Many religious faithfuls around the
world panicked on January 7, 2017, over the sudden news that Pastor E.
A. Adeboye, General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God
(RCCG), had retired.
Were they have waited a bit longer, they
would have known that the revered pastor remains the Spiritual Leader
and Global Missioner of the Church, and was therefore much around.
In a memo by Assistant General Overseer, Admin and Personnel, Pastor J.F
Odesola, to all Assistant General Overseers, SATGOS (Home and Abroad),
Pastors in charge of Regions, Pastors in charge of Provinces, and
Country Coordinators, later that day, he wrote
“We refer to the 2017
edition of the Annual Thanksgiving Service for Ministers in the Redeemed
Christian Church of God and the issues concerning the new structure of
RCCG Nigeria during the meeting and therefore wish to reiterate the
following for your proper information and attention:
•Sequel to some legal provisions guiding
the operations of registered Religious Organisations and Civil Society
Organisations in Nigeria, RCCG Nigeria now has an Overseer, a General
Secretary and a Treasurer.
•Pastor Joseph Obayemi, the Assistant General Overseer (Finance) will be the Overseer for RCCG Nigeria
•Pastor Funsho Odeyemi, the Assistant General Overseer (Admin) will be General Secretary for RCCG Nigeria
• Pastor Joseph Adeyokunu, the Financial Controller, will be the Treasurer of RCCG Nigeria
“Kindly be informed that this new structure will be peculiar to Nigeria
alone, as Pastor E. A. Adeboye, Daddy G.O., remains the Spiritual Leader
and Global Missioner of Redeemed Christian Church of God.
“Kindly pass down this information to
Ministers and Church Workers in your domain to further enhance their
understanding about the new structure.”
But people, especially those in the 192 countries where the church has
strong presence, panicked. Even some of the ministers at the
Thanksgiving service panicked and started sending messages out with
their phones immediately Pastor Adeboye broke the news.
Google’s Communications and Public
Affairs Manager for Anglophone West Africa, Mr. Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade,
told the News Agency of Nigeria that Adeboye’s decision dominated
discussions on the Internet, with many Nigerians searching the subject
from January 4 to 11.
On my part, I disbelieved it when the message of a pastor of the church
was forwarded to me by someone who is not an RCCG member.
At the Holy Ghost Service the day
before, I felt in the spirit that some things were a bit unusual. I love
the green colour, and when I saw Pastor Adeboye and his wife, Mummy
G.O., dressed in deep green attires for the first time, I suspected a
spiritual message I couldn’t decode. I let it pass, especially because I
had not been at all the services over the years to know what they wore.
However, I still felt that the green was particularly striking.
The announcement of the new leadership
structure was made in a church to Ministers, but it got out too fast and
the world panicked. Why not? The day before, a Pastor had testified to
the hearing of millions of people around the world how he had used a
handkerchief blessed by Pastor Adeboye to wake up the dead.
I was there at the December, 2016 Holy
Ghost Congress when he announced that because he could not possible
anoint the millions of people in the auditorium, out of logistic
expediency he had blessed handkerchiefs for pastors of the church to use
to anoint everybody. After that he said the pastors could keep the
handkerchiefs. It was one of the handkerchiefs that raised the dead in
another location. RCCG is noted for miracles signs and wonders!
So why would anybody be happy about the news of Pastor Adeboye’s sudden
retirement? All what most people heard, ignoring that other part of the
news, was that he was retiring. And they couldn’t take it.
There are stories of some groups planning to sue Pastor Adeboye to get him back in the saddle he has vacated.
In a quick reaction to the panic, a press release was issued to allay
fears of the people. But even as at today many people are more concerned
about what precipitated the changes and the effect on members in
Nigeria. Not many people know that Pastor Adeboye’s designation remains
Spiritual Leader and Global Missioner of Redeemed Christian Church of
God.
Indeed, most of the 192 countries where
the church is present have Country Overseers, except in countries where
the number of parishes is so small that they have Regional Overseers.
