This is a text-only version of an article first published on Monday, 28 April 2014. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
A PRIEST who lost half of his family in an attack on All Saints Church in Peshawar, Pakistan, last year will speak at the first ever Pentecost service for Oxford's growing community of international Christians. The Revd Aftab Gohar hit the headlines in September 2013 when a suicide attack on a church in Pakistan killed 122 people including his 79-year-old mother, his nephew and his niece, with other close family and friends seriously injured.
Aftab, the minister of Abbotsgrange Parish Church in Grangemouth, Scotland, was reported as publically stating that he forgave the attackers, while acknowledging that their actions were wrong. Aftab will be preaching at St Clement's Church, in Oxford, where the Pentecost service will take place on Sunday, June 8 at 6. 30pm.
The Revd Bruce Gillingham, Area Dean for Cowley and Rector of St Clement's, Oxford, and Wonsuk Ma, Director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS) came up with the idea. Aftab will speak on Celebration and Sorrow, focussing on the Biblical text of Romans 12:15 "Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. " Bruce said: "I realised a year ago that there are a large number of congregations that have grown up in Oxford in the last 10 years representing different minority ethnic backgrounds and they are worshipping as Christians, sometimes in English and sometimes in another language. "He invited the Revd Andrew Anderson, a retired Church of Scotland minister and Chaplain to OCMS, to use his experience of arranging similar services in Edinburgh to help in arranging this service. At least 10 international churches have been invited whose congregations include Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Afro Carribeans, Poles, Filipinos and many others.
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