Senior Pastor Beaten at Nairobi Central Seventh-day Adventist Church

23 July 2019 | The senior pastor of Nairobi Central Seventh-day Adventist Church was roughed up last Saturday as tensions between rival groups turned physically violent on the stage of the church.

Pastor Jean Pierre Maywa, was physically assaulted and video shows members of the congregation rushing to his aid. Bottles were allegedly hurled inside the church during the incident.

The pastor had previously been accused of polarizing his congregation along ethnic lines by allegedly favoring a particular ethnic community in the membership composition of a powerful church committee.

It is reported that what is being described as a fistfight erupted after a meeting, scheduled to decide the fate of a faction wishing to split from the church, fell apart.

News site Kenyans reports that the meeting had been called to determine whether the group calling itself Nairobi Cosmopolitan Conference (NCC) should be disfellowshipped from the church. The group had recently lost a court case in which they had challenged existing church leadership.

Kenya’s Pulse Live news site reported that police were called to contain the situation.

There are about a million Adventist members in Kenya.

Video of the incident from the Wakenya Pamoja YouTube channel.