In the Ajah neighbourhood of Lagos, amid harmonies of high praise and rustling robes, something deeper than a birthday party stirred. It was a celebration, yes, but not of years alone. It was the honouring of a life stretched thin in devotion, poured out like an offering.
Rev. Chris Christian turned 60. The number glowed, diamond-bright. But the substance of the moment pulsed elsewhere: in the testimonies, the tears, the swelling choir, and in the quiet resolve of a man who’s spent more than three decades shepherding souls from Kano to Cape Town.
Born two years before the Biafran War, Christian wears his scars like scriptures. The war marked his childhood; the ministry marked everything after. In 1996, with little more than revelation and resolve, he founded Locust Army Ministries in a single room in Kano. Today, that vision has grown into an international movement, with branches across Nigeria and abroad, including a prayer fortress in Umuchu known simply as Galilee.
His followers call him The People’s Shepherd. But there’s nothing casual about that title. Christian has written over 400 books, taken an oath of poverty, and lives as a self-declared eunuch, claiming a life stripped of worldly attachments to focus solely on heaven’s business. His theology is steep, his sermons long, his goals eternal. He speaks of the “eighth man,” the immortal church, and the scrolls of Judah, like others speak of weather or football.
At Sunday’s celebration, tributes flooded in. Members praised his mentorship, his discipline, and his defiance of convention. Visiting clerics, local leaders, and global guests sat under the vaulted ceiling of Locust Army’s headquarters as the man of the hour stood, unflinching, quoting Revelation, reminding everyone that the race was not yet over.
He spoke of immortality, of readiness, of the church needing less performance and more presence. And then, in the middle of the music and memory, he simply smiled. Sixty looks small beside a calling so large.
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