When you can feel the earth shake beneath your feet, you know something big is happening. That's exactly what occurred in Milan, Italy the afternoon of Saturday, March 19. It wasn't an earthquake but it was something big. One man who felt the ground shaking likened it to the tremor caused by a passing train. But it wasn't a train either. It was the people of God.
For perhaps the first time in hundreds of years - maybe even the first time ever - nearly 5,000 evangelical believers paraded through the streets of this great city, better known as the fashion capital of the world, to sing praise to the living God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
In the weeks leading up to the event, 1,500 posters proclaiming the love of God for the people of that city had been prominently displayed and 200,000 pieces of literature had been prepared to invite people to a website where they could find a Bible-believing church close to them.
But no one could have predicted the power of the moment that Saturday afternoon when the procession paused near Duomo, the city's main cathedral, the third largest in the world. CrossWorld worker Nina Schaafsma described it:
Our line-up of thousands had to wait. We were going crazy singing and giving testimony. Then the believers from all over Milan and from as far away as Sicily began to sing "You are King! You are King! You, Jesus, are King!" I cannot describe to you the feeling of wonder to have a crowd like ours giving Jesus the glory as we stood in the shadow of a cathedral that was raised to give glory to [the virgin] Mary. The majesty of this building and her golden statue on the top were small in comparison to the glory that was being given to the Lord in that moment.... People were crying all throughout the day. One young man told us he cried for an hour after going home. Another new believer said he felt a joy like never before.
Things like this don't happen overnight in Italy or the rest of post-Christian Europe where the spiritual soil is some of the hardest in the world. It is the result of the long-term investment of God's truth in the lives of a few who, in turn, learn to reproduce the life of Jesus in others who do the same. That's disciple-making. That's what we're all about. And we couldn't do it without you.
I invite you to take a moment to share in the joy of those Italian believers and to pray that God might shake that city, country and continent for His glory.
Watch footage to see and hear the atmosphere of this moving experience.
You can be a part of God's movement in Milan. Radio Vita was a catalyst in gaining a local presence and breaking ground for preaching the Word of God. Within the Radio Vita broadcast zone, Punto Luce church, a daughter church from Punto Lode, and others, continue to grow.
(reposted from Dale Losch, CrossWorld, June 2011 prayer letter)
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Sunday, June 26, 2011
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