The controversial Seven Angels Ministries is refusing to stop holding services despite a threat by government to shut it down and mounting calls from religious groups to have it disbanded.

The Eastern Cape church was declared a cult by Police Minister Fikile Mbalula amid claims that church leaders were responsible for the deadly attack on the Ngcobo police station that left five policemen and a former soldier dead last week.

Seven members of the church, including three of the seven Mancoba brothers, were killed in a shootout with police at the churchyard at the weekend.

One of the four surviving brothers told Sowetan sister publication, The Dispatch, that only God would tell them to stop performing miracles and preaching.

Many have seen the fatal shootout as the beginning of the collapse of the ministry. But Banele Mancoba, 30, claimed it was the beginning of bigger things.

"This signalled the time for us to leave the nest and spread our wings. The church structure which they are busy threatening to knock down was brought down by God when it was struck by lightning earlier this year. We will go around stadiums performing our miracles and healing people. We are just waiting for God to inform us about the right moment," said Mancoba.

He has implicated his older brother Thandazile, 35, who died at the hands of police, as the one responsible for the killing of the five policemen and the former soldier.

Banele said Thandazile had been a troubled person who they had once expelled from the church.

"Even at a young age he was the person who related more with criminals. You would always find him among them."