HUW: Can you just tell us about how you found Jesus?

Jonathan: I come from a Muslim family in Nigeria, from the Yoruba tribe. My whole family were entrenched in Islam but have all now become Christians. My dad was the last to get saved, and the first to see Jesus face to face.

I was born in England, but brought up in Nigeria where I trained as a medical doctor. The two things my dad said to me when I was going to medical school was, 'Jonathan, I don't want you to marry anyone outside our tribe, and don't marry a Christian! Always remain a Muslim.' I broke both in a matter of six months because I was going out with a girl who was not from the Yoruba tribe and I became a Christian soon after going to medical school. But I couldn't tell my parents for a long time.

I was a devout Muslim. I was still searching for God but never seemed to get proper answers. At university I had a number of friends who were Christians and I used to ask them lots of questions. They invited me to Christian meetings. One evening I went to a prayer service, and the minute I walked into the church, I felt a presence. Something deep within my heart said, 'this is what you're looking for.' It wasn't the worship, the praise or the preacher, but just the presence of God there -it felt like I'd come home.

At the end of the service I walked to the front to give my life to Jesus. I was baptised in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues -all at once! This may sound controversial to evangelicals, but the presence I felt in that church was the same presence I felt in my heart when I was on my mat as a Muslim, when I said to God 'Where are you?'. I say to people that we don't introduce Jesus to people, we unveil Him.

What happened then?

I saw my friends in eternal peril so I got down on my knees and began to pray for their salvation.

Was it hard to separate yourself from your Muslim connections?

I had a number of friends who were Muslims at the time who could not accept my radical, overnight conversion. When I finally told my parents, my dad disowned me and threw me out of the house. My dad said, 'You're no longer my son, I don't want anything to do with you.' So I had to go and live with Christian friends.

That must have been painful?

It was very hard, but it strengthened my faith. Jesus said that He came to bring a division, a sword, between father and mother. So I took these words quite literally. Soon afterwards my sister and my two brothers got saved. Then, in 2003 my mum came with my dad to the United Kingdom. She came to our church on Mothers' Day, I was preaching, and she gave her heart to Jesus. Subsequently, my dad got saved as well. He went to be with the Lord very recently.

What brought you over to this country then?

I was going to become a missionary doctor in northern Nigeria. Then I thought about going to China, because I'd read about Hudson Taylor! After medical school, I planned to go to a Baptist missionary hospital in Nigeria.

I came over to England on a three month holiday. But within 24 hours of landing here, I felt the Holy Spirit calling me. He said, 'Jonathan, you're not here by accident, you are here by divine design. You are here as part of my recruitment to this region of the world in preparation for the coming of My Son and My kingdom.'

What year was this?

This was 1991. So I dropped my own agenda and picked up God's programme. The call was so real I just knew it was God. But I struggled with it for six months. My mum flipped! She said, 'Go and tell that God of yours to refund all the money I spent on your medical school!

What happened next?

A group of us started a small fellowship. Some of us had come out of university campus life - I'd just finished medical school and didn't understand the term, 'church'. We visited some churches to find out what they did on Sundays. So we 'cut and pasted' it all with some hymns, prayers and an offering! It was just all new to us.

We looked for a building, then registered as a charity, and were told that we had to get a lease for £17.000 for the year. That was big money to us then! Most of us were giving donations and tithing as well, and that's how the church started in March 1993.

And this was just a group of Africans?

Yes, most of us were Africans, sprinkled with a handful of Afro Caribbeans as well. The church started as Glory Bible Church in Leyton, East London with Dr Albert Odulele as the pastor. Within three years we had grown to about 300 so we had two services in the building. By the time we came here in 1997, we were close to 1,000. We have since planted a number of churches - one in Brussels, and three others in London.

What caused the growth to be so rapid?

Our church was almost like a holding bay to catch the new immigrants corning from Africa. Almost 80% of Africans and 65% of Afro Caribbeans in the UK live in London. We just found ourselves in a strategic position, ready to receive people as they came. Africans are very communal - if one person comes to your church, five people come into your church, because aunties, cousins and parents would invariably come.

