Jesus can transform hearts of persecutors, says pastor

Pastor Ade Omooba was speaking at a service of remembrance in London today for victims of the brutal Islamic sect Boko Haram.

He said that the church could never respond to persecution with hate and anger but had to instead be an “expression of Christ’s truth in love”.

"Whatever it is we are going through, it is only Christ Jesus who can preserve us in this situation ... We are persecuted but not abandoned," said Pastor Omooba, who serves in the UK with the ministry Christian Concern for our Nation.

As many as 1,000 people are believed to have died in recent months at the hands of the group in the states of Bauchi, Yobe, Kano and Borno in northern Nigeria.

In the Boko Haram stronghold of Maiduguri at least 700 people were killed in the worst of the violence when the group launched attacks on several police stations in July.

At the service in St Marylebone Church in London, images of destroyed churches and slain Christians were shown to the congregation, which included many Nigerian clergymen now serving in the UK.

Pastor Fred Williams of Glory House, whose church in Nigeria was attacked twice by Boko Haram, said the images were an indication of Christians there were facing.

“Christians are usually blind to the pain of other Christians. One of the things we need to do is create a high level of awareness,” he said.

Dr Khataza Gondwe, Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s research and advocacy officer for sub-Saharan Africa, told the harrowing story of Pastor George Orji who, just before being killed by the militants, turned to other Christians captured with him and said ‘Tell my brothers I died well’.

Dr Gondwe said the attacks on churches by Boko Haram militants were “not isolated incidents”.

“These people are targeting Christians and that’s missed in the international media,” she said.

Pastor Omooba paid tribute to the millions of persecuted Christians around the world who “live every day not knowing if they leave their home, if they will come back to it again”.

Pastor Omooba said the world had entered into the “era of 666”, in which systems of power were trying to compel Christians to act against their conscience and religious beliefs.

“Our persecution is not only (by) the ones who go out and rape and brutally murder our brothers and sisters. Some of our persecution is (by) systems,” he said.

“That is the persecution we are facing: ‘If you will not conform to this way of life we will take your livelihood.’ Is that not what is happening in the UK?”

He urged Christians to stand firm in the face of difficulties and unite over and above their denominational distinctions.

“All the denominations were attacked by Boko Haram,” he said. “The persecutor knows the church is one but sometimes the church doesn’t know it is one.”

He said more Christians needed to advocate for the rights of Christians living in majority-Muslim contexts.

“If we can tolerate Islam in the West and let them build their mosques then they must give us the same opportunity in their countries,” he said.

Pastor Omooba said churches needed to constantly set aside part of their funds to support the persecuted church so that it could work proactively as well as reactively, and that evangelists were needed to pray and preach the Good News to Muslims.

He said: “We are not called to hate them but to reach out to them with the Good News of Jesus Christ.”

A remembrance service was held simultaneously by Christians in Abuja in Nigeria.