Why London?

London is a global city. Only 2.5% of the 11 million people in the city consider themselves Baptist. Of that number, many fewer could be considered evangelistic and biblical. We believe the London, as a global city, is key to the advance of national church planting among the peoples and nations that traffic through London. Read More About Reclaim London Below.

Following Pastor Ryan's request for ministry help in London during their Holiday Bible Clubs, Cana assembled the Holiday Bible Club Ministry Team (Holiday Bible Clubs are the English version of VBS). Stanley Park Church has not hosted a Holiday Bible Club in over 10 years, and currently no young families attend Sunday Church.

The Team's objective is to aid Stanley Park in its effort to reach the families in its immediate neighborhood. The HBC will occur in late July and early August. Our key goals for this mission are to share the gospel with parents and their children through the Bible Club, and educate and equip Stanley Park to execute the Bible Club. We will also discuss further outreach programs/events for future deployment.

The church is servant-minded and is seeking new ideas to reach their community. We ask for your prayers and fasting in this effort. The Lord can produce a turnaround through these efforts.

10th MAR, 2023 | CARSHALTON

Hello everyone. 

Welcome to our first newsletter. Honestly, the last ten months have passed so very quickly. Of course, for the first eight months, I (Ryan) was here without Amanda and the kids as they were working on completing school last spring and obtaining their visas. The latter turned out to be a much longer process than we had imagined and rather than everyone getting here in August, they arrived the day after Christmas.  The last eight weeks have been a bit chaotic as we do our best to settle in as a family here in South London. 

The kids are doing a great job assimilating to their new environment. The tricky bit thus far has been finding schools for them. It is a different process over here. The school your kids attend is not simply a matter of where you live but whether the schools near you have the capacity. As we are trying to enter the system mid-year, availability is limited. We do not yet have a car, so we have done more walking since arriving here than we have in the last several years combined. We would like to be able to say that it’s no big deal as London has such a great public transportation system; which would be true if they weren’t going on strike all the time. So far, two of our day trips into the city have been foiled by the strikes.

I am excited to finally serve as pastor of Stanley Park Church (SPC) in person for the last 10 months! We have a regular Sunday attendance of around 15-20. Our members are a wonderful, dedicated body of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who are keen to bring the Good News of Christ to our community. Our church family, though small, is made of members from six countries representing four continents.    The surrounding community is also quite diverse, with a number of people originally from Eastern Europe including some Ukrainian families recently relocated here because of the war.  The neighborhood is made up largely of families with school age children. SPC is keen to this fact, and we are considering ways to better serve the families around us. Currently, we are planning to host a Holiday Bible Club (British for Vacation Bible School) in early August. 

We will be seeking outside help, particularly from the US, to make this a reality. We are also planning an Autumn Festival on October 31st, as a positive alternative to so much of what Halloween has become of late.  We are also hosting an event to observe and celebrate the coronation of King Charles III on 6th May. This will be an event much like the Queen’s jubilee celebration last June. At that time, we met a number of people from the surrounding area and made a bit of THE THIESSENS IN LONDON progress toward making the church known locally. We gathered again three months later to watch the queen’s funeral. Though a sad time, we were able to provide this small service to our neighbours. We are hopeful that the king’s coronation will further our efforts to become the center of our community.  We look forward to what the Lord has for us as a church and a family. 

We are engaging in a more ambitious year than either has seen in some time. The invitation is open for all who would like to come to the UK to come by and see us - and we have a spare room! We would love to see you and spend time catching up and showing you around the London area.

Till then, all the best Ryan, Amanda, Sam, and Sarah 

MINISTRY OPPORTUNITIES: Looking for a way to serve?

We currently have three opportunities:

The King’s Coronation (6-8 MAY, 2023) – Come help us serve the community as we show the coronation ceremony at the church with refreshments (Saturday) serve lunch after church (Sunday) and volunteer in the community (Monday) 

Holiday Bible Club (31 JUL – 04 AUG, 2023) – Holiday Bible Club is what the English call Vacation Bible School. This is labour intensive and we are a small church, so WE NEED YOUR HELP! This will be our major effort to reach the families of the area with the Gospel in 2023 

Autumn Festival (31 OCT, 2023) – We intend to provide a fun and safe event with games and candy as an alternative to Halloween. We see this is another way to reach families and to establish Stanley Park Church as a fixture in the community

PRAYER AND PRAISES 

Pray that we would make progress in reaching the people of our neighborhood, especially the many families 

Pray that we would discern the needs of our community so we can be more effective in all areas of ministry 

Pray for our weekly and special event (see Ministry Opportunities above) that we would be obedient to the Lord’s will to reach our community with the Gospel 

Pray that we would expand our evangelism efforts (greater effectiveness, greater area, greater participation) 

London is a global city. The long history of mission efforts finds its modern expression in London. The trade routes of the world, and therefore the people of the world, live and work and travel in London. At the same time, the churches of London are declining. The post-Christian world streams through London daily. Only 2.5% of the 11 million people in the city consider themselves Baptist. Of that number, many fewer could be considered evangelistic and biblical. We believe the London, as a global city, is key to the advance of national church planting among the peoples and nations that traffic through London.

Cana has maintained a long standing relationship to London Baptist churches. Beginning in 2017, Cana sent a student team to conduct some evangelistic efforts with Southside Baptist. Following that effort, Cana worked with a local pastor to found a biblical pastor training effort. That effort did not materialize, but in the process, Cana was introduced to Stanley Park Church.

During the following years, Cana continued making occasional visits to London in order to advance various gospel efforts. In February of 2020, Ryan and Amanda began considering plans to serve the Stanley Park Church in London. Covid-19 interrupted in-person plans, but not God's plan for Ryan and the congregation of Stanley Park. For the next two years, Ryan digitally "pastored" the church by preaching weekly and leading their mid-week prayer meeting. When the lock-downs in London lifted, Ryan and Amanda began support raising to relocate to London. In early 2022, Ryan began in person service at the church, followed by Amanda and the kid's arrival later that year.

Cana continues to pursue Kingdom advance in London through pastor training, placement, church planting, and church health efforts.