A Little Background:
As some of you know, myself and Josef went to London during the last 10 days or Ramadan to preach the Gospel outside of some of the local mosque. I have shared with some the amazing things the Lord enabled us to do while we were there and decided to write a short account of it for the website.
A Little Background:
Those that know me know the Lord has burdened me with a desire to see those enslaved in this false religion come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. Shortly after my conversion in 1997 God gave me a dream regarding preaching the Gospel to Muslims and I have seen much of it come to pass. Going and preaching in London was a continuation what God has been doing in me and through me to reach Muslims. It started earlier this year as I was driving home from work. I was listening to the radio and there was a story about how THOUSANDS of Muslims had gathered outside of the London Central Mosque to declare that Islam would take over Europe and eventually the U.S. I was totally amazed at how boldly they were publicaly declaring what they planned to do through this false religion. The Lord also began to stir in my heart a jealousy for His Name and His Glory. I began to pray to God and cry out to Him saying "where are your saints who are boldly proclaiming the Salvation through Christ to these people". It crushed me to realized that you almost never hear of followers of Christ openly proclaiming the only Gospel of Salvation to Muslims like those in London. (here's a link where you can read some of their demonstration: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56503 )
So I began to pray and seek God about going to London and preaching outside of a few of the Mosque there...which God confirmed that it was His will for me to go. I told Lisa that I would be going and believed it was God's will. I originally decided to go by myself because I didn't know anyone that would go with me. Lisa though, encouraged me to pray and seek God about having someone else go as well. Sounded like good advise so I prayed! As I went to prayer the Lord kept bringing up this brother named Josef Urban to me. So I prayed for him and decided to write him and see if he would come. Keep in mind, I've never met Josef before but have seen some of his preaching videos online. He had been preaching in Detroit in the Ghettos for a while. So I came out from praying in our closet and went to bed....not telling Lisa who I had been praying for. The next day Lisa tells me she had a dream from God. She said in her dream she saw me in the closet praying for Josef regarding the trip! She said she saw Josef in the dream and that he already had plans but was going to cancel them believing it was God's will for him to come. So I sent Josef and email and asked him to pray about coming. A day or so later Josef emails back saying he had plans already but was canceling them believing it was God's will for him to come! God was brining it all to pass!
Time In London: .
Our first outreach in London was at the London Central Mosque - the mosque in the above news story. We headed out from our hotel (the smallest hotel room I've ever seen in my life!) and took the tube to the Mosque. It was evening prayer which is the busiest time at the Mosque. We went to the front of the Mosque and set up. We had brought a microphone so we could preach outside the front and would be heard inside the mosque grounds as well. I have to say I was nervous but the Lord enabled us to preach. I began to preach and declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Most of the people going inside the Mosque had a kinda dumbfounded look on their face. Some seemed to be shocked at what they were hearing. I think they were suprised to see someone on their front door preaching Jesus Christ! I was able to preach for a while and eventually some of the leaders of the Mosque came out. They said we were not allowed to preach on the public sidewalk and we needed to move down the street or across the street. We listened to them a bit and talked with them but eventually decided to put up the mic. However, we had a couple guys around us and were able to speak to them about Christ for a good while. After talking with these men for a while we walked over closer to the front entrance gate. There was a Muslim Charity that was handing out free bottled water to those entering the Mosque. This worked about perfect for us! I had printed up some gospel tracts called "Is Allah Just" and brought them to hand out. We stood next to guys handing out water and proceeded to give out these Gospel tracts to those entering the Mosque. Pretty much everyone took them. So not only had we been able to preach outside but now there were countless Muslims walking inside the Mosque with Gospel tracts! Josef and I decided to pray about whether we should go into the Mosque or not. When we finished praying one of the leaders of the Mosque, who was not happy with what we were doing, said if we wanted to come inside and debate Islam with him to just come in and ask for him. He then left and went inside. Seemed like an answer to prayer! So we prayed again and went inside. There were literally hundreds upon hundreds of people in there. All of them Muslims coming to break their day of fasting. We began to look for the guy who invited us inside but never did find him. Instead a man pulled us aside, pulled up a few chairs, and wanted to talk with us. We were able to preaching the Gospel to this man who had a very hard heart. However, different people kept coming up, sitting down, or standing by and listening. We were able to preach to many people right inside the Mosque! You could tell those who radical. Some of them you could just see murder in their eyes and tell they were totally possesed. Evening prayer was about to start so we moved to the back of the Mosque and continued to preaching on sin, righteousness, judgment, repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ. Eventually the leader of the Mosque came over and began talking with Josef. Josef preached to him, reasoned with him about his need to forsake Islam and repent - putting his faith in Christ. After reasoning with him for a while he asked Josef who he thought wrote the quran. Josef boldly told him it was inspired by demons and that Mohammed was a false prophet. This totally enraged this man and others with him but it was and is the truth! Things were starting to get a little heated so we decided it was time to leave and call it a night. However, it was an amazing night! We had preached outside the Mosque, pass out many tracts, and then were able to preaching inside the Mosque all night by the grace of God! It was a great first day of preaching.