Growing a church with 40 parishes, including a Headquarters in Nigeria,
from when Pastor Adeboye took over in 1981 into one of the fastest
growing churches in the world is no mean feat.
The church has spread to over 192 countries, and counting, with over
32,000 parishes in Nigeria alone and at least 540 branches in the UK and
Ireland.
Millions of people from all over the
world attend the church’s Conventions and Congresses; and the monthly
Holy Ghost Congress at its Redemption Camp.
With the numbers surging out of available space, the Church had to go
for a new auditorium called the Arena. Located on Simawa Road, a few
kilometres from the current one-and-half-kilometre by one-kilometre
auditorium, the three-kilometre-by-three-kilometre Arena has capacity to
seat 12 million people.
The Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria
With the Governance Code of the Council cited as the immediate cause of
leadership changes in churches, the FRCN has come under heavy criticism.
The latest is the position of the House of Representatives, which on
Wednesday stated that no agency of the Federal Government is empowered
by any law passed by the National Assembly to determine how long a
religious leader should serve in office.
This was as it ordered a “detailed” public hearing on the activities of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria.
The Council had earlier been dealt some blows for its excesses. Its
board was promptly reconstituted and the controversial Governance Code
suspended by the Federal Government.
The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) hailed the Federal
Government for suspending the enforcement of the Corporate Governance
Code.
The PFN’s commendation was contained in a
statement issued in Benin by its National President, Rev. Felix
Omobude, who said, “The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) has
consistently expressed its concern at the non-inclusive process that
brought about the code and the all-pervasive nature of it.
“This is more so, especially, as it
relates to the activities of the non-profit sector whose activities are
already regulated by the provisions of the law under which they were
registered.
For Jim Obazee, the former Executive Secretary of the FRCN, who was
ironically a zonal pastor, and who was reported to have once snubbed
Pastor Adeboye over an invitation for a meeting, nothing captures his
fate better than the headline of THISDAY Newspaper on the story. It
screamed “He Flew Too Close to the Sun and Melted, Obazee Sacked.”
According to RCCG Head of Media and
Public Relations, Pastor Segun Adegbiji “Obazee was a teacher at the
School of Disciples, but he voluntarily resigned. Afterwards, he started
attending RCCG Province II Parish on Acme Road, Ogba, Lagos. He was
neither suspended nor sacked by the church.
“There was no feud between him and the church that I know of, although I
can confirm that I heard the story that he vowed to get Pastor Adeboye
out,” Adegbiji added.
How He Become General Overseer
Pastor Adeboye must be familiar with the heat generated by leadership
changes in the church, and may not have been unduly worried about the
confusion caused by the current changes in RCCG. In God-fearing
churches, leaders are chosen and empowered by God.
He was the least qualified to be a GO when God chose him to be one.
According to him, “One eventful day in 1975, my Father-in-the-Lord (the
founder of RCCG) called me to his office and said, “God has told me to
ordain you as a pastor.”
I said, “What kind of problem is this? I
didn’t come to church to become a pastor, I came to church to have
problems solved and in the process my soul was saved. Beautiful!”
For fourteen days and fourteen nights, my wife and I fasted and prayed
that I will never become a pastor. This is one of the prayers God didn’t
answer. Then I became a pastor, and years after that my
Father-in-the-Lord called me and said you are going to succeed me.
Haaaa! Being a pastor was bad enough. General Overseer, no way!
I couldn’t say no to him in his presence. So I made sure I got to Ilorin
where I was lecturing before I wrote him a letter, a beautiful letter.
“Please sir, get somebody else. I will support that fellow to the best
of my ability.”
Papa couldn’t read, so another pastor read the letter to him. I didn’t want to be General Overseer but God compelled me.
That was the most challenging aspect of
my Christian life, especially with so much opposition in the church from
those who felt that I was too young. I joined the church only in 1973,
even though it had been in existence since 1952. Some foundation members
had been pastors even before I was born again.
They inquired, “Where is this young man coming from who has suddenly
become our leader?” They regarded my promotion as too rapid! Some of
them had become very influential because they had been pastors for a
long time.
