God Loves Homosexual - Matthew Ashimolowo

Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo is the Senior Pastor
of Kingsway International Christian Center. In this
new interview with Punch, he talks deep.
Have you always wanted to be a minister of God?
I was born in Zaria and grew up in various
barracks in Kaduna, Zaria and Kano. I was a
Muslim and my name was Ahmed. My mum and
dad were named Aishat and Salau respectively.
My sister was Dijat and my brother was called
Mudashiru.
I received Christ after reading a gospel tract when
I was 20 years old. From then on, I began to have
a passion to share the gospel of Jesus with other
people but I didn’t know it was going to be a
calling. By age 22, I worked briefly in church
premises in Modakeke, Osun State. I was there for
seven months and on the other hand, I was
looking to get my O’levels so I could go to the
Nigerian Defence Academy. I wanted to be an
Army officer, because I was raised in the barracks
and my dad was in the military.
My only passion in life at the time was to be an
army officer in the engineering corps. The army
engineering corps of those days built bridges and
constructed roads.
Why didn’t you pursue a career in the military?
Somehow, I later became interested in becoming
a preacher of the gospel. One day, a man came
into the church premises and said I looked like a
man who God would call into the ministry. Then,
it didn’t occur to me that it might be my future.
Once he sowed that into my spirit, I collected the
address of the Bible College he attended in
Ikorodu, Lagos and enrolled there in January,
1974.

Was your family against your love for
Christianity?

While my dad, mum and immediate family
members were Muslims, my dad’s extended
family members were Christians.
Interestingly, my dad died in the Nigerian civil war
and so, that removed my biggest persecution.
With his death, my mum didn’t have any passion
to persecute me. To a certain extent, my extended
family expressed doubts and asked how I was
going to meet my needs as a preacher. They
didn’t realise it was a calling I had no control
over.

Was growing up in the barracks a palatable
experience?

It was a very difficult life. My dad was never at
home and he spent the little money he had on
pool staking. There was a limited supply of food
in the house and sometimes, he would
deliberately make us live in the poorest part of
town.
He was not caring but interestingly, he was
passionate about his children. That was one
aspect of him people found contradictory.

The KICC parish in the United Kingdom is
acclaimed to have the largest congregation of
Christians in the UK since the introduction of
Christianity in the country. How did you achieve
this?

Sometimes I think that is what humbles me most.
I did not imagine that boy who was born in Zaria
barracks would be hand-picked by God. I didn’t
attend the Oxford University; I only went to a
bible college in Ikorodu, Lagos, and enrolled in a
correspondence course in a school in America. I
can’t be arrogant about my achievements because
only God could have brought me this far.

Why then did the UK Charity Commission of
Wales and England beam its searchlight on the
activities of your ministry?

When you are a minority in any place and you
have such extreme breakthrough and success,
chances are that you will attract attention- good,
bad and ugly. You will find that anything called a
Commission would give legal reasons for their
actions, but sometimes when you examine and
discover that the same legal reasons were not
applied to everybody in your circumstance, you
begin to feel there may be other reasons. Looking
back, it was just God that brought us out of the
challenge. I say so because nobody has ever
been fraught with all the machinery of the
government and come out clean with a testimony.
Allegations of tax evasion and financial
impropriety were leveled against your ministry in
the United Kingdom…
No, there was no such thing. Did you read that in
the commission’s statement? Nigerians just draw
all kinds of conclusions; churches don’t pay tax,
so the commission couldn’t have said that we
evaded tax. Instead of the church paying tax in
the UK, the government gives back money to
churches because of its members who pay tax.
Nigerians who do not know what the Charity
Commission means and stands for came up with
that notion.

How have you managed being a successful black
man and Nigerian in the UK?

No matter how independent people are in their
thinking, they would be lying if they say there is
no prejudice or presuppositions in their actions.
Whether racism was the motivation behind the
allegations, I can only allude. From its own
research, the government accepts that there is
institutionalised racism even in its own
bureaucracies, departments and sectors.

Did this give rise to the book you authored -What
is Wrong with Being Black, which caused a stir?

It took me seven years of research and between
4000 and 10,000 references to come up with that
book. It was inspired by the observation that
anywhere blacks are in the majority, they are
unable to build anything worthwhile. God did not
create any man to be a failure. The ideal thing is
to attract people to the question-What is wrong
with being Black? The problem with us blacks is
our inability to take advantage of God’s provision
for us to become achievers.
What are your thoughts on homosexuality?
God created marriage for people to find
procreation, mutual help, comfort and strength.
When God started marriage, it was for Adam and
Eve, not Adam and Steve. God loves all men and
he loves homosexuals. It’s just that the
constitution of God which is the Bible, speaks
against the practice.

How are you able to preach this gospel in
societies which are permissive of this practice
and lifestyle?

I was one of 10 people who signed and put our
conviction about God’s original idea of the
marriage institution in major newspapers. One of
the fallouts is the persecution that comes from
taking such a stance.
We cannot run away from what we believe. If God
had wanted same sexes to marry, he would have
created other methods of procreation. We don’t
come out to say we hate homosexuals because
we love them; God loves them but the bible is
against the practice.

You have been married to Pastor Yemisi for 34
years. How have you been able to stay married
for this long?

It is in accepting and appreciating each other.
We made the right decisions from the beginning.
When I was going to get married, I was on the
lookout for an evangelist. A pastor friend of mine
asked me to speak to her even though I already
knew her because I was her counsellor in church.
Our union is awesome because we share a similar
passion for Christ even though we come from two
sides of the gospel; I came from the streets while
her parents were born again before she was born
but the same blood of Jesus cleaned both of us.

How do you divide your time between your
ministry and the home front?

I came up with a philosophy I call valuable,
quality time at home and quantity time outside.
Even if its two hours I spend at home, I make it
worth the while. When my two sons who are now
married were younger, I neither accepted
speaking engagements nor went out. There was a
time I did not travel out of London for 11 years; I
was actively involved in their upbringing at school
and at home. I did not start to travel until they
were A-level students.

Why are you passionate about helping widows?

Because I have been through so much suffering in
life, I have a burden and passion for helping
needy people. As I began to see the blessings of
God in my life, I realised it was necessary to begin
to look out for people. I started out giving
scholarships to members of my immediate family
and later, to non-family members. I observed that
just providing food, drinks and celebrating the
New Year with my extended family in my
hometown did not really show the compassion of
Christ. I soon felt God was leading us to build a
university in that town and reach out to widows.
The first year my ministry gave food, money and
clothing items to 308 widows, by the second,
third and fourth year, we catered to 850, 1000,
1500 and 1600 widows.This year, there were over
4000 widows whom we ministered to with
clothing, money and food items.

What is the secret of your fit, youthful and
stylish appearance at 62?

I take a lot of fiber and as you become older your
joints need a lot of it. I like to take care of myself
and I like to look presentable because I am in the
public eye. I am watched in Africa, Europe, the
Middle East and the whole world via the Internet.
You can either make yourself such that people
switch off or make them listen to you speak. I
found that while I am led by the Holy Spirit, God
has given me wisdom and tenacity to make good
choices as long as they are not offensive. That
informs why I may be considered to be stylish.