10 September 2006

Worship

One of the issues we knew would be a problem for us in Italy was being able to participate in regular worship, due to several factors. One is the language, unless you are in one of the biggest cities there are not English based churches and it will take some time before we can fully comprehend a service in Italian.


We attended a non-denomination church in Albuquerque with worship and expository teaching; with Italy being the home of the Vatican, it is still primarily a Catholic country and the prevalence of protestant or non-denominational churches is limited. We have attended mass near where we are staying with our friend Francesca a couple times but there is the difference in the service and still the language issue.


In Nettuno we saw a sign for a non-denominational church and attempted to attend their service at the day and time posted on their window. We waited on that day for 15 minutes past the posted time and even with Italians being known for being late when the doors still had not been unlocked we decided this service was not to be for us. A few weeks later we saw a group from an Italian evangelistic group in the piazza in Anzio but they were getting a cool reception from the locals. We were able to talk to them but they are not based in this area.


We are able to spend time individually and together in study, prayer and communion but do have the availability a church as one of our long term goals. Via the internet we have found that there are a couple churches in the Ascoli Piceno area that we will be investigating once we move later this month, hopefully we can find a church there for regular worship.

11 comments:

Jane said...

Bryan, we are still in the same boat. There is a Baptist church in Firenze so we stopped in last Sunday (we were there for a few days), but, naturally, it was in italiano. We did stay in the back for a while to see how it would work but given our almost non-existent language facility of the moment, it was not the answer. So, we continue, as you, with our own studies and hope to eventually find a group with whom to whorship. If we were closer, we could become our own group!

Anonymous said...

Bryan,
Found you during a google search for "protestant worship in italy". my husband and i are staying in italy for 6 months - we fly out in just 2 weeks! - and we are concerned about worship while we're there. have you had any success since you wrote this post in 06?
Jaime (jaimeclewis.wordpress.com)

Bryan said...

Jaime,
Where will you be for those 6 months? We have not had success in our area (I posted on that a couple weeks ago). The areas that have more foreigners have more options for worship, especially the main areas in Milano, Roma and Firenza.

Anonymous said...

Hi, Bryan! I just moved to Opera, just south of Milan. Did you visit any churches in Milan? I found Milan Bible Church on line, but it is hard to get to on public transport, and they only have a Sun. night service right now. Any ideas? I would really appreciate it! I did visit a couple of small churches in Torino that were nice.
Thanks!
Mary

Unknown said...

Mary,

It can be difficult to find a church, we never found a good one for us around Ascoli Piceno. You might try these sites: ucebi.it, evangelici.net. I also searched the pagine gialle site for "evangelici".

TR said...

Hi Guys,

God Bless you for doing this blog. I am a single Christian woman living in San Diego, CA. I am researching Non-denominational churches in Italy for personal reasons. I am interested in possibly doing mission work there someday. I see there is a huge lack of non-denominational churches in Italy. Interesting predicament. No Christian churches in the land of Roman Catholicism. I am interested in being on any website or mailing list to get updates on what you have found or are doing in regards to this topic. Please refer me to any other blogs or websites you may know. Best Wishes and God Bless You! Tracy L.

Unknown said...

Tracy,

I am glad our experiences can be of some help to you. We did find that the Catholic Church is actually considered more "progressive" than many of the Protestant churchs in Italy. Our experience with some churches confirmed this.

Here are some sites that might help you:

http://www.calvarychapelmontebelluna.com/index_italiano.html

http://www.fedevangelica.it/

http://www.evangelici.net/home.html

Anonymous said...

hi my name is john and my wifes name is gabrielle we are intrested in italy. we are woking on dual itailan citizenship. we feel that god is calling us to italy to worship there and become involved in ministry! we will be taking our first trip to the calabria region.
does anyone know of any churches our other followers of jesus christ that are establishing gods work in the area?

Bryan said...

Anonymous - Try those web-sites I listed on the previous comment.

Celeste said...

I just thought I'd let you know about a nondenominational Christian church in the Naples/Napoli area. Agape Fellowship Ministries (http://www.agapefellowshipitaly.org/tp40/default.asp?ID=237294) is located near the US Naval Support Site in Gricignano di Aversa in the Caserta province just outside of Naples. Although the pastor is American, church membership is multinational. Hope this information helps those who are looking for protestant worship options in the Naples, Italy region.

Anonymous said...

There are 3 english-based churches in the Vicenza area. Just search Vicenza, english, and church and you should find them. One is Baptist, one Non-Denom, and I'm not sure about the last one. They exist to mostly serve the U.S. service members, but of course, anyone is welcome. As for the rest of Italy, look in the areas where U.S. personnel are stationed. If you're in Rome, contact the USO, they should have info on english churches, if there are any there.