Calvin Seminary Professor Teaches Preaching to Pastors in Italy

Four evangelical pastors drove overnight from Sicily to Padua — a journey of more than 800 miles — to attend the presentations that Jeffrey Weima gave last month on preaching.

Sicily is far in the south of Italy while Padua is in the north, near Venice.

“I was impressed and humbled by the sacrifice and commitment that these pastors showed,” said Weima, a professor of New Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary.

Similarly, he appreciated the sacrifice and commitment that another 18 pastors showed by setting aside the time to attend the seminars he gave on Paul’s First Epistle to the Thessalonians.

The seminars were held from July 16-18 at a church and conference center in Padua.

“These pastors come from tentmaking ministries. Many have successful businesses and aren’t paid for the work they do in church,” said Weima, whose participation in the effort was underwritten by the seminary's Center for Excellence in Preaching.

“They decided to take the time to come and be trained as effective pastors in the nuts and bolts of how to interpret and preach from the Bible.”

This group of pastors, says Weima, identify themselves as being Reformed and are aware of Calvin Theological Seminary and material published by seminary scholars.

In a country like Italy where the Roman Catholic Church is involved in almost every aspect of life, the presence of evangelical Christians is an anomaly, says Weima.

“This movement of churches in Italy is very young,” said Weima. “Membership in these churches is small. They remind me of the immigrant CRC congregations when they first began in Canada.”

He was particularly impressed on Friday night, July 11, when he gave a open presentation attended by some 80 people who had made the trip to the conference center to hear him talk.

“I was surprised at how eager they were to ask questions and of how happy they were to see one another,” he said.

Weima said he learned that this group of churches is trying in various ways to serve as a voice for evangelical Christians in a country in which the Catholic Church is dominant.

“We should hear what they are saying. In the future, they see themselves as connecting with American evangelicals and teaching them more about Catholicism.”

The churches that attended the presentations are connected to the IFED (Istituto di Formazione Evangelica e Documentazione), a group committed to promoting the support and formation of evangelical churches.

The IFED, which hosted the talks by Weima, provides library services and advice; organizes conferences, seminars and workshops; it provides bibliographic information. The library has books on biblical, theological, historical and gospel topics, and also receives about a 100 newspapers and magazines in different languages.

Leonardo De Chirico, adjunct director of the institute, wrote a letter to Rev. Jul Medenblik, president of Calvin seminary, saying he appreciated the chance to have Weima speak to the church pastors.

“Professor Weima masterfully led us in appreciating Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians in its context then and its on-going relevance now,” he wrote.

He also said that the institute has close ties to Reformed theology and to the seminary itself.

“IFED has been appreciative of what Calvin Theological Seminary stood and stands for. We belong to the same Reformed camp.

“In the past, we have had a couple of articles by Fred Klooster (former Calvin seminary professor) published in our theological journal Studi di teologia. Then our President Professor Pietro Bolognesi has been in contact with Professor Richard Muller for many years given the shared scholarly interest in Reformed Orthodoxy.

“Moreover, the Calvin Theological Journal is on display in our library. That is to say, we are thankful for your seminary and would encourage to continue in your precious service.”

IFED has been running initiatives such as this year’s seminar on preaching for five years. Weima said the pastors will take what they learned and created a series of sermons that they will preach.

They will then return next summer to discuss the sermons and what they learned in putting them together and preaching them.