By Christine Onwuachumba
The New Frontiers Church, Lagos, recently held a Christmas Day Love Feast where thousands of indigent men, women and children were feted.
The event was held at Love Garden Open Field, beside the Lagos State Polytechnic, Surulere. It attracted a crowd of less-privileged and needy people mostly from Ijora Badia and Ojuelegba areas of Lagos. After they were fed, the people were sent home with gifts of different kinds.
The occasion was a mixed grill of merrymaking, praise and worship and admonition from the scriptures.
Navy Commodore (Deacon) Omatseye Nesiama, who spoke to the reporter, explained why the event was held.
“Today’s event is a prophetic declaration by the senior pastor of our church, Pastor Mike Osereme, that we should feed 10, 000 people that cannot afford to feed this Christmas.”
The essence of the programme, he said, was captured in the Biblical parable of the rich man, who prepared a banquet for special people, who, it turned out, had different reasons to shun the occasion. The host inevitably had to invite low-class people, who were willing to come and dine at his banquet.
“We decided to carry out this mandate to reach out to people, who otherwise will not be privileged to be around our banquet table to eat. That is why we targeted the indigent, the poor and the needy, to make them feel the love of God, who sent Jesus Christ to the world to die for our salvation.”
Though a novelty, the Love Feast is not the first of such gesture from the church. It was described as a new twist to an old tradition.
“We have been having it in a different way in the past few years,” affirmed Deacon Nesiama. “But this is the first time we are giving out cooked food in a central place where all our guests converged, as opposed to the past when we used to go round the city to give out to them.”
Another variant of the programme, which he called Knocking on Doors, entails that church members would go to the homes of the poor, knock on their doors to say merry Christmas and give them food, especially people who could not afford food at Christmas.
“This category of people are also part of the 10, 000 we are trying to feed,” he added.
According to him, the love feast, which he said was planned for almost a year, was organised to simultaneously take place in Lagos and in the northeast part of the country.
Many of the guests at the event, after feeding also got free gifts, including clothing from the church. But Nesiama said that the overriding incentive for the programme was to expose the guest to the knowledge of Christ.
Even though many of the guests were Muslims, Nesiama said the church had no ulterior motive to convert them to Christianity.
“Our duty is not to convert people to Christ. Our duty is to point people to Christ. It is Holy Spirit and God that do the conversion. We want only to show them what Christ did when he was alive, show them the love of Christ,” he noted.
Despite the recession, he said the church encountered no financial encumbrances, as members willingly contributed to support the initiative.
“As we speak, people are still bringing gifts. It is the work of God. He who has given us the mandate knows how he will fulfil it. We are only willing tools that He is using to achieve His purpose.
“Our church is founded on hospitality, it is one of our key values and there is no better way to show hospitality than a programme such as this,” he affirmed.