Power of love not stopped by barrel of gun in battle for souls

Part 2 of a 3-part series based on an inspiring interview with Shodankeh Johnson, a pastor, church planter and reformer from Sierra Leone, West Africa

As I listened to Shodankeh Johnson sharing passionately about his vision to plant “churches that plant churches that plant churches” all over Sierra Leone and West Africa, I thought about the grim reports I see every week of radical Islamists spreading death and destruction in places like northern Nigeria.

“Are you not meeting resistance from such quarters?” I asked him.

“Yes, definitely, we are,” he said. “I believe very strongly that Islam is becoming more aggressive in sub-Saharan Africa because the Church is also becoming ‘aggressive’ in making disciples.

“The Church is getting a foothold in so many communities and the only way that Islam can respond to that threat is by becoming more militant; forcing people and using the gun. While they are using the barrel of the gun, we are using the power of love to bring the Gospel of love to people,

“So, of course, it’s true, they are burning down villages. They are killing a lot of people,” he said.

He said militant Jihadism is nothing new. “Islam has always fed on the fear factor. That’s how they pushed into North Africa and it’s how they are pushing into other areas. Because they know that many Christians will not want to take the gun to fight. Because our mandate is not to return evil for evil.

“But I will tell you, that the Gospel is equally spreading among most of these communities in a way that is non offensive, non-violent, but using the power of love.”

Shodankeh said he is teaching believers in hard areas not to focus on erecting church buildings — “which just become targets which the Jihadists burn down” — but to use the ‘Jesus option”, the power of the Gospel of love “to plant the Gospel in the hearts of the people, whereby everybody becomes a disicple who makes disciples who make other dicsciples”.

“So that is what we are doing,” he said. “And we have seen even some of the people, who were formerly these radicals [violent Jihadis], we’re seeing how the love of God has melted their hearts and some of them becoming followers of Jesus.”

Shodankeh said that just a few weeks ago he was in northern Nigeria — one of the most dangerous places in the world for Christians, training more than 300 pastors working in Jihadi-dominated areas –how to spread the Gospel under fire.

“We are not stopping,” he said.

In the early 1990s, as an inexperienced missionary among unreached Muslim groups in the north of Sierra Leone, he took a job as a school teacher and started Bible study groups which began to grow. “That attracted a lot of young people around me and eventually the house where I was staying became a safe place for young people who were Muslims.”

When he returned to the south of the country in response to a call from God, he started a Bible study group in a small living room.

These early discipleship steps were the beginnings of the ministry he leads today — New Harvest Global Ministries , which has been instrumental in planting over 3 000 churches and in discipleship training in Sierra Leone and the sub-region.

In 2002, at a time when he thought his ministry was doing quite well by planting about two churches a year, he learned about “spontaneous church planting” from David Watson, a church planting movement pioneer who had made a big impact in northern India. David became his mentor for a season and went to Sierra Leone with him to share the vision of “spontaneous church planting” with leaders there.

But most leaders said it was too radical and dangerous for them. And when Shodankeh said he was committed to pursuing this way of discipling, some of his own leaders resigned.

Asked to explain the essence of “spontaneous church planting”, he said it is easier and faster than the old methods, less expensive to implement, grows faster in communities — especially among unreached tribes, and it is able to raise leaders very quickly.

He said the results of adopting the new approach to church planting were immediate — “It was very like what was happening in the Book of Acts.”

“So, eventually, when I saw so many leaders, so many people. coming to the Lord, I said: : God, what do you want me to do with them all?”

And that, he said, is how he began focusing on coaching and training leaders. He started a training school, then linked up with other people to establish what they call the Every Nation Leadership Institute. Today it is a polytechnic and by next year it is on track to become a full university.

“Through this process we have been able to train almost all of the chaplains in the army in Sierra Leone. We have been able to train almost all the chaplains in the police force and correctional centers in Sierra Leone. We have trained people in the fire force — so many people.

“But it has even gone beyond the country now. We’ve been able to train people in the sub region — in Liberia and Guinea, in Gambia, in Nigeria, in Ghana, in Mali.

“And now we have even gone beyond the sub region. Now we’ve done a lot of training in the United States, in Europe, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other very difficult countries in North Africa and the Middle East.”

Shodankeh said Sierra Leone is currently 65% to 70% Muslim and 20% to 30% Christian, depending on whose statistics you trust. He said he has seen substantial growth in the Christian population since he started in ministry.

He said one of the blessings in the country is that Christians and Muslims have been able to live in peace for centuries. But there are some signs of change now, with the establishment of Islamic “madrassa” schools where children are taught that Christains are the enemy, and “pockets of resistance and persecution here and there”.

“But we are not lowering our targets. We are pressing hard, and the goal is to make sure there’s a ‘Jesus option’ in every strata of the population, in every compartment of the population, and at every level. That is what we are living for,” he said.

To be continued

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