Relocating To Reach The Least-Evangelized In London, UK
An update from Pat Tedeschi, Pastor in Greentree Church, Egg Harbor, USA, and soon-to-be Pastor in London, UK…
Last month Greentree Church in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, sent a short-term missions team to work with the Oasis International Church in London, England. The team was led by myself and was made up of five other members from three different Sovereign Grace churches; Deb Subin and Kappy Huber from Greentree Church, NJ, James Wolstenholme, elder at Mercy Gate Church in Philadelphia, PA and Phil and Scarlett Cornell from Cornerstone Church in Knoxville, TN.
For the last 18 years, Greentree has been partnering with the Oasis Church and its founding pastor Randy Lawler. Randy and his wife Margie have headed up a work of evangelism and church planting among Muslims in London for the last 47 years. I have had the privilege of being closely associated with the Lawlers and the Oasis Church for more than two decades.
For a number of years now the elders and members of Greentree Church have been praying for others who would come alongside the Lawlers to help them with this work.
Pastor of Oasis Church, Randy Lawler and his wife Margie.
The Lawlers are in their late 70’s now and are no longer able to develop the work any further on their own. A few years ago, my wife Dana and I, began talking and praying seriously about the potential of making a full-time move to London to work with Randy and Margie and the church there.
We presented this to the other elders at Greentree, to our region in the Northeast, and to Sovereign Grace’s Global Missions Director, Dave Taylor. All of them affirmed and supported us in this idea, including the goal of seeing the Oasis Church become adopted into our family of churches and other SG churches planted from there.
You may ask, "why London?". There are over 350 languages spoken in London, along with dozens of religions practiced there. There are over 9 million people there, and over 1.3 million of those people are from Muslim backgrounds. And then there are over 3 million others from Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish, and secular/atheist European backgrounds.
Much of the world is represented in this one city! A significant percentage of these are from the least-evangelized people groups in the world. So there is a significant opportunity to bring the Gospel to many who have had little or no opportunity to hear a clear teaching of the message of Jesus Christ.
An Oasis Church worship service.
At this point the Oasis Church is made up of primarily Iranian refugees who have left Islam and converted to Christianity. Randy and I have a vision to see the outreach of the church extend to many other nationalities and people groups that are in the community of the church.
Lord willing, Myself and Dana are hoping to move to London in January 2025, where I will be a pastor along with Randy and will be involved in preaching and teaching, leadership development, and growing areas of outreach and discipleship. Dana will be involved in areas of women’s ministry, hospitality, and worship.
For the last six months, Randy and I, along with our SG Europe Area Leader - Ed O’Mara, have been working to plan and strategize to get us there and to carry out this ministry vision for the Oasis Church.
Iranian believers sharing their testimonies before being baptized.
The apostle Paul wrote, "How will they call on him whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?" (Romans 10:14).
For years this verse has preoccupied my thoughts, prayers, and ministry. Although there are faithful gospel preaching churches in London, there are still millions of the least-evangelized people groups who have not yet heard the Gospel. We are so excited to be in a family of churches that wants to be a part of reaching these people groups!
As we prepare to go, we would so appreciate your prayers, with three primary prayer requests in mind:
That the Lord will provide visas to move there.
That the Lord would provide all of the finances that we need to live and develop the church ministry.
That the Lord would bring others who might be willing to come and join us in this work.
If you would like to receive updates on the ministry of the Tedeschis in London, you can click here.
Pat and Dana Tedeschi from Greentree Church, New Jersey.