Once churches enter into business, they should pay tax —Apostle Adegboye

General Overseer of Levites Christian Assembly, Apostle Kingsley Adegboye, is a prophet, teacher, author, mentor and motivational speaker. He shares with TribuneChurch his thoughts on the uniqueness of his calling, as well as other religious and national issues.

THE Levites Assembly is only in its sixth year, and you have been involved in church planting in countries around the world. How did you achieve this feat?

Without grace, no spiritual assignment can survive. The only reason this is possible, even as a projection or as a concept, is the grace of God. The success story of this ministry is connected to the word ‘grace’ from God, Who called the assignment into existence.

With the achievements you have recorded in the ministry, why are you not that popular?

I believe in news rather than noise. Part of the spiritual training the Holy Spirit gave me before I was commissioned, is that news is better than noise. Before you go out and tell people that this and this is possible, the first thing you need to do is to build on a solid foundation. When you hurriedly want to make an impact, you will likely end in jeopardy. We need to understand that foundation precedes superstructure. We need to build first. So, we are using the first six years to establish what God has told us, and with the testimonies, we have recorded, we are now very bold to go out there to tell the larger society that there is a God in Zion that is still in the business of doing wonderful things.

How did you come about the Levites?

I was driving one day, in the neighbourhood of Sango in Ibadan. My wife was also in the car when the Spirit of the Lord started discussing with me. I heard Him clearly so much that I told my wife to pick her pen and write down what God was telling me. And the Spirit of God said: ‘Son, you have been chosen to start a church for God.’ He told me the name of the church would be called Levites Christian Assembly. The Lord said the structure of the church must be in tandem with the biblical arrangement to raise Christians that would devote their passion for the work of God and their commitment would be unrivalled. Then, he reminded me: ‘Do you remember Levites in the Bible? When I was looking for devoted men, it was that tribe that stood for me: the tribe that did not follow the majority to commit evil; the tribe that stood for God even when they are standing alone.’ God said ‘Go and raise believers like that.’

You are a prophet, apostle, teacher, author and family man, how do you combine these roles?

The offices of God are established by God and He determines who He calls into these offices. For more than 25 years of being with Him, He has taken me through grace into these offices. Now, linking all of these demands with the demands of marriage, I can say the reason I have not had chaos in my marriage is because I was privileged to have grown with the Lord, before I got married. I became born again before I considered marriage. I knew then that it was important whom you marry, because you are going to spend the rest of your life with that person. I also knew the importance of marrying someone who is compatible with your journey in life. So, I prayerfully waited on God for three years. Eventually, God spoke to me and connected me with the person He made for me.

Churches are everywhere; one would think by now, Nigeria would be crime-free…

The first school of thought I will share is that you don’t know the value of a thing until what you particularly despise is missing. The society is beginning to show resentment to the church, feeling that their impact is almost becoming a mirage. While I can identify with that sentiment, I must say as well that we have undermined the involvement of the church as well. If the church today stops to contribute its quota to the larger society, only then will the true measure of their impact be felt. I do not concur with the opinion that the church is no longer needed. We may be overwhelmed with happenings in the society and begin to draw hasty conclusions that the church is not impactful, but this is not so. Howbeit, the second school of thought that I would also identify with is that the church is expected to make greater.

THE Levites Assembly is only in its sixth year, and you have been involved in church planting in countries around the world. How did you achieve this feat?

Without grace, no spiritual assignment can survive. The only reason this is possible, even as a projection or as a concept, is the grace of God. The success story of this ministry is connected to the word ‘grace’ from God, Who called the assignment into existence.

With the achievements, you have recorded in the ministry, how come you’re not more popular?

I believe in news rather than noise. Part of the spiritual training the Holy Spirit gave me before I was commissioned, is that news is better than noise. Before you go out and tell people that this and this is possible, the first thing you need to do is to build on a solid foundation. When you hurriedly want to make an impact, you will likely end in jeopardy. We need to understand that foundation precedes superstructure. We need to build first. So, we are using the first six years to establish what God has told us, and with the testimonies we have recorded, we are now very bold to go out there to tell the larger society that there is a God in Zion that is still in the business of doing wonderful things.

How did you come about the Levites?

