On Palm Sunday night, March 29, 2026, gunmen rode motorcycles into Angwan Rukuba in Jos, Nigeria, and opened fire on civilians gathered in the street. At least 27 people were killed. Some reports say more. The Plateau State government imposed a 48-hour curfew. People protested in the roads anyway, because what else do you do when your neighbors are murdered during Holy Week?
The same week, an organization called Prison Fellowship declared April 2026 "Second Chance Month," marking its 50th year of ministry inside the walls of America's prisons. They are fighting to remove the nearly 44,000 legal barriers that block people with criminal records from rebuilding their lives. Nearly 1 in 3 American adults carries one of those records.
At first glance, these two stories seem unrelated. One is about violence overseas. The other is about reentry policy at home. But they are actually about the same thing: a world that breaks people, and a church that is called to respond.
This article is prayer is the starting point, not the finish line.
Palm Sunday in Jos: What Actually Happened
Nigeria's Middle Belt has been a killing field for Christians for years. Plateau State, where Jos sits, is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a Christian. Open Doors consistently ranks Nigeria among the top countries for Christian persecution, and this region is the epicenter.
On the night of March 29, unidentified gunmen arrived in Angwan Rukuba, a predominantly Christian community in Jos North Local Government Area. They fired on people gathered in the street. According to Open Doors UK, at least 27 people were killed. International Christian Concern reported dozens dead, with eyewitnesses describing coordinated attackers who arrived, fired, and retreated toward nearby mountains.
Governor Caleb Manasseh Muftwang called the attack "barbaric and unprovoked" and promised accountability. His government imposed a curfew. Youth still took to the streets.
This did not come out of nowhere. In April 2024, 51 to 56 Christians, including 15 children, were massacred near Jos following Palm Sunday celebrations. In December 2023, Fulani militia killed 140 to 195 Christians across 25 villages in a coordinated attack spanning Christmas Eve through Christmas Day. That attack included eight churches burned and 37 people killed in a single community.
The pattern is not a coincidence. Attacks cluster around Christian holy days. Palm Sunday. Easter. Christmas. The message is deliberate.
"Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me." (Matthew 5:10-11)
That verse is not an abstraction. It describes real people in Jos right now. And the global church has a responsibility to respond to it as if it were happening to us, because according to Scripture, it is.
"Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering." (Hebrews 13:3)
Why the West Is Not Paying Attention
You may not have heard about this attack. That is not an accident.
Gateway Pundit reported that mainstream media largely failed to cover the Palm Sunday massacre. This is consistent with a broader pattern: violence against Christians in sub-Saharan Africa receives a fraction of the coverage that comparable events in other regions receive.
Voice of the Martyrs has documented this pattern for decades. Part of the church's job is to be the voice for those who aren't getting coverage. If the global media won't tell this story, Christians need to.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) issued a statement after the attack: "Nigeria cannot keep bleeding." They are right. And the global church needs to hear that statement and respond, not just note it.
The Theology of Suffering With Others
Here is a hard truth: most Western Christians treat persecution in the Global South as a prayer request, not a personal concern. We pray for "our brothers and sisters in Nigeria," then move on to sermon notes and Sunday lunch.
Paul does not give you that option.
"If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it." (1 Corinthians 12:26)
The body of Christ is not a metaphor. It is a reality Paul treats with complete seriousness. When your hand gets slammed in a car door, your whole body responds. Every nerve. Every reflex. The body does not say, "That's a hand problem, not my problem." The same is true of the global church.
What that means practically is this: you are not a detached observer of what is happening in Plateau State. You are a fellow member of the body being attacked. Your response should match that reality.
What You Can Do: Nigeria and Plateau State
You do not have to feel helpless. Here is what actually moves things:
Pray specifically. Do not pray "for Nigeria." Pray for Angwan Rukuba. Pray for the families of the 27 killed on Palm Sunday 2026. Pray for Governor Muftwang and the security forces. Pray for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. Pray by name for the communities that have been hit year after year during Holy Week.
Give to organizations on the ground. Open Doors supports persecuted Christians in Nigeria directly, including trauma care, rebuilding homes, and supporting families of the martyred. International Christian Concern provides direct relief and advocacy. Voice of the Martyrs has decades of verified work in Nigeria and documented persecution globally. Every dollar sent to these organizations is a concrete act of solidarity.
Raise awareness. Share the story. Write to your elected representatives asking them to raise Nigeria's persecution crisis in bilateral discussions with the Nigerian government. Contact the embassy. The United States has significant leverage with Nigeria. That leverage is only applied when American citizens demand it.
Know the names. Visit the Premier Christian News coverage and read the names of those killed. This is a spiritual practice, not just journalism. We remember because they matter.
Second Chance Month: The Gospel in the American Prison System
Now let us cross the ocean and talk about 1.9 million people currently incarcerated in the United States. And the 70 million Americans, nearly 1 in 3 adults, carrying a criminal record.
Prison Fellowship was founded in 1976 by Chuck Colson, former White House Counsel to Richard Nixon, who served seven months in prison following Watergate. He went in as a disgraced political operative and came out having encountered Jesus Christ. He spent the rest of his life building what is now the nation's largest Christian nonprofit serving incarcerated people and their families.
Fifty years later, Prison Fellowship is spending April 2026 as Second Chance Month, a campaign it founded in 2017 that has since received bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate. The initiative raises awareness of the 44,000 documented legal barriers, licensing restrictions, housing prohibitions, employment bans, and benefit exclusions that follow people with criminal records long after they have served their time.
The question Prison Fellowship is asking is simple: Does the gospel actually mean second chances, or not?
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)
That verse is either true for the person who just finished a five-year sentence, or it is not true. Prison Fellowship is betting that it is.
