Founder/ Spiritual Head of INRI Evangelical
Spiritual Church, Primate Babatunde Elijah Ayodele, last Sunday at the
Oke Afa, Lagos headquarters of the church celebrated special service
where raw food items were distributed to the worshippers. Ayodele
fielded questions from journalists including INNOCENT OKONKWO shortly
after the event where he spoke on some national issues.
Excerpts:
Excerpts:
What is the motive behind the food service Sunday?
The motive behind it is God. He gave instruction that food should be distributed to the people every month. We have about five established parishes and we have sent food items to them. We have conducted our early morning service where no fewer than 300 people have come to take food. And to checkmate the crowd, we now have three services.
This is the third service and I will not leave here until 10 pm. that is how it has been all the time. Even if I travel to anywhere, I know that on Sundays, people will be thirsting after the word of God from me and I have to rush down to this place to meet their needs. If I get there around 4 O’clock, people will still be waiting.
I love what God is doing, I celebrate God in the people and I give Him all the glory and thanks.
The level of poverty in this country is always high and there is no guarantee that the situation can change if nothing is done to stem the tide. What role can clerics play to reduce poverty in the society?
Who are such clerics to do it? Are they the hungry pastors, or flamboyant pastors? Tell me what the so-called big pastors in this country are doing. They have the money but can they fight poverty? They are only interested in the government of the country. Unfortunately, they are not advising the government on the right thing to do.
If the president of Nigeria comes to this church, for example, I will see it as an opportunity to tell him the truth. It should be an opportunity to pass the message and feeling of the congregation to him and those in authority.
But the truth which I will continue to repeat is that pastors are now more interested in what they will put in their pockets. They don’t think about God who sent them the message.
We spend millions of naira on food service every month. I save a lot of resources for this purpose. If I have ten thousand naira, it does not belong to me, perhaps what I may spend out of it is just N1 000. I will keep the rest for the people that are suffering. It is only pastors whom God sent and they have the spirit of God in them that can do it. No matter whoever you are or what office you occupy, if you don’t have the spirit to give, you cannot do it because giving is spirit.
You have been very critical of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), at a point you advocated that it should be scrapped, what is your apprehension about the association?
We said it in order to bring sanity into that Christian body. The present President of CAN is old. He cannot think properly now as a result of old age. Such people should be made the grand patrons. But when it comes to the leadership of that association, they should look for the people that have the energy needed to coordinate the daily activities of that Christian body. Those who have vision should be allowed to lead CAN.
But God has not instructed me to join CAN, if He tells me to take over CAN, I will do it and nobody can do anything about that, at most they will go to court. However, God has not told us to go and make the needed changes in CAN. But CAN is not the issue here, the issue here is that we are here to glorify and appreciate God and thank Him and also touch the lives of the people in a positive way.
It is not the amount of money or number of cars one has that matters, what matters is the number of people that you have changed their lives, the number of people that you have assisted to be somebody and those you have put joy in their lives. What matters most is the number of people that you have elevated from zero to the top.
So if we are talking about CAN, we are wasting our time, let every church be on its own, forget CAN, because its leaders are politicians.
How do you compare what God did in this ministry last year and your expectation for the ministry this year?
You have eyes to see what God has done here. What we want to achieve now is that we want to expand the ministry because there is a parcel of land here that we want to develop, we did not have English service sanctuary last year but we are going to have it next year. Presently, we conduct three services every Sunday. We are going to commence our service in television broadcast soon.
Apart from that, the numbers of the worshippers are increasing on a daily basis. We want to quench poverty and make people to be independent, creating employment and empowerment for the people, we have people who are reliable, sensible, we also have reasonable professionals in our church now, so there are lots of differences from what we saw last year. God is doing what we have been asking Him and we are happy for that.
What have you to say about the new party All Progressives Congress (APC)?
The APC is zero. The promoters lack clear direction. They are just forming another PDP inside APC, is it possible? They are just deceiving themselves. Former Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu is only wasting his time; he should get across to God. He should be careful or they will rubbish him at the end of the day, quote me.
APC is going nowhere. What the promoters are doing is mere gimmick. It is an association which strategy and plan will not produce anything at the end.
Labour Party and PDP will join forces together to fight ACN in the South West in the coming general election.