Fortunately, the majority of the
congregation, particularly the youth, supported me because they realized
that it was not what I wanted myself. They discovered this because the
letter fell into the hands of one of the youths. God also helped me in
many ways. This is how the events unfolded: The old man couldn’t read
anything other than the Bible. Therefore, he had to ask somebody to read
the letter to him. The young boy who read the letter told everybody
about the incident and the older pastors thought I was manipulating the
old man. However, it soon became clear that the situation was the exact
opposite.
Since then I have kept the faith. Keeping the faith is one of the most
important aspects of Christian life and this has been my life.”
The Changes Remain
The church confirmed during the week that the changes announced by Pastor Adeboye remain unchanged.
Pastor Joseph Obayemi is the Overseer of RCCG in Nigeria. Until his
appointment, Pastor Obayemi was the Assistant General Overseer in charge
of Finance and also Pastor in charge of RCCG Region 2 (Shomolu, Lagos).
He is also a Member of the Governing Council amongst other offices he
currently occupies. Although the RCCG headquarters in Nigeria is in
Ebute-Meta, Pastor Obayemi will, for the time being, perform his
functions from his RCCG Somolu Parish in Lagos.
Pastor Funsho Odesola is the Secretary
of the Church. He was the Assistant General Overseer in charge of
Administration and Personnel, Member of the Governing Council of RCCG
and also the Pastor in charge of RCCG Region 1 (Ebute-Meta).
Church Treasurer is Pastor Joseph Adelanke Adeyokunnu. He was a financial controller and Pastor in charge of Lagos province 8.
Sources say a common feature of all
three is their extreme humility. Pastor Obayemi for example is said to
address people as “Sir” or “Ma” irrespective of their status.
The new structure means that all regional pastors will report to the
Nigeria Overseer, Pastor Obayemi, who will in turn report to Pastor
Adeboye. Considering the latter’s increasing role worldwide, this comes
as a relief.
Adegbiji explained: “The newly appointed
country overseer, Pastor Joseph Obayemi may remain the overseer in
charge of Nigeria operating from his current regional headquarters in
Somolu in Lagos.
“The national headquarters of the church remains in Ebute Metta, Lagos,
while the global headquarters is at the Redemption Camp, but the new
country overseer, Pastor Obayemi may not immediately move to the Ebute
Metta headquarters because it will be administratively inconvenient for
him to operate from the headquarters of another region.”
According to him, “The new development does not affect Daddy GO’s
status, functions or powers. He will continue to preside over RCCG
programmes such as Holy Ghost Congress, Conventions, the monthly Holy
Ghost Service, Shiloh Hour, Divine Encounter, etc.”
Top sources in the church explain that
although the changes may have been precipitated by the Governance Code
because of the need by the Church to set a standard in obeying the laws
of the nation as demanded by scriptural teaching that all constituted
authority should be respected, they were cleared by God.
“Daddy GO will not do anything like that
without consulting God, who speaks to him directly,” an official of the
church said. “Remember Vice President Osinbajo, a senior member of the
church, was privy to all these, but even if he wanted to stop it as
Peter attacked one of the people who arrested Jesus to stop them, Daddy
wouldn’t have changed his mind over what God had authorised.”
Corroborating, another source said, God had even revealed to Pastor
Adeboye an anthem on the need for unity in the church ahead of the
changes.
The 5-stanza anthem reads in part:
1. We are Redeemites
United in love
Jesus is for us
We shall conquer
3. We are Together
United in love
Jesus is for us
We shall conquer
Adegbiji confirmed that, “If you know
Daddy GO (Adeboye) very well, he does not make such an important
decision without consulting the Church Council, and most importantly,
God. That decision has been made and it does not in any way affect his
position.
“So, there is no need to reverse the decision after the Federal Government has suspended the implementation of the FRC law.”
But for other mega churches which were planning to restructure to meet
the demands of the FRCN’s Governance Code, they may have been saved the
rigours of the exercise.
Source: [ ThisdayNG]
