San Paolo: Rome's church planting vision
Since its foundation in the centre of Rome, the evangelical church Breccia di Roma has sought to impact its city by proclaiming the gospel, and by developing a network of other church planting efforts. Since 2012, Breccia di Roma felt it was right to focus prayer and outreach activities in the San Paolo area of Rome.
San Paolo is a very significant area of Rome. It is home to St. Paul’s Basilica, the campus of Rome's third university, and the offices of the Lazio Region. It is a highly populated area with 130,000 residents, and with both metro and train lines it is a high-transit area too. It contains a very well-known paediatric hospital which attracts people from around the country, and in recent times, due to immigration, non-Christian communities have grown. There are no evangelical churches in this part of Rome.
As the church family prayed for this neighbourhood, they increasingly felt that the right time to plant would be when three conditions had been met. They wanted to see:
1. Some people becoming Christians in San Paolo, showing the first fruits of a harvest there;
2. A solid group in and for San Paolo who could become the core of a new church family;
3. Health in the mother church, Breccia di Roma, such that she could send a group to the plant and regain strength.
Since 2015, Breccia di Roma has seen three people from the San Paolo area come to faith. There is now a group of eight people living there, comprising solid Christians as well as young Christians; a promising core group for a church plant. Meanwhile, Breccia di Roma has developed more young leaders, and grown in size.
In 2017, the members of Breccia di Roma approved a roadmap towards planting a new church in San Paolo in 2018. The roadmap envisages a series of evangelistic talks in San Paolo, prayer meetings throughout the year, a church retreat in March, a couple of public services in June, and then the beginning of consecutive public meetings in September 2018.
Gianluca Piccirillo, Union student in Rome, says, "Breccia di Roma was planted within a vision of church multiplication, and the new church in San Paolo is the first fruit of that vision. Already, another area of the city appears to be “promising”: will God move things so that in the next five years a new sister church will be planted?"
Please pray for the new church being established in 2018, and for gospel fruit in the great city of Rome.
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