That merger of opposition political parties will not work because corruption is the motive behind it. Politically it will not work; economically, it is bankrupt. So it is only a waste of time. This alliance will not make any reasonable impact in the 2015 electoral battle.
ChampionOnline
The motive behind it is God. He gave instruction that food should be distributed to the people every month. We have about five established parishes and we have sent food items to them. We have conducted our early morning service where no fewer than 300 people have come to take food. And to checkmate the crowd, we now have three services.
This is the third service and I will not leave here until 10 pm. that is how it has been all the time. Even if I travel to anywhere, I know that on Sundays, people will be thirsting after the word of God from me and I have to rush down to this place to meet their needs. If I get there around 4 O’clock, people will still be waiting.
I love what God is doing, I celebrate God in the people and I give Him all the glory and thanks.
The level of poverty in this country is always high and there is no guarantee that the situation can change if nothing is done to stem the tide. What role can clerics play to reduce poverty in the society?
Who are such clerics to do it? Are they the hungry pastors, or flamboyant pastors? Tell me what the so-called big pastors in this country are doing. They have the money but can they fight poverty? They are only interested in the government of the country. Unfortunately, they are not advising the government on the right thing to do.
If the president of Nigeria comes to this church, for example, I will see it as an opportunity to tell him the truth. It should be an opportunity to pass the message and feeling of the congregation to him and those in authority.
But the truth which I will continue to repeat is that pastors are now more interested in what they will put in their pockets. They don’t think about God who sent them the message.
We spend millions of naira on food service every month. I save a lot of resources for this purpose. If I have ten thousand naira, it does not belong to me, perhaps what I may spend out of it is just N1 000. I will keep the rest for the people that are suffering. It is only pastors whom God sent and they have the spirit of God in them that can do it. No matter whoever you are or what office you occupy, if you don’t have the spirit to give, you cannot do it because giving is spirit.
You have been very critical of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), at a point you advocated that it should be scrapped, what is your apprehension about the association?
We said it in order to bring sanity into that Christian body. The present President of CAN is old. He cannot think properly now as a result of old age. Such people should be made the grand patrons. But when it comes to the leadership of that association, they should look for the people that have the energy needed to coordinate the daily activities of that Christian body. Those who have vision should be allowed to lead CAN.
But God has not instructed me to join CAN, if He tells me to take over CAN, I will do it and nobody can do anything about that, at most they will go to court. However, God has not told us to go and make the needed changes in CAN. But CAN is not the issue here, the issue here is that we are here to glorify and appreciate God and thank Him and also touch the lives of the people in a positive way.
It is not the amount of money or number of cars one has that matters, what matters is the number of people that you have changed their lives, the number of people that you have assisted to be somebody and those you have put joy in their lives. What matters most is the number of people that you have elevated from zero to the top.
So if we are talking about CAN, we are wasting our time, let every church be on its own, forget CAN, because its leaders are politicians.
How do you compare what God did in this ministry last year and your expectation for the ministry this year?
You have eyes to see what God has done here. What we want to achieve now is that we want to expand the ministry because there is a parcel of land here that we want to develop, we did not have English service sanctuary last year but we are going to have it next year. Presently, we conduct three services every Sunday. We are going to commence our service in television broadcast soon.
Apart from that, the numbers of the worshippers are increasing on a daily basis. We want to quench poverty and make people to be independent, creating employment and empowerment for the people, we have people who are reliable, sensible, we also have reasonable professionals in our church now, so there are lots of differences from what we saw last year. God is doing what we have been asking Him and we are happy for that.
What have you to say about the new party All Progressives Congress (APC)?
The APC is zero. The promoters lack clear direction. They are just forming another PDP inside APC, is it possible? They are just deceiving themselves. Former Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu is only wasting his time; he should get across to God. He should be careful or they will rubbish him at the end of the day, quote me.
APC is going nowhere. What the promoters are doing is mere gimmick. It is an association which strategy and plan will not produce anything at the end.
Labour Party and PDP will join forces together to fight ACN in the South West in the coming general election.
That merger of opposition political parties will not work because corruption is the motive behind it. Politically it will not work; economically, it is bankrupt. So it is only a waste of time. This alliance will not make any reasonable impact in the 2015 electoral battle.
ChampionOnline
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