Missionary. Storyteller. Cultural Communicator.
For more than three decades, Sicily has been part of Brian Keith Alex’s story.
What began as an unexpected encounter with an unfamiliar Mediterranean island during his years in the U.S. military eventually became a calling, a home, and a place of long-term ministry.
Today, Brian lives in Sicily, where he serves through Mission Sicily—a ministry built around three simple commitments:
Disciples. Churches. Bridges.
Brian is passionate about making disciples, helping churches become healthy and reproducing, developing leaders, and building genuine relationships across cultural, religious, and social boundaries.
But his work in Sicily is about more than programs. It is about people—hearing their stories, learning the culture, earning trust, helping leaders grow, and sharing the gospel in ways that make sense within the realities of life in Sicily.
Why Sicily?
Sicily has always been more than an island. It is a crossroads.
For thousands of years, people, ideas, religions, languages, and cultures have passed through this place. Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East meet in the Mediterranean, and Sicily sits remarkably close to the center of that intersection.
That makes Sicily a challenging place for ministry—but also an extraordinary one. The island is home to deep traditions, strong family and community relationships, complicated religious history, and a growing diversity of people from around the world.
Brian sees that intersection as an opportunity.
Mission Sicily exists to follow Jesus at this crossroads—to make disciples, strengthen and plant churches, develop leaders, serve communities, and build bridges between people who might otherwise never meet.
A long journey to Sicily
Brian’s relationship with Sicily began during his military service near the end of the Gulf War.
At the time, there was no plan to make Sicily his home. It was simply a place he encountered through military service—a place that stayed with him.
Over the years, Brian returned to Sicily repeatedly.
Each visit deepened his connection with the island and its people. What began as curiosity became a love for the culture, language, history, and people who call Sicily home.
In 2013, Brian relocated to Sicily permanently.
That decision marked a commitment to the long-term work of becoming present in a place and among a people. More than a decade later, that commitment continues.
Ministry in a changing Sicily
Life and ministry in Sicily have taught Brian that effective cross-cultural ministry rarely begins with a ready-made strategy. It begins with relationships.
Over the years, his work has included discipleship, church planting, leadership development, community outreach, and engagement with people from a wide range of cultural and religious backgrounds.
He has also developed relationships with immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers whose journeys have brought them to Sicily from other parts of the world.
These experiences have expanded Brian’s understanding of what mission looks like in the twenty-first century. Sicily, Italy, and Europe are changing, and the way Christians engage their communities must change with them—without losing sight of the timeless message of the gospel.
For Brian, that means listening carefully, staying curious, building trust, developing local leaders, and looking for opportunities to help people and churches become healthy, multiplying communities of faith.
Mission Sicily
Brian founded Mission Sicily as a platform for long-term ministry and a way to invite others into the story of what God is doing in Sicily.
The name reflects the heart of the work.
Disciples
Everything begins with people. Mission Sicily is committed to making disciples who follow Jesus, grow in faith, and help others do the same.
Churches
Healthy churches are essential to a healthy mission. Mission Sicily seeks to encourage, strengthen, and help plant churches that are rooted in their communities, develop leaders, make disciples, and reproduce.
Bridges
Sicily is a crossroads of cultures—and Mission Sicily seeks to build bridges across cultural, social, religious, and geographic boundaries. Sometimes that means connecting people or churches; sometimes it simply means creating space for people to listen to one another.
Disciples. Churches. Bridges.
These three ideas capture the heart of Mission Sicily.
The Mission Sicily Podcast
Brian is also the host of the Mission Sicily Podcast, where he tells stories and explores the realities of faith, missions, culture, and life in Sicily.
The podcast goes beyond the postcard version of Italy, exploring the real challenges and opportunities of Christian ministry in Sicily and throughout the Mediterranean—from discipleship and church planting to immigration, leadership, culture, and the changing landscape of mission in Europe.
The goal is simple: to help people see Sicily more clearly and think more deeply about mission in a changing world.
[Listen to the Mission Sicily Podcast →]
More than a place
After all these years, Brian’s connection to Sicily is no longer simply about geography. It is about people, relationships built over years, friendships that cross cultures and generations, leaders discovering their calling, churches taking root, and immigrants and longtime Sicilians sharing the same neighborhoods.
It is about discovering what it means to follow Jesus faithfully in a place with a long history, a complicated present, and an uncertain future.
Brian’s story in Sicily is still being written.
And Mission Sicily exists to be part of that story.
Speaking, interviews, and conversations
Brian is available for podcasts, interviews, speaking engagements, and conversations related to:
- Christian missions in Sicily and Italy
- Church planting and discipleship
- Cross-cultural ministry
- Christianity in Sicily
- Sicilian and Mediterranean culture
- Immigration and refugee communities
- Leadership development
- Life as an American living in Italy
- Mission in Europe
- The changing landscape of Christian mission
- The intersection of Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean
[Contact Brian / Mission Sicily →]
Brian Keith Alex
Sicily, Italy
Founder, Mission Sicily
Host, Mission Sicily Podcast
Disciples. Churches. Bridges.
Serving in Sicily since 2013—making disciples, strengthening and planting churches, developing leaders, and building bridges of hope across cultures.
Disciples * Churches * Bridges 