Also many Africans coming here are looking for a social hub and relationships. They have real faith and are also looking for a platform to express their faith. Many of them are single, upwardly mobile and coming from middle-class, educated families and meet other people from the same background. The new churches are ideal for them.

How did you find the spiritual climate of this country when you came over here from Nigeria?

It was a culture shock, both spiritually and socially! Many of the heroes of the faith that I had in Africa came from England and America. For some reason, my mindset was that everybody went to church over here. So you can imagine my shock when I came here.

Socially, I can remember clearly travelling on a bus with my sister. I wondered if there had been some sort of national tragedy or disaster as the silence and lack of communication was eerie. In Africa if you get on a bus it's buzzing. It was very strange for me!

So, how has the Glory House developed since then and what are your current activities?

In the last 12 years we've grown from one church to a multiple network of churches, as we have planted in many places. We have set up a Bible school, and we have also transformed into a cell church, because when we hit the thousand mark, pastoral care became a bit unmanageable.

We read all the books we could read about cell church and began to train our leaders for cell church. We now have home churches, which have a network of about 50 people in each of them. The membership of Glory House is about 3,000. Another 3,000 see us as their church and attend during the festive seasons.

You're reaching out to the community quite strongly.

Yes. We run a football academy. Most of the kids that come are white Eastenders. There are about 700 on this course. Many of the families would say Glory House is their church so, by linking in those families as well, there are many other people who are attached to us. We run programmes in the local schools.

I don't see us remaining as a black majority church for much longer, so I'm looking to shuffle the cards a bit in order to reflect the multicultural dimension of the East End. Over the next 25 years my vision is to make the church as multicultural as possible and really break into the local community.

Why do you think that black majority churches have been so successful in the last ten years especially?

I would say there's a counter-culture within the black churches. Firstly, the level of faith expectation within black majority churches is very high. Secondly, there's a high level of respect for clergy and that breeds strong leadership. Clearly, some do it wrongly. Thirdly, churches grow with visionary leadership. A lot can be accomplished where creative leadership is allowed to take risks and explore new dimensions. That's encouraged within the black churches.

Fourthly, the congregations believe in the leadership, and they don't get into a debate about issues. The democratic process is not really part of the culture. There are principles of democracy in terms of trustees, and the leadership sit and talk, but it's not an open debate.

Fifthly, the black culture is still very communal and so a person comes into a community, not a just church. They don't just come to Glory House on a Sunday - all through the week they're in contact, interacting with people. We phone them, go to hospitals, visit them, attend someone's baby's naming - there are so many layers that overlap and interact and that allow people to bond strongly. That's one of the principles that we saw within the cell church, and adopted into our church.

Lastly, there's a whole life approach in black churches. Many black churches give practical help with all aspects of your life - business, career, education, finance, marriage and family support etc. For example, we have meetings where women who are running their businesses, show other women how to run businesses - that's a church meeting! I call it a Hebrew mentality, where your worship is beyond the building and you don't compartmentalise between church and life.

I would say 50- 70% of the black population, in some way, go to church regularly - compared with 5-10% of the British population.

Are we doing better at breaking down the barriers between black and white churches?

The short answer is not really. I look at the conferences, the meetings, the expressions of faith and it's still very divided. My passion is to see that broken down. One of the ways in which I've got involved is the 'Soul in the City' project. Right now we're having a drive to connect the grassroots movements of networks within all the major boroughs of the city of London, linking the emerging leaders, youth workers and young people together, whether they are Hispanics, Latinos, Philippinos, Africans, Caribbeans or English. Whatever the nationality or ethnicity, we want to work on some projects together. I think that's where we can begin to crack it.

One of the things I feel anointed and called by God to do is link the church together through prayer. So we're joining in the Global Day of Prayer, which emerged from a prayer movement in South Africa. I'm going to be pushing next year for the church to be doing something in London on Pentecost Sunday. I've also spoken to 'Christianity' Magazine and they've featured two of my articles. I've suggested other writers to them and they're going to begin to work more with ACEA (Afro-Caribbean Evangelical Alliance).

