The general overseer of Agape Christian Ministries Akure, Bishop Felix Adejumo, spoke with Sunday Oguntola on essential ingredients that church founders need to succeed. Excerpts:
You have been organising convention for 26 years, when will you ever get tired?
When will I get tired? You can’t get tired doing what God has anointed you to do. When you have the call of God upon your life, He infuses you with passion that keeps you going. You have energies as you grow. So, I cannot be tired for any reason.
What will be different this time around?
The theme is just like a dream, which is the language of an overcomer. That is the language of divine intervention and complete turnaround. So, I believe there will be a shift for those who attend. I foresee things will happen that will take people to the level they have never attained.
You run an orphanage in Akure. What’s the vision behind it?
It is like a home to the less privileged. We have about 30 children in the home now. We are just after meeting the needs of people who for one reason or the other lost their parents. We try to raise them as God’s children and reintegrate them to the society. We also give out some of them to foster parents to take care for us.
It is a major focus of the ministry that we invest in heavily. By the grace of God, we have some in secondary schools right now. They are doing well and we hear good reports about them.
People say you mentor several men of God secretly. How did you come about it?
I just believe that in every generation, God raise prophets and fathers. I believe God raised me as a prophet and father. He has placed a huge responsibility on my shoulders to put the younger generation right.
God prepared my heart for it. It wasn’t something I just stumbled on. He has processed me for the assignment because even when I was not yet saved, He made me go through some hard times that I believe were too much for my age. At the same time when I was serving under my pastor, I went through some training that sharpened my life.
So, that emboldened and expanded my heart to be able to tolerate people; identify with their needs and challenges and stay with them until they overcome their challenges. I don’t allow the problems people have to scare me. I just believe that God packaged me with that grace to father even some of my mates and people that should be my fathers.
It’s not something I can boast about because it’s all about God.
Do you go about looking for who to mentor?
I think for me it works naturally. People come around my life and it’s not by reason of application. I never applied to father anybody and neither did anybody applied to be a child. It just happens through relationship. I believe that once there is a relationship, there is a posturing. The posturing of a child is different from that of a friend. Everybody just falls into line when we meet.
How do you handle some of your protégés that do things you are not proud of?
You know when you have a child that misbehaves, he is still your child. You don’t disown children for misbehaving. I believe fatherhood is not only showing up when a child has done well. When you play the role of a father, you help the child stand again. I will rebuke him for whatever he has done wrong. I tell him to learn the lessons he needs to learn so that he does not fall again.
If you are going to do that, you have to set a benchmark for yourself because people must be able to say ‘where did he pick his own from? Certainly not from his father, but his peers.’ Also, you can’t rebuke a child over some you are also guilty of. I confront people because it’s important to have confronters in your life.
You need encouragers but also need people to confront you, rebuke you and correct you. If you don’t have such people in your life, your life is not safe. I don’t spare my children when they misbehave. I rebuke them because I don’t allow anybody to buy me over with money or anything.
The reason many fathers cannot talk is because they have been bought over. They can bless me if they choose to but I will never ask for it. I don’t allow money to determine how far we can go in our relations. I don’t relate based on what you have or don’t have.
How many of your children have ‘seed’ their way to your mentoring?
I can tell you by His grace that there is none anywhere in the world. I don’t believe that I have to feed off my children. Fatherhood is not about what you can get but what you can give. I don’t believe in waiting for prophet’s offering all the time. There must be mutual benefits. If somebody drops money every time on your table, you must also ask what you contribute to that person’s life.
But we don’t get to hear of some of your children that have been chastised…
… I don’t do that so that we don’t damage people. You see it can be damaging if you expose the dirty linen of a child. People don’t have to know what I am doing before I feel good. I just want to do what I do without much noise.
Have you ever had reasons to tell ministers to step down from the pulpit before?
Yes, I have asked some people to withdraw in the past for sometimes. If a Christian is wounded, he should stop fighting and get treated so that they can bounce back.
Elsewhere there would have been a statement explaining what happened. Why don’t you do that?
In the US, you can do that but our society is different. The farthest you can go is to announce it among the workers in the church that the senior pastor has been asked to step down. If you do that when someone is just coming to a church, you have not helped that person. You have destroyed him. In my church, for instance, someone had issues with his wife. I asked him to withdraw from the pulpit until they reconciled. That was done. I enforced it.
But do you have people who call you to order too?
Yes, I do. I have people that I tell to watch out for me. They can confront me over anything. I am not a law to myself. Within the church, I am accountable to some three pastors under me. I told them right from the onset to feel free to call me to order if I do anything unbiblical. When they do, I don’t resent it or feel bad. I take things in my strides and move on.
It’s better to have safety valves around you. They know me; they have been doing their works and they can vouch for me. You must have people you account to within and outside the church as a founder so that your life can be safe too.
What’s your position on first born redemption?
I think it is an Old Testament practice. I have never done it before because I don’t have a New Testament backbone for it. It involves sacrifices and money; I’m not saying those doing it are completely wrong because I don’t know whatever God might have told them. But I don’t teach or practise it.
Do you believe church leaders should draw allowances or salaries?
I believe each set man has an idea of what God wants him to operate. The bible approves of offering them material support as workers in the vineyard. But beyond that, I think every church leader should not solely depend on the church. He should have something aside that he draws incomes from. Every pastor must be bi-vocational. I do businesses that I believe corroborate what I do. I am involved in farming. I do crop farming where I have acres of lands that plant maize and other crops.
I am also into poultry and rabbit farming, though that is at a small scale now. I sell fertilizers. I do all of these things because I know I will retire and need to have a source of livelihood. I want my children to also have something to inherit from me.
I draw allowance from the church when it is available because we are involved in enormous projects. I just want to have something of my own that will augument whatever I get from ministering.
