1. Which three words would your friends and colleagues choose to describe who Lucia is?

I must confess that I asked some people to help me answer. These are the results: committed, discreet, steadfast. Glory be to God!

2. Which person has influenced you most on your journey of faith and why?

As I believe in a triune God, I cannot think about only one person. Please, forgive me!

Surely one person was my Great Grandfather, Donato Leccese, even though I never knew him personally. He was the first believer in Christ from a zealous Catholicism in my family’s history; a brave man who, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, didn’t stop his research for the truth before men’s words but only before the Bible, God’s Word. Stories about his life made a remarkable difference on mine when I was very young, encouraging me to look for Christ personally.

On a discipleship level, Silvia N., a godly dear sister, showed me how to serve the church as a young woman not for human recognition but for love of God and His people. But, in fact, this was also true of my mum, who lives daily to serve others, as well as many other godly women I grew up with in local churches in different times and phases of my life.

Theologically and intellectually, I’ll choose Francis Schaeffer, who influenced me most in my early years as a believer. I remember standing before my dad’s library reading his enlightening books. His prophetic voice in the church, his cultural engagement and love for non-believers is still relevant for today and his legacy is visible in many notable brothers and sisters.

I cannot but mention the Reformed Baptist Churches in Italy, and especially my local church Breccia di Roma San Paolo and Breccia sister churches. For the past 15 years, we have been learning together how to live the wholeness of the Gospel in a very complex city like Rome.

3. What is a key lesson you have learned during your ministry so far that you want to share with co-workers in the Kingdom of God in Europe?

God never changes. But He can exchange your plan for His perfect plan. Have a humble heart, ready to obey the Spirit and be transformed in the mind of Christ in every sphere of your personal life and in your communities.

We are here because there are people to love, cultures to reach, and life to share.

4. In your opinion, why do we need a European Evangelical Alliance?

As people of God, we so quickly exchange what is fundamental for what is minor. The EEA, like any national alliance I think, should be a reminder and an admonition of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:11 – “Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one”.

From the beginning, the Evangelical Alliance has been a place of fellowship, prayer, discussion and material support. As in Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension, even now, as disciples of God in mission, we need spaces to interact, to be accountable to one another, to search for God’s wisdom through scripture for challenges of our time, and to encourage one another to remain faithful to the Gospel. The EEA should be one of these places on a European level.

Finally, I think we need to be altogether a public voice which stands for God’s truth in matters such as social justice, religious freedom, human dignity, peace and integration, to promote a new vision for the future of Europe, outside of ideological or political flags, and I think the EEA should be this voice in Europe and beyond.

5. Which piece of advice would you have needed to hear as a teenager , that would have saved you some trouble in life? 

Two words: dignity and grace. In my early teens I wish I had been told more often that my worth was not in what I perform, nor in what I owned, nor on how many people praised me, but in who I was as a creature of the Almighty God and as a new creature in Christ. In that period my parents had just started to discover the reformation and its implication for their faith and their parental responsibility. I can only imagine that it was a very challenging time for them.

So, on some occasions, I would have needed more grace than moralism. In His grace, God keeps our sins very seriously, and because of this He never suggests the “quick fix” of legalism, as we do sometimes, that leaves us in a dry and weary condition. When you sin, in the grace of Jesus there is always room to stop, to repent, to let go of anything unnecessary or wrong, and to start again. His grace always reforms from the ground up.

Sometimes I wish I had never experienced some troubles, but I am very thankful to God because where we failed in discipling one another or to obey Him, He never failed, and He meant those troubles for our good, in order to disciple us.

6. Across the continent, there are many worrying trends and developments. Against all odds, what is your hope under pressure?

In my country, Italy, and especially in my city, Rome, there is an overuse of this beautiful word during all this Global Catholic Jubilee year. Hope is used as a religious and humanistic word without its true biblical significance and is linked to thousands of rites and works to perform, which effectively leaves people in genuine search for God just as hopeless as before 2025. As Evangelicals we need to stand for an all-different kind of Hope.

For believers, pressures, challenges and persecution may increase, as Jesus said, and we will certainly have no hope if we place our trust in a peaceful humanity or even in our strategic partnerships ‘for the Kingdom,’ instead of relying primarily and exclusively on the work of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit for transformation and perseverance. Only if we’ll look to Christ do we have hope to continue to live with integrity, love and meekness in our time. Jesus, the hope of Israel, is the Savior and the Lord in our troubled time, the One who began a good work in us and who will bring it to completion. His words are my hope under pressure: “I will build my church [not our efforts!!], and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18); “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8).

7. If you had to choose one word to stand as your theme for 2025, what would it be?

Sobriety. This is the word I’d choose that the Lord suggested to me many times in the last years. Interestingly, I just returned from the national Giornate Teologiche (Theological Days) at the IFED in Padua where we discussed about “The Politics of the Gospel” and one of the main themes was precisely “sobriety”. I think that every one of us has experienced an increasing atmosphere of arrogance, polarization, discredit and blame. These are traits of our Western culture that seem to be increasingly influencing the attitude of the church as well, on a personal level and on a community level. Scripture commands us to be sober in our heart and mind, in our attitude and in our service, in our thoughts and words, in our personal vocation and in our life together, in the church and in society. May the European evangelicals be recognized for being a sober presence, that flourish in the truth and cause others to truly flourish, in this time of excess and confusion.

Questions by Matthias Boehning, EEA Bonn Office