new church plants fully launched 

7  (at least) new church planters fully trained and resourced to plant

3  new streams of resources (IC Theological Training Program, 3 new books, gospel-centered curriculum)

1  (at least) Business as Mission project identified and launched to bless the community, create gospel-platforms and generate funds for church-planting.

Plus:

• New strategic partnerships established between participating IC churches with each of our church plants in Italy (church twinning)
• Opportunities created for partnering churches to take part in vision-trips and hand-on ministry in Italy
• Open up a new outlet for the recruiting of more missionaries to come to Italy

Executive Board