So we're far from it, but we're getting closer. We're not where we were a few years ago.

What advice would you give to local churches in terms of being able to break down those barriers practically?

I would say for me that there are two broad objectives. Firstly, for a local church that is completely black or completely white to become multicultural. Secondly, for local congregations to connect with other congregations of dilIerent nationalities.

One of the practical things that a church in a large city can do is to diagnose the community. If you have a local Congolese community in your area, then find out who has a passion to communicate with this community. Then, arrange to sit down with some of these people, eat with them and find out their needs. You can offer your service, invite them into your homes and connect with them. Sometimes it's good to put on some specific event or service that meets a particular people group. If they don't understand English we can set up ESOL classes.

One of the things I find with indigenous English churches is that we can be strong on the humanitarian dimension, but not strong on the spiritual dimension. Black people are very spiritual people, and they want to feel touched by the power of God.

How have you responded to the negative press coverage of some recent issues concerning black majority churches - like child abuse and witchcraft as well as financial irregularity?

There is a fault on both sides. The black churches have not always done good PR, in terms of being able to project clearly what they believe, what they teach and what they stand for, in a way that gives people a clear view of who they are.

On the other side there has been what I call irresponsible journalism, which has just repeated hear-say, or previous reports, without doing its homework. I'll give you a practical example of a recent child abuse case where witchcraft practices were alleged. Thorough investigations found out that the incidents were by a person who was not a member of the named church. He was not in any church!

Some recent misrepresentations were all caused by the fact that we have very few proper communication links between the black and white communities. We need some very healthy communication links with the media, so we can explain what is really happening.

For example, I spoke to a journalist about what happens in black churches concerning deliverance ministry. I said that if I'm going to lay hands on someone, I do it in the presence of two or three other people with the permission of the person. I said I would never pray for someone with total demonic oppression without me explaining what I'm about to do. Deliverance does not normally happen with shouting and breaking glass. Also I explained that things like falling under the power of the Holy Spirit happen in every charismatic church, whether it's black or white.

What exactly is 'Soul in the City'?

I first heard of it in 2002. I was leading church leaders in Newham in prayer for revival every Saturday for two years. Someone told me about Mike Pilavachi, whom I'd never heard of before, and he'd never heard of Glory House either! But in 2003 he came over to East London to speak to us and I was really blessed by it.

For me, Soul in the City is three things - it's church uniting; it's youth releasing, and community transforming. I want to see London truly changed. I think the church can do it and carries enough of a critical mass, if it works together, to make it happen.

What was its fruit?

The fruit of Soul in the City is the unity between networks and churches that is beginning to develop and is growing. Many local boroughs know of Soul in the City. The police are full of praise for it. In some parts of London there has been a reduction in crime on whole estates. Part of our dream is to make that happen 24/7. It's a high calling.

Can you just say something about how you train your leaders or how you raise up a new generation of people who are going to carry on the work.

One of the things we do is we drop people in at the deep end. Our vision is to get every member of Glory House involved in ministry. What we try to tell everybody is that, 'you are a leader - go and pastor your workplace, your school, your business, you carry a responsibility for the souls in your estate, your street, your local area.'

Is there anything else you wanted to share that you haven't touched on that is a passion to you?

My passion is to have a day to day walk with Jesus. That's my highest passion - to know Jesus and to make Him known, to love Jesus and to embrace His love. Because I know that if people just have a taste of that love, they will go after that beyond anything else.

What do you feel God is saying to our nation?

"I am coming!" Prophetically, I sense there are real rumblings in the distance. It's almost like in Africa when it's about to rain you hear the thunder, see the clouds gathering. If the church does not wake up in time and get herself together , God's message will not be one of joy but of judgment. The whole prayer movement is His mercy, saying, "Repent, for the day of the Lord is at hand."

I want to see a thousand John Wesleys. I want to see a thousand Jeffery brothers in one generation. If we could have that, we would see the beginnings of our nation turning back to God.