I was driving one day, in the neighbourhood of Sango in Ibadan. My wife was also in the car, when the Spirit of the Lord started discussing with me. I heard Him clearly so much that I told my wife to pick her pen and write down what God was telling me. And the Spirit of God said: ‘Son, you have been chosen to start a church for God.’ He told me the name of the church would be called Levites Christian Assembly. The Lord said the structure of the church must be in tandem with the biblical arrangement to raise Christians that would devote their passion for the work of God and their commitment would be unrivalled. Then he reminded me: ‘Do you remember Levites in the Bible? When I was looking for devoted men, it was that tribe that stood for me: the tribe that did not follow the majority to commit evil; the tribe that stood for God even when they are standing alone.’ God said ‘Go and raise believers like that.’

You are a prophet, apostle, teacher, author and a family man, how do you combine these roles?

The offices of God are established by God and He determines who He calls into these offices. For more than 25 years of being with Him, He has taken me through grace into these offices. Now, linking all of these demands with the demands of marriage, I can say the reason I have not had chaos in my marriage is because I was privileged to have grown with the Lord, before I got married. I became born again before I considered marriage. I knew then that it was important whom you marry, because you are going to spend the rest of your life with that person. I also knew the importance of marrying someone who is compatible with your journey in life. So, I prayerfully waited on God for three years. Eventually, God spoke to me and connected me with the person He made for me.

Churches are everywhere; one would think by now Nigeria would be crime-free…

The first school of thought I will share is that you don’t know the value of a thing until what you particularly despise is missing. The society is beginning to show resentment to the church, feeling that their impact is almost becoming a mirage. While I can identify with that sentiment, I must say as well that we have undermined the involvement of the church as well. If the church today stops to contribute its quota to the larger society, only then will the true measure of their impact be felt. I do not concur with the opinion that the church is no longer needed. We may be overwhelmed with happenings in the society and begin to draw hasty conclusions that the church is not impactful, but this is not so. Howbeit, the second school of thought that I would also identify with is that the church is expected to make greater and deeper impact which I find questionable at the moment. I would agree with this school of thought that says much is expected from the church. The church should develop itself to make more impact to curb all the excesses that the society is complaining about.

Do you think churches should pay tax?

I don’t agree. Churches are charity organisations; they are not established to make profit. If that remains the concept of church, then they are not meant to pay tax. This also includes non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which are meant to alleviate poverty. So, we should rather support them than tax them. Once the church stops being charity-oriented, then it is no more working within the set agenda, so government has a duty to visit those churches so they can go back to their original reason of existence. If the church enters into business, it must not do so in the name of the church; it must be treated as an enterprise. If the church goes into business, the Corporate Affairs Commission has a duty to go there and do the needful.

What is your take on restructuring the nation?

There is need for restructuring. Nigeria has been like this for too long a time. Only a fool repeats the same efforts and expects to get different results. If we discover that we are becoming pressured by the present structure, it is just primarily sensible, not even an act of ingenuity, to sit down again to address the structural lapses. In the Bible when God created the heavens and the earth. He looked at them and said they were good, but few chapters after, He said it was not good for man to be alone. And so He created woman. God saw that what He did initially was not perfect and he addressed the situation. Any sensible leader should embrace restructuring at certain intervals. If we restructure now, in 10 years time, we should sit down again to see if we are okay.

Is government really fighting corruption?

Yes, government is fighting corruption. I say so because they are making some efforts that I can see. Institutions like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) have not been disbanded or stopped from doing their work. Government has not stopped them from arresting even those serving under the government. I’m a leader myself, so I can say that sometimes you have good intentions but within the arms under you, you now see slow pace of execution of the vision. So, I think government is fighting corruption. But if you ask me if they should do more, I would say yes. It would be insensitive of me to say they are not doing anything.

What message do you have for the leaders and the led?

There is breakdown in trust. Leaders have a lot of challenges such that even when there’s good intention, the people never stop to criticise government. We now have leaders and the rest of Nigerians are the opposition party, and this is because the led had suffered for years; their trust had been betrayed. So, even if you mean well, they don’t want to believe. So, leaders should take time to build trust; trust cannot be earned in a hurry. I also want to say to the led that though we’ve been bruised by visions of past and present leaders that have failed or appear to have failed, we should give our leaders a chance; let’s forget yesterday.