Pastor (Dr) Israel Kristilere is the senior pastor of ShepherdHill Baptist Church, Obanikoro, Lagos. In this interview with Fredrick Adegboye, the cerebral man of God talks about why Nigeria is not developed, why the country’s political leaders are the way they are, the recently held Just Worship programme of the church he superintends and his lows and highs as a minister of the gospel.
Your surname is Kristilere, is that your original family name?
No, I used to be Awolere but the Lord led me to change the name to Kristilere on January 1st, year 2000. I bore the other name Awolere till 31st December, 1999. But, I started bearing Kristilere from year 2000.
Nigeria is without saying the most-churched country in the world and undoubtedly one of the least developed, should it be so?
It shouldn’t be so, but, unfortunately, it is so. I need to say that the development of a nation is not only a function of religiosity; religiosity without morality, religiosity without discipline can never produce development. The fact that some nations are not as religious as we are but they imbibe the discipline of the scripture, the tenets of the scripture, even though without professing the faith, they are growing. You see nations whereby each citizen is disciplined. If we talk about corruption today you will agree with me that corruption is anti the Bible, indiscipline is anti the Bible, laziness is anti the Bible. So, in any country whereby people only embrace religiosity and fail to embrace the tenets, the teachings of the Bible or of their religion, then they cannot find development. What are we doing wrong as a people that we are seemingly saddled with bad leaders?
A nation, like somebody had said many years back and I quoted that in my recent conference, “a nation deserves the crop leaders”. I believe that the crop of leaders we have is not God’s choice, we are the ones who make choices and we made those choices out of our own personal choices which is in terms of seeking to satisfy ourselves first. Election was just some time ago, another one in few years. If you ask each person, what made you choose the one you voted for? Most times what you will hear is because he did this for me or because he said he will do this for me. We are making our choices not based on integrity, are these the people we can rely on? Most of the time people vote based on what these people are able to offer them. And if that is the point which made us to make choices, we cannot but have leaders who will get there and try to fill their pockets. As long as election process in Nigeria is a money-spraying venture, as long as the amount you used to obtain a form to contest, as long as you need to spend money to settle some quarters before you contest, we can never have right leaders. Until we get to the level in which an ordinary civil servant can pick a form with his meagre salary and needs not spend money to bribe people before he can contest, we can never get the right leader because it’s always a money-spending programme and that is why when they come to office, it is always a money-grabbing system.
But the Bible says, “there is no leader that be except of God”. So, when you are saying ‘our choices’, that is just like saying ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’. So, you are now saying that the Bible in this instance is not right, particularly in this Nigerian situation.
I’ve not said the Bible is not right but we must not forget that there are two wills of God in the Bible; the perfect will and the permissive will of God. The perfect will of God is for us to have right leaders, while the permissive will is for us to have right to make our choices and our choices are the people who satisfy us in office. I’m still shocked that in the last election people were seen distributing rice, salt and so on, and people were collecting them, and jubilating. A politician brought a load of rice and he is giving you and you did not think that when he gets there, he will get back that money first. Until we get go the level that such men will find nobody to take their rice and tell them ‘to hell with your rice!’ So, God has not left us. He is still interested in our well being but God will not force us to make our choices; that is one thing he has given us as human beings – the opportunity to make our choices. I believe we are the one making the wrong choices. The moment we start making right choices we have a better nation. We must also not forget that the people we are calling our leaders, all these people leading us didn’t come from Cameroun, they didn’t come from Kenya neither did they come from Ghana; they come from among us, and they are a reflection of who we are generally.
Now, let’s talk about the Church generally. Is it not an aberration for doctrines to divide the universal Church because Christ spoke about one Church in the Bible?
