While you’re praying for Parham, would you also please pray for Benson, as well as his cousin Barbara and her husband Calvin? Benson, Barbara, and Calvin all come from Hong Kong and have been coming to free English Classes, the Sunday evening service at IPC-Ealing, and Benson & Barbara have begun coming to our Home Group Bible study recently as well as some of our recent Christmas parties.

Benson and I have been meeting weekly to read and discuss the Gospel of Mark together. Many of our English students are keen to meet one to one or in small groups to read the Bible, initially perhaps to practice their English, because they are wanting to make friends, or even because they are interested in learning more about Jesus. Please pray that Benson and his cousins would come to fall in love with and put their faith in Jesus.

London's Cutest Evangelist

It’s been a very busy week for us here, with multiple Christmas party events, carol services, and even a funeral of a friend from seminary, but one of the of highlights of this week was getting to see Shanna Hymes Bean share her testimony and clearly present the Gospel to the ladies gathered for the Free English Classes women’s Christmas party on Wednesday morning at the church with women in attendance from Iran, Ukraine, Japan, and several other nationalities who do not have access to the Gospel in their home countries. I’m not often up there for the women’s class because some of the women come from cultures that discourage them from interacting with men outside of their family, but I had to go drop some things off at the church from our co-ed English Class Christmas Party the night before, and I just happened to walk in right as Shanna was getting up to give her talk and was able to snap a sneeky pic of my cute evangelist.

Please pray that the Holy Spirit would be at work among the ladies present for the Christmas Party to hear Shanna’s talk, and that many of them would come to one of the church’s four upcoming Christmas Carol Services over the next week to hear more about Jesus.

Please Pray for Parham

Would you please pray for our friend Parham from Iran? I’ve met with Parham probably 4-5 times now over the past several weeks to answer his questions about Jesus, and we began reading the Gospel of Matthew together today. Parham came to London to pursue a master’s degree in renaissance art, and first began considering the Gospel after his dissertation research led him to a book called The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by the German political economist Max Weber.

Weber argued in his work that it was Christianity (and specifically the Protestant Reformation) which has led to the progress and prosperity of the western world, which to Parham, seemed to stand in stark contrast to what he has seen in his homeland, dominated by Shia Islam and Sharia law which have led Iran and other predominantly Muslim nations mostly to inequality, poverty, injustice, and systematic oppression. So Parham sought out a Reformed Protestant church like IPC-Ealing that might be able to help him understand the message of Christianity better, which is how we met.

In God's amazing providence, Parham came to IPC-Ealing for the first time in the middle of a Sunday afternoon after the morning service had ended, and the only thing going on at the church at that time was our Persian Fellowship Bible Study as we discussed that morning's sermon in English and his native language of Farsi. Since that time, Parham has been coming regularly to our Free English Classes outreach, our Home Group Bible Study, and to the Sunday evening church services. In his own words, Parham is at a place right now where he is no longer a muslim, but he's not sure yet if he is ready to trust in Jesus.

Please pray for Parham to trust in Jesus, and not merely in an intellectual or pragmatic way, but so that he might repent and be saved.

Thank you for praying for our Tuesday night Free English Classes Christmas Party outreach this evening!

We all had a fantastic time and I honestly have no idea how many people we had, it was like counting fish in an aquarium, they wouldn't stop moving! Probably about 60+. Nearly all of them were non-Christians, several of whom we’re connecting with regularly and sharing Christ with through small group and one-to-one Bible reading, and so many of them have become some of our favourite people!

Regardless, we had a merry time and there were several newcomers who came along, including an entire family of Persians who emailed me out of the blue just yesterday, and a very sweet Pakistani family who’ve been coming and brought several family members who’ve never come to English class before. At one point I did have to answer a question from a newcomer named Abdul about whether or not the mince pies we were serving were "Halal friendly" or not, which honestly was not something I'd had to think much about before!

Dawson read the story of Jesus’ birth from Luke 1 & 2 in front of the group before dinner and spoke about the hope of Christmas in Jesus Christ, as well as expressing our gratitude and appreciation to our team of teachers and volunteers with some special gifts, all of whom we could not run our weekly Free English Classes outreach without!

Our Wednesday morning women’s Free English Class will have their own Christmas party in the morning, which Shanna will be sharing her testimony at in front of about 40-50 women. Please pray for the Lord to work in the hearts of these women in the morning and for those who came to the party this evening to come to know our great saviour Jesus Christ.

Please Pray for Our Free English Classes Christmas Party Outreaches at IPC-Ealing

Hi Friends, December is such a wonderful time for Gospel outreach to our friends and neighbours! Please pray for our upcoming Christmas Parties with our students from our Free English Classes outreach at IPC-Ealing next Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. Nearly all of our students are new to the U.K. and many of them are coming from various world faith backgrounds including Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism, or no faith background at all. Students have been invited to bring along their families to the party as well, and we hope that this will help us and our volunteers and teachers (all are IPC-Ealing church members) come into contact with even more people to share Christ with. We will also be sharing the story of Jesus's birth narrative from the Gospel of Luke at the party.

Please pray that we would have fun, make good connections for the Gospel, and that we would continue to be able to follow up with students for evangelism, discipleship, and one-to-one & small group Bible studies. We will also be holding four different Christmas Carol outreach events at the church later this month, as well as running a Christianity Explored course at the church in January, which we'll be announcing at the parties and extending personal invitations to students to come along with us to.

Thank you for your continued prayers and partnership!