The next day or the day after we went back to the same Mosque. London Central Mosque is right next to Regents Park. We had arrived there a little early and were in the park praying. As we were praying a few men from the Mosque walked by us. One of the guys was a man who had been really angry with us. He walked passed us and yelled over to us that we had better not go back to the Mosque today. So Josef and I prayed some more then headed over to the Mosque. We decided to start off passing out tracts. Some people took them and some didn't. After a while security came out to talk with us. They said that people inside the Mosque were getting really angry and that they didn't know how to control their temper. He was, without plainly saying it, telling us we needed to leave for our own safety. He said he would arrange a time for us to come back and speak at the Mosque. So we gave him our information and left. He never did get in contact with us. .
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The next place we went to was a place called White Chappel. It's was about a thirty minute tube ride from our hotel. This place is amazing. You walk up the stairs from the subway and it feels as though you've left London and have arrived in the middle east. You basically walk up to an outdoor street bazaar that's all Muslims. Literally thousands of Muslims. It's a crowded street where sometimes you have to push your way through people as you move down the street...especially on the weekends. We walked up and down the street just getting aqainted with the area and found a place to set up and preach. We spent some time in prayer and then Josef stood up to preach. He began to boldly proclaim the Gospel as people look on in amazement. The Spirit of God was clearly on him as he preached. Josef preached for a while then I took over and continued to preach the Gospel. At one point this old Muslim man came over with a bullhorn and sign on a pole saying something about Allah. He tried to get right in front of me and preach through the bullhorn. I just lifted my voice and preached right over him. Eventually he just left because he couldn't be heard. We preached for a while. We didn't have any big crowds that gathered but a lot people heard the Gospel. Afterwards we were able to speak to some of the vendors. We had some ok conversations. We were plowing some really hard ground. One thing that is interesting is that many Muslims there don't know their faith very well but they've been taught what to say to Christians.
We went back to this market a couple more times. It's a great place for street ministry. One day there was a Muslim group there that had a table set up with literature on it. We picked up one of their leaflets and it talked about how Muslims should kill the infidels and not obey British laws. It was crazy...they were passing them out right in the open. Another day we found a place to preach on the opposite end of the street. While Josef was preaching someone came up and began yelling at him just a few inches from his face. Josef just kept preaching the Gospel and the guy eventually walk off mad. At one point we had a lady come up to us while we were preaching saying she had been praying that someone would come there and do what we were doing. Some of the best conversations would be with the shop keepers and the guys who were vendors. The day after this was great. We went back to the same place to set up to preach. As we were setting up the guy who managed the store behind us wanted to talk with us. He had heard us the day before and wanted to talk with us. He was very open. We were able to share with him for a while and leave a gospel of John with him. So we went back out to preach and another person walks up to us who had heard us the day before. So we got to share with him as well. Basically this happened the whole time we were there that day. We never did get to open air preach but did get to preach the gospel one on one many times!
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A day or so later we decided to go preach at the North London Central Mosque, also known as the Finsbury park Mosque. This Mosque is known for is radical Muslim preaches and has been raided by the police many times. Here's an article about the Mosque: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13501930/ Josef and I walked to the Mosque from the tube station. We decided to go into the Mosque and were going to find some men - leaders - of the mosque to sit down and preach the Gospel to. We walked into the Mosque and asked to speak with the head Imam. However, prayers had just started and we were told we would have to wait till they were over. We waited for a while inside but as they began to play the prayers over the inside speakers we decided to wait outside.
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. As we went outside we notice a police officer was walking up to the Mosque. A few moment later a police car with more officers pulled up. Then we looked behind us down the street and there were more officers coming to the Mosque. I overheard them talking about searching the Mosque. We decided it probably wasn't the best time to be there and left. We went back in front of the tube station and spent some time talking with people one on one. I think we both had one of our best conversations there. We got to minister to a couple of guys who where brothers. They were truly convicted of their sin and saw how they had no hope in Islam. We explained the Gospel to them and they understood how salvation could only come through Christ. We were able to leave them with tracts and a new testament. It was great after laboring on such hard soil to see the Spirit giving these brothers understanding of the Gospel.
There is a huge Muslim community at Finsbury Park. Lot's of youth too. I would love to have the opportunity to spend more time there. There's radical groups there but there are also a lot of youth who seem to understand that something is not right with Islam. Jesus said the harvest is plentiful. Some places seem like the harvest is riper than others. Finsbury Park seems like one of those places that is ripe unto harvest...if someone is willing to give there life and labor in the Gospel there.
We had many other opportunities to preach the Gospel. Seems like all of London is turning Muslim. Our hotel was run by Muslims, the place we would eat at in the evening was run by a Muslim, there are Muslims everywhere. The Lord gave us great opportunities to preach to them all as well. (Josef even preached at Hyde Park one day in front of a Muslim apologist and a HUGE crowd.) Most of time we were there we preached to hard hearted hearers but occasionally we would talk to someone with a softer heart. And in faith, I continue in prayer knowing it's the Lord Himself that gives the increase bringing men to salvation.
(also..the above pictures were not take by us)