The truth of the matter is that denominationalism which is as a result of doctrines differences, as you have said, cannot be avoided;. As long as we are human beings, even the Bible itself may not present denominationalism, but if we take time to study even the prophets, you will realise that the presentation of their messages differ from one prophet to the other. So, why is one preaching fire? Why is one crying? And why is one preaching in his songs? It is because we are diverse, so the measure of denominations we have to be in the world is as a result of our diversity. A single word, a single sentence can be interpreted by two people in three different ways and denominationalism comes because people interpreted the scripture differently. It has not changed the scripture. But the fact is this, in spite of the denominations we may have, one thing still binds the Church of Christ together; ‘faith in Christ’. Any denomination that does not believe that Christ was born through a virgin, the miracle He performs, the ministry, that is not a Christian denomination. So, that is what we call ‘Faith’, which you all must have to become part of the universal Church. How you operate, how you do things would differ and that’s what’s left. It shouldn’t be a problem but we are making it a problem. The fact that you have not seen a particular scripture the way I’ve seen it shouldn’t make you my enemy, I should just realise that maybe the doctrine you are using is different from my own. We can look at the same matter and view it differently and that shouldn’t make us enemies.
How would you differentiate between Christian service and Christian worship?
I believe that your service should be a reflection or a product of your worship. A man who genuinely worships God, who has entered into God’s presence will go out there to manifest God’s glory in how he serves God outside there. So, when you see a variation in the life of a man who claims to have worshipped God and his service, you know that something has gone wrong somewhere. But, truly, a man what has been in God’s presence, who has rubbed his minds and bodies with God will go out there to display the glory of God and the will of God. It’s like the way people go to church on Sundays to worship God these days. When they get to their office you will wonder whether they have never been to church. I wonder why. To me, that is an abberation. True worship of the almighty should change us inside out, not just only inside but when we get out there, there must be a reflection.
Pastor owning private jet has been an age-long controversy, what’s your take on that?
I have no problem with any pastor owning private jet if he can afford it, what I’m opposed to is if he is owning that private jet at the detriment of many of his members who are struggling financially and he is taking money from them to build his own castle. I think that is wrong. I believe something that if Jesus were in the world today and he wants to go through world evangelism, one if the equipment He will need is a jet to go round. Not every pastor will own a private jet, not all pastors should own it. If we are talking about businessmen, there are legal businessmen whose businesses cannot flow unless they fly across countries even almost every day to get the things done.
What is the idea behind the Just Worship programme of your church?
By the grace of God, it’s a vision that God gave me in 2008. I was in Malaysia for ministerial training. During the course of worshipping at the conference, God told me that I need to put together a seven-hour worship session whereby people do nothing but just worship God. In that particular session which I had that time I discovered that I found myself breaking down even in atmosphere of worship. I couldn’t withstand myself again. I knew that I could feel God’s presence over me. And for another four years, I couldn’t do it because of the cost implication. Until the year 2012, I was able to launch out. God give me the assignment and so be it, let me do it. That was when we had the first edition till date where we are having the eighth edition.
Since you became a pastor, can you mention a particular incident that made you sad?
Yeah, I could. I think the moment I wouldn’t forget was one of my pastorates where a leader in the church where I was serving then misbehaved. He was a leader in the church and he impregnated a lady and I got to know. I felt this kind of behaviour should not be allowed and the man in question should be disciplined. I had no doubt that everybody would agree with me that we should not have such behaviour in the church of God. But to my dismay, I saw people who were vehemently supporting him to the extent that they wanted to fight me.
I also had an occasion whereby in the church, a man decided to marry the wife of another member. The woman left her husband and another member of the church began to date and marry her. And I said this cannot be. I assumed everybody would agree with me but to my dismay I had a handful of people who saw nothing wrong. Their concern was that at least the woman had left the man so anybody can pick her up.
When would you say was your highest height in ministry?
Those are moments when God worked beyond my expectation. I would say that when Just Worship began, because when I finally agreed to obey God not knowing how it would turn out. God had spoken to me and I said ‘I don’t have money’ and he spoke to me that the little money I had I should go and speak to people to support. When the multitude gathered in our auditorium that year, I could not but cry. . People come from all manners of churches, as long as you are a child of God, either C&S, Redeemed, Anglican, CAC, that night we don’t know your church and there is nothing like mode of service.
Also, I could remember when I preached at a crusade and saw many people giving their lives to Jesus. Though there have been moments of miracles, the peak of it was when I saw the connection of God and people saw that this is not man but God working. So, those are the moments I have cherished most.