Ryan King came to a realisation that he was a sinner and trusted in Christ for salvation at a young age, calling out to Jesus to forgive him in a small town parking lot in Arkansas. Coupled with that conversion came a calling to proclaim Christ and lead his people as a pastor in a missionary context. Ryan moved with his family to London, England in 2003. He was part of the February 2004 library-hall church plant that ultimately became Grace Baptist Church in Wood Green, an urban town centre in Haringey (one of London’s 33 boroughs) with a high population density and great ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic diversity. Grace Baptist Church is committed to local church discipleship, local area evangelism and community engagement, associational fellowship, and international missions. The church has been heavily involved in planting, replanting, and revitalising churches in a range of contexts. The congregation called Ryan to be assistant pastor of the church in 2010, and as pastor in 2013.

Alongside local ministry, Ryan works with Grace Baptist Partnership as team leader for Grace Baptists in Europe – an initiative to partner with local churches across Europe in leadership training, discipleship, evangelism, and church planting. He is also district secretary for the central district of the Association of Grace Baptist Churches (SE), which involves facilitating and leading associational activities, providing encouragement and support, and promoting pastoral renewal and local church reform among seven London churches. Ryan enjoys free time with his wife and wider family, reading books, watching films, and exploring the city and continent. He studied theology at Highland Theological College - University of the Highlands and Islands in Dingwall, Scotland, completing his degree with a dissertation on the early English Baptist contribution to religious liberty of conscience. He is married to Uliana, whom he met while speaking at an Effective Evangelism Conference in Ukraine.

Update from Pastor Ryan King (December 2022):

Thank you for your support, prayers, and encouragement. We hope that the
following report, looking back over the past couple of months, will be helpful as a
testimony of God’s blessing and a stimulus for ongoing help.

Local Church
We give God thanks for continuing church growth. We have recently brought in
three new members, one by baptism and two by membership transfer from their
church in another country. Others have requested church membership and still,
others are wrestling with either the need to be baptized or join a local church or
both. Pray for increasing spiritual maturity, unity, purity, and love in the church.
Pray for the work of discipleship to bear fruit in people’s lives.
Building work has finally begun on Alexandra Hall, a building we have a long-term
lease for, one road over from our main building. A new kitchen, toilets, and
an additional meeting room will be built onto the existing hall. Pray for a job well done,
for a good witness to our neighbours, and for financial provision for needed works not
included in the initial spec.
As works are underway on the Alexandra Hall, substantial renovations are still
needed at our main building. We have been able to do a great deal of work on
modernizing a badly outdated facility - including but not limited to the church flat in
which we reside - but much remains to be done. In November, the church celebrated
100 years since the cornerstones of our building were laid. It is our desire to invest at
least £100,000 into the improvement of the facility to sustain healthy gospel witness
for another hundred years. Pray for the provision of funds, excellence in doing work
ourselves, and wisdom for hiring quality workmen for other tasks.
For the past two years, we have hosted Harmony Church in Alexandra Hall. This is an
Albanian language church plant intentionally seeks to reach the Albanian language
diaspora with the gospel of Christ. With the work underway on the hall, we are
sharing the same space on Park Ridings every Sunday morning, as well as other days
in the week for other ministries. Pray for the growth of this ministry and that
neither of our congregations will Be unhelpfully disrupted by the present
arrangement. Pray that both congregations will grow in mission-minded love for
our neighbours from all nations.

We are actively engaged in other ministries through which we seek to minister as
Christians to people’s needs, be of good reputation among outsiders and share the
gospel. Pray for our food bank, our English classes for Ukrainian refugees,
developing work with a local primary school and retirement home, and in other
parts of our community. Pray that the people we are ministering to through these
would come to repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ.

This Christmas, we will be inviting our community to attend an outdoor Christmas
Carol service, for which we will be closing the road. We have had good attendance
the past couple of years but do not wish to take that for granted. We will also be
having services on Christmas Day and New Year's Day to which we are inviting hundreds
of our neighbours. Pray for an excellent response from the community to our
Christmas services, and most importantly, to the gospel.

National Ministry
Over the past few months, Ryan has had the opportunity to preach and speak at various
gatherings and churches across the city and in different parts of the country. Pray
that the seed planted through his ministry would bear fruit in repentant sinners,
faithful Christians, and healthy churches.
This autumn, we sent out a family from our congregation to assist in the planting of a
church in the Northamptonshire village of Rushden. This has been an
encouragement to that work, and after a season of stalling, there seems to be
forward movement. Pray for the successful planting of a healthy and effective
gospel witness in Rushden and for the family from our church to be a great help
and blessing in achieving that.

International Ministry
In October, Ryan went to the Netherlands to visit the Yeboah family, sent by our church
in 2020 to plant churches in Rotterdam. It was a full and encouraging visit, with full
days of meetings in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Pray for Adrian as he does a church
planting residency with Grace Church Amsterdam to prepare for planting a
bilingual international church in Rotterdam. Pray for wisdom, execution, and
financial provision as Ryan plans to lead some training events in the Netherlands as
part of the developing work there. Pray too for the Yeboah family to have the
appropriate financial support for themselves and the church plant that they are
starting.

In November, Ryan went - joined by Barry King and Ali McLachlan - to Poland, where
he was part of leading an overnighter discussion group for pastors, church planters,
or potential planters from various parts of Poland. Pray for efforts to help these
men think through and develop their understanding and practice of “local church”.
It is hoped that Ryan will be able to speak at a camp in the New Year that will bring
many of these people together again in one place.
Due to other commitments, it has not been possible for us to return to Ukraine since
our visit in July, but we continue to support our family and friends there. An urgent
need is for generators, as the Russian Federation has attacked energy infrastructure
in an effort to weaponize the brutal winter against Ukrainians. We have been able to
raise support for adequately warming Open Bible Church in Zhytomyrys’Ka Oblast
and a generator for their pastor Vadym and his family. We are presently seeking
funds for the purchase and transportation of a much larger generator, out of stock in

Ukraine, for House of the Gospel Church, where Uliana’s father is the pastor. Pray for
justice and peace in Ukraine and for the protection of our family and friends there,
who are labouring on in the gospel under horrible conditions and enemy attacks.
Pray for the salvation of those to whom they minister. Pray for light, warmth, and
the ability to provide adequate food and shelter for those who have been
displaced or lack these things. Pray for us as we seek to source support and be
instruments of God’s provision.

Personal
In January, Ryan will be taking the second third of his staggered sabbatical. This time,
we will be in the USA. We will be visiting family and friends in various places and plan
to be at Grace Life Church of the Shoals on Sunday, 29 January. We look forward
hopefully to seeing you then!

Picture explanations: 

1. Work underway at Alexandra Hall. 

2. A church member shares the gospel with a lady in the park during a recent outreach 

3. The Ayoola family, who have been sent to support the planting of a church I'm Rushden. 

4. Poland overnighter attendees

5. Our Christmas schedule - prayers over these events would be much appreciated.