{"id":237368,"date":"2026-04-06T17:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T17:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/237368\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T17:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T17:03:09","slug":"evangelists-free-to-preach-the-gospel-outside-texas-mosque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/237368\/","title":{"rendered":"Evangelists free to preach the Gospel outside Texas mosque"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ian M. Giatti<\/a>, Christian Post Reporter Monday, April 06, 2026\"AA screenshot of a 2021 video of the East Plano Islamic Center in Plano, Texas. | Screenshot\/YouTube\/EPIC Masjid<\/p>\n

A Texas court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Dallas-area mosque that sought to restrict Christian missionaries from preaching the Gospel and distributing religious pamphlets on public property near the mosque.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit<\/a>, initially filed in October 2025 by the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) against Testimonies of God (TOG), a Christian apologetics and evangelism ministry led by Landon Thurman, along with Heritage Grace Community Church, Jason Osborne, and 20 unnamed\u00a0 defendants, sought a court order to prohibit missionaries from engaging in speech or distributing \u201cEvangelical pamphlets, letters, fliers or other documents offensive to the Islamic faith.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

EPIC filed the lawsuit after claiming that TOG and other named defendants interrupted services at the mosque starting last September when they \u201cmade it a weekly practice to stand on the sidewalks and lawns outside [EPIC] mosque with loudspeakers and bullhorns, intentionally disrupting Plaintiff\u2019s prayer services with loud evangelical messaging about Christianity and the \u2018teachings of Jesus.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the mosque claimed TOG, led by Thurman, along with defendants Heritage Grace Community Church, Jason Osborne, and John Does 1-20, \u201cset up a tent, brought external speakers, and came with evangelical pamphlets and signs that they attempted to hand to passers-by, all of whom were attempting to enter the mosque for prayer services.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response <\/a>to the complaint, attorneys for Thurman and TOG called the mosque\u2019s suit a \u201cshocking and illegal demand\u201d and \u201can unthinkable attack on our country\u2019s core values of free speech and freedom of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the injunction that [EPIC] demands, a local church would be prohibited from even handing out free Bibles if doing so were \u201coffensive to the Islamic faith,\u201d the filing stated.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs also told the court their preaching location was approximately 500 feet away from the mosque with a strip mall separating them and the mosque, and said they befriended the head of security, who was also the property manager, who offered to give them a tour of the mosque, but had also asked the men to stop calling Islam a false religion. The evangelists said they could not comply with that request, but ensured the volume of the sound equipment was not disruptive for those inside the mosque, and the volume was in compliance with city regulations, which was monitored by police.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A representative of EPIC acknowledged in court testimony that the preaching is not audible inside the mosque.<\/p>\n

\u201c[They] do not want to disrupt or prevent religious services at the mosque but to proclaim the truth in love. They want to exercise their rights to free speech and to respect every person, regardless of what they believe, because each person is made in the image of God, and Christians are commanded to love their neighbors as they would love themselves,\u201d the filing stated.<\/p>\n

On March 23, the court granted a motion to dismiss the case under the Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA), a state law designed to protect free speech from lawsuits intended to suppress it. The ruling allows the missionaries to continue their activities.<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s order also permits the defendants to seek recovery of costs and attorney\u2019s fees. EPIC might pursue an appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis lawsuit was an extraordinary demand by EPIC to ban missionaries from peacefully, and on public property, handing out religious flyers and preaching the Gospel,\u201d said Lea Patterson, an attorney at Butterfield & Patterson, the law firm representing the defendants. \u201cWe are grateful that the Court recognized that such demands are a serious challenge to our country\u2019s core values of free speech and freedom of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Had the lawsuit proceeded, Patterson said, it would have likely been a significant blow to religious freedom in Texas. “If successful, the lawsuit would have effectively given EPIC a heckler\u2019s veto, empowering EPIC to ban any speech it finds offensive, including the Gospel, within the general vicinity of the mosque, even though that speech occurs on a public sidewalk, where our right to free speech is strongest,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Attorneys for EPIC did not respond to a request for comment from The Christian Post. This article will be updated if a response is received.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The EPIC mosque has made headlines for its controversial plans to build a 400-acre development in rural North Texas. Formerly named \u201cEPIC City\u201d and rebranded<\/a> to \u201cThe Meadow,\u201d the proposed development includes a stated vision of 1,000 homes, a mosque, community center, school, and other facilities tailored to Muslim families.<\/p>\n

With an estimated Muslim population of over 313,000, Texas has one of the largest Muslim communities in the U.S., with nearly 150,000 Muslim residents in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.<\/p>\n

Located in the Dallas suburb of Plano, EPIC opened in July 2015 as a nonprofit \u201cformed exclusively for educational, religious, and social purposes\u201d and bills itself<\/a> as \u201ca multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-lingual, non-sectarian, diverse, and open community committed to full and equal participation and involvement of men and women who are community members of EPIC and subscribe to accept its rules, regulations, and procedures.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ian M. Giatti, Christian Post Reporter Monday, April 06, 2026A screenshot of a 2021 video of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[38358,38357,48828,160,162,161,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-237368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-east-plano-islamic-center","9":"tag-epic-city","10":"tag-evangelism","11":"tag-plano","12":"tag-plano-headlines","13":"tag-plano-news","14":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}