About

“…he had been listening to every word. Then he came into the building and gave his life to the Lord.”

–Tony Bilotta, Founder of One Luv

The Early Days

On my very first attempt to reach people in our community it was hard going. The plan was to do outreach on Friday and Saturday, and have an Easter service on Sunday morning. We passed out 4000 flyers and had maybe 50 people attend in 2 days.

God told me clearly to go to the building on Easter Sunday. However, when I got there no one showed up for the meeting. I then placed a speaker out of the window and just shared the resurrection morning account from the gospels. I really didn’t think anyone was listening. I just was confident God wanted that message communicated.

A man was working on the building right next to ours, and the speaker I had placed out the window was right next to him.

He had been listening to every word. Then he came into the building and gave his life to the Lord. That night he brought his girlfriend back for the showing of the movie at night. They were the only 2!

Gaining Momentum

The outreach started simply – just walking through neighborhoods in the city with a bag of snacks and treats. Snacks in exchange for a Gospel message was the trade! A connection with Bachman Snacks allowed me to give away thousands of bags of cheese curls and pretzel sticks, and to give thousands of ears the Good News of the Lord Jesus Christ! 

In 2007 we started our “Oasis” ministry, focusing on amplified sound and video as a draw for a crowd. We did these first outreaches in both the Glenside and Oakbrook housing developments. It was our first attempt at mass evangelism and God was with us from the very beginning, helping us to reach larger crowds.

We also began the “Calvary” ministry – the name signifying people coming to the cross of Calvary on a Sunday morning. This started as a leading in my heart to reach out in a neighborhood and invite people to a park pavilion for a Sunday meeting. I really didn’t think anyone would show up. On the first Sunday we had 5 people, then the next there were 10. It miraculously grew to over 100 people! Eventually, we outgrew the small pavilion building and moved to Hope Rescue Mission. However, we lost the use of the Mission building.

One Luv Is Official

In the Fall of 2010, we concentrated our outreach on the youth of Reading, using Christian Hip Hop music videos and creating a fun atmosphere for youth to learn about the Gospel. We used a mix of Christian Hip Hop and ‘clean’ secular music with a message to attract non-Christians. We called the very first One Luv outreach “Hip Hop Hell,” playing on the Halloween theme of demons and the devil and using it as a platform to talk about Heaven and Hell.

Today the outreach ministry is geared to families and their children. It is a blessing to be able to share the God’s love and light with young and old and give them tangible items showing the goodness and provision of our Father in heaven!

One Luv has a variety of venues we use to bring the God’s love to the people of Reading. We even went to Calvary Chapel Lebanon and did a Valentines outreach in 2022! Venues can be anywhere – gymnasiums, parking lots, community buildings, churches and we even section off a city block for a block party.  These mini-festivals have free food, drink, snacks, face painting, tattoos, giveaways, crowd tosses of candy and prizes, raffles and music.

We have partnered with Toys for Tots for large Christmas giveaways and we had over 1,200 people for one event as we partnered with the Pennsylvania State Champion Reading High Basketball team and cheerleaders. 

At our festivals, we begin the night using entirely Christian worship music and share the love of Jesus in both word and deed. Those nights we have fun with the people, continuing to spread the light of Jesus to those in attendance and pray with any and all that need hope and encouragement.

2019 has seen God bless the outreaches abundantly as we sensed people being ministered to and touched like never before and it has been a joy to watch.

2020 was an explosive year of ministry and growth for One Luv. While the whole city and country was shut down our evangelistic efforts exploded and we were so busy!! We had countless opportunities to bless large crowds with food in the midst of a pandemic and share the hope, love and light of God to thousands. We had miracle after miracle happen. We even had 32 pallets of food delivered by the National Guard to help the families in Reading. One of our evangelistic distributions was so big a picture of it was on 60 Minutes!!

2021 was a year of pain and sadness for myself. My 87 year old father passed first (April 11, 2021)and then my 87 year old mother was placed on home hospice due to complications of recovering from Covid. My ministry for 7 months was caring for my mom,12-15 hours a day, everyday. It was a joy to help and be with my mom and love her in her sick sickness and it will be 7 months that was truly the best and the hardest of my entire life. Mom passed on Sept 21, 2021 and my heart was truly broken. She was my rock and source of comfort my entire life and with her gone I thought my ministry was over. However, God used the pain and heartache of that time to begin a new ministry. We lost a vital food connection and we thought the opportunity to help people with food was over and God had used us for a time. Miraculously on the same day Calvary Chapel Lebanon told us they would help us with food to care for the poor. So the work continues to this day!!

2022 has been the most amazing year for One Luv. We have ministered to 14,000 people and we are just now going into the last 3 Christmas outreaches for 2022 as I write this. God started Sunday ministry where we have been able to bless the people with His Word (as we study the book of Mark together), worship, prayer and fellowship together with a meal. We have seen 1000 different families during the course of the year that come to experience God’s amazing provisions for them. We also distribute groceries to all the families and its all FREE OF CHARGE to the people! We have had 40 baptisms, given out thousands of bibles, had a huge Easter event that had approximately 1500 people, the first two Christmas events we have seen 1400 people (and we have 3 more!) and we have had countless ministry outreaches where we have blessed the people with clothes, backpacks, diapers, eggs, milk, food, drinks, groceries, feminine products, stuffed toys, toys and the list goes on and on to all the things God has provided to care for the poor. We are now in the transition of moving to a larger facility and we are excited to see what God will do! To Him be the glory great things He has done….and the story continues……