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Award Honours Courageous Pastor Who Transformed Sierra Leone

by | Sun, Mar 5 2023

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Every year the Colson Center presents its annual William Wilberforce Award to recognise a Christian leader who has made a lasting difference in their sphere of influence.

This year it will honour Pastor Shodankeh Johnson from the West African nation of Sierra Leone.

He embraced a call to take the Gospel to unreached Muslim communities in the north of his country during a decade of civil war.

He was captured by both government and rebel forces multiple times.

Once he miraculously escaped death by sharing the Gospel with a commander who was about to shoot him.

Pastor Johnson’s sharing convinced the army chief to set him free and later give his life to Jesus.

Here’s how the pastor described the exchange to the Colson Center’s Breakpoint program.

One of the times that I was arrested, I came to the point of almost death because my hands were tied behind my back, and this commander was going to kill me, and he was furious. He said, “I’m going to kill you, and when I kill you, go and tell your God what you have been talking about. Your God cannot save you. You are already a dead man anyway.”

So, in that pain, I just bowed down my head, and I said, “God, please, if this is my time to die, I’m ready to go. But please God, give me courage so that I can talk to this commander. At least if I go down, let me convert one more person for you, and let it be this commander. 

And so, I lifted my head, and I said, “Commander, please, I know you are going to shoot me, but please give me five minutes so that I can talk to you.”

He said, “Go ahead and talk any nonsense. You’re already a dead man anyway.”

And I said, “Commander, please … I want you to accept Jesus as your Lord and personal Saviour. Because, you know, if you shoot me right now, there are angels all around waiting to take me to Heaven. But if you die, commander, in this state, you will not make it to Heaven.” I said, “Right now, if you accept Jesus as your Lord and personal Saviour, and then you turn around and shoot me, you know, Jesus will still forgive you.”

And he looked at me and then told his boys, “Untie this man. Let him go. Something is wrong with his head. He’s not a normal man.” So, I was untied, and they let me go.

But a few weeks down the road, the commander came looking for me. And when he came, he said, “Do you know that the way you spoke to me that day, nobody has ever spoken to me like that? I go to bed, and I can’t sleep. Can we be friends?”

Through that friendship, the commander got saved and baptised, and two of his guys also were baptised. And today the commander is still alive. He’s a follower of Jesus, and two of his boys are also serving the Lord.

Christian leaders trained under Pastor Johnson’s New Harvest Global Ministries have planted more than 3,000 churches in Sierra Leone.

They’ve also planted schools, seminaries, medical and dental clinics and agricultural programs.

When plagues such as AIDS and ebola hit the country his volunteers were on the frontlines.

The pastor says the goal of his service to Christ is to be “high impact, low visibility” so the glory goes to God alone.  

His award is made by the Colson Center to honour Christians who have demonstrated the same principled courage as British slavery abolitionist William Wilberforce.

The Colson Center was started by President Richard Nixon’s Special Counsel Chuck Colson who was jailed over the Watergate scandal and then became a Christian and set up a prison ministry.

Chuck Colson recognised that while US churches were focused on evangelism, they were missing the “cultural commission” to be a potential influence in the culture and equip every Christian to live like one. So he established the Colson Center.

Pastor Johnson will be honoured at its annual conference in May for his work as a preacher, church planter and reformer who has brought transformation in his country.