The 44,000 Walls
Here is the part that most people do not know. The punishment for a crime in America does not end when a sentence ends. It echoes for decades through a web of legal restrictions that follow people out the door.
Depending on the offense, a person leaving prison may be:
- Barred from most licensed professions (cosmetology, plumbing, nursing, accounting, law)
- Ineligible for federal student loans
- Unable to rent housing in most federally subsidized programs
- Stripped of voting rights in many states
- Excluded from certain public benefits
These are not outcomes of the judicial system. They are outcomes of administrative and legislative decisions made over decades. Prison Fellowship's advocacy work targets these specific barriers because they are the single largest driver of recidivism. When someone cannot get a job, rent an apartment, or access education after release, they return to the only economy that does not check their record.
The church has something to say about this. And Prison Fellowship, with 1,100 partner churches mobilized for Second Chance Month, is saying it.
This Is Not Soft on Crime
Some Christians hear "criminal justice reform" and assume it means excusing wrongdoing or minimizing victims. It does not.
The gospel holds both truths simultaneously. Sin has real consequences. Justice matters. Victims deserve acknowledgment, restitution, and healing. And, those who have committed crimes are made in the image of God, capable of genuine repentance, transformation, and restoration.
Restorative justice, the framework Prison Fellowship works from, takes both seriously. It asks also "what does healing look like for everyone involved: the offender, the victim, and the community?"
"The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble." (Psalm 9:9)
"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." (Proverbs 31:8-9)
These verses are not addressed only to the innocent. They apply everywhere there is oppression, exploitation, or systems that grind people down. A legal architecture that makes it nearly impossible for someone to rebuild their life after paying their debt to society fits that description.
The 50-Year Legacy of Chuck Colson
It is worth pausing on what Prison Fellowship has built over five decades.
Chuck Colson's story is one of the most dramatic conversion narratives of the 20th century. He was one of the most powerful men in Washington. He participated in the cover-up of a political scandal. He went to prison. He met Jesus. He gave the rest of his life to the people no one else wanted to touch.
That is the gospel in action. Not a cleaned-up, respectable gospel for people who already have their lives together. A gospel that finds you at your lowest and hands you a new identity.
Prison Fellowship has delivered that gospel inside prisons, through their Academy program (an intensive in-prison discipleship curriculum), through their Angel Tree ministry that delivers Christmas gifts to the children of incarcerated parents, and through their advocacy work that changes the laws boxing people in after release.
This April, they are inviting the church to join them. Second Chance Sunday is a specific invitation for congregations to designate one Sunday in April to pray for and engage with incarcerated people and their families. More than 1,100 churches are already participating.
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8)
Act justly. Love mercy. These are not two separate commands for two separate populations. They are one command for every human being the world has crushed.
When you advocate for the persecuted church in Nigeria, you are acting justly. When you advocate for the person who cannot get a job because of a 15-year-old conviction, you are loving mercy. When you do both, you are walking humbly with your God, which means acknowledging that you did not earn your freedom, your safety, or your second chances either.
The gospel is not a comfort for people who have never needed it. It is a rescue for people who have. And Jesus was very clear about where to find those people.
"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me." (Matthew 25:35-36)
He said prison. He said the stranger. He said the sick and the naked. He did not say comfortable, stable people in well-resourced communities. He said find the people the world has broken and go to them.
A Church That Acts
The church in the Global South is doing this. The church in Nigeria is persisting through massacres, through burned buildings, through years of losses with no sign of stopping. They are not quitting. They are holding Palm Sunday services in communities where those services have gotten people killed.
The church in America has Prison Fellowship, 1,100 partner congregations, a congressional mandate in Second Chance Month resolutions, and the freedom to do almost anything it wants. The question is whether it will.
You are not a spectator of these stories. You are in them.
The Palm Sunday massacre happened four days ago. Second Chance Month starts today. Both of them are asking the same question.
What will you do?
Frequently Asked Questions
The timing is almost deliberate. Palm Sunday and Easter are the most significant events in the Christian calendar, and attacking Christian communities during these observances sends a message that goes beyond the immediate violence. It targets the identity and practice of the faith itself. Plateau State has experienced attacks timed to Christian observances consistently for years. This makes the attacks communicative, not merely opportunistic. The global church should understand this and respond accordingly.
Is Prison Fellowship's work effective, or is it just religious programming?
The evidence supports effectiveness. Prison Fellowship's InnerChange Freedom Initiative, an intensive discipleship program embedded in prisons, has been studied by academic researchers and consistently shows lower recidivism rates than comparable populations. More broadly, faith-based reentry programs as a category perform well in outcome research. Prison Fellowship is also one of the few organizations addressing both the spiritual dimension of incarceration and the structural policy barriers to reentry, which is a more complete approach than either alone.
Stick to organizations with verified track records and transparent financials. Open Doors, International Christian Concern, and Voice of the Martyrs all publish audited financials and have decades of documented work in Nigeria. They maintain relationships with local churches and ministry leaders on the ground. Charity Navigator and the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) are good resources for verifying that an organization handles money responsibly. Avoid sending money to unfamiliar organizations that have no documented presence in Nigeria.
Sources and further reading:
- Open Doors UK: 27 killed in devastating attack in Nigeria on Palm Sunday
- International Christian Concern: Dozens Killed During Palm Sunday Attacks in Nigeria
- ACI Africa: Palm Sunday Attack in Nigeria's Jos Archdiocese Leaves Dozens Dead, Curfew Imposed
- Prison Fellowship: Prison Fellowship Declares April 2026 as Second Chance Month
- Prison Fellowship: Second Chance Month
- Prison Fellowship: Second Chance Month Toolkit
- Voice of the Martyrs: Nigeria
- Premier Christian News
- Globe Newswire: Prison Fellowship Declares April 2026 as Second Chance Month
