We are so grateful for your partnership in the work out here.

Please give thanks…

• For great gospel opportunities pre-Christmas: for over 40 in attendance at the church’s evangelistic Christmas meal, with a number of non-believers listening to Mark’s gospel talk. For the Christmas day service, again with a good number present. For an opportunity to show Luisa’s class around the church building and to talk through the difference between the Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church using Ephesians 2:8.
• For the teaching of the Bible throughout the last three months: we're in the middle of a series in 1 Timothy on Sunday evenings, a bible overview on Tuesday evenings, Colossians with the youth group, Titus with the students and Ephesians one-to-one. Rich times in the word!
• For the start of the Neapolis library. Sadly Christian books are generally expensive in Italy and so are rarely bought and read. As a church we’ve invested in 40 different books and are lending them to church members. Give thanks for Luca taking on the running of this ministry and for the books that have already been read.
• For the encouragement of planning a regional men’s conference (6 April) with two Baptist churches and a Pentecostal church. For unity in our desire to edify and evangelise men of the Campania region and for a willingness to work together despite theological differences.

Auto-gestione (self-governance)!

Sofia (14) successfully made the jump to senior last September and found herself in the middle of a school mutiny in December - all fairly normal for Naples so we’re told! Due to a break down in relationships between senior staff and students, the students of the Convitto Nazionale decided first to stage a mass sit in, obstructing corridors and refusing to enter classrooms, they then occupied various classrooms and declared self-governance, organising a series of ‘lectures’. Finally they refused to enter the school building. We were struck by the initial heady excitement of rebellion experienced by the students followed relatively quickly by disillusionment - the lectures were apparently pretty boring and disorganised! A school in auto-gestione, a city in auto-gestione, a world in auto-gestione, living and loving in rebellion against its rightful ruler. All around us we see the consequences. Just this last month, teenage girls who have never met their fathers, boats of immigrants who are refused landing, a retired senator and engineer who fight outside our door over car parking spaces. Paul writes to Timothy with instructions on how the Christians in Ephesus should live that the church might be the pillar and buttress of the truth (1 Tim 3:14-15). The truth that as long as we mutiny, as long as we obstruct, occupy and organise our rebellion we will be desperately unhappy. The truth that the ruler of this world longs for all rebels to be saved (1 Tim 2:4)!