Kumuyi at 81: Peeping into his future

The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out. –The Holy Bible

 

IF you have forensically studied Pastor William FolorunsoKumuyi, General Superintendent of Deeper Christian Life Ministry, DCLM, through his one thousand and one books and sermons and you have also read everything about him in the newspapers, or if you have spent days and nights trafficking the internet to track him, there are two old discoveries you’ll make again and again: the venerable cleric’s intrepidity to defy the odds for the sake of the Gospel of his Lord, Jesus Christ, and his endless search to uncover untrodden  grounds in evangelism. This man of God will dare death, devils, demons, destiny, disabilities and distractions to ‘’seek…first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.’’

These twin preoccupations have profiled the DCLM founder since he became born again on April 5 1964. At 81 on June 6, 2022, he has behind him narratives of a man of flint who would dwarf obstructing giants of any hideous shape to proclaim his faith in every word of the Bible, even if it would take his life.

Once, in the United Kingdom for a course in October 1974, a maturing Kumuyi trashed the postgraduate programme he went for in London and dashed off to Birmingham to seek the power of the Holy Ghost he believed he needed for a result-yielding evangelical work. Another time, he looked elsewhere, the way of the Cross, when offered a lifetime chance to step over master’s tutorials and upgrade his academic bouquet with a doctorate. Still more: when Kumuyi found out that a man who would have been an asset to publicizing him and his ministry was given to fits of anger, he broke up the partnership.“Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.’’ Proverbs 22:24, 25.

In each case, it was OK if he was hurt or denied personal gain and satisfaction, but without an attendant dent in his convictions and the Word he preached.

Pastor Kumuyi has been likened to Galileo, the Italian polymath (astronomer, mathematician, physicist and engineer) who straddled two centuries like a Roman Colossus. Like the man of Pisa who looked into his powerful telescope and boldly declared what he saw: contrary to the official and religious view of the day, it wasn’t the sun that went round the earth; it was the other way. God made it a solar system. Persecuted by the Church for his stand and asked to recant, Galileo could not help telling his tormentors, eppursimuove (but it (the earth) does move).

The Deeper Life Bible Church, DLBC, founder has exhibited the same far-flung fearlessness and novelty-nesting streaks in his work in the Vineyard of God. I identify these as the compass to guide any understanding of this international evangelist of this age. We all agree he is the ‘main issue’ in the universal Church firmament at the moment. He teaches and both internalises and externalises the precepts of Holiness as prescribed by the Holy Bible. He is also Heaven-gazing. He has actually forsaken this world, with his octogenarian frame the only substance seeking to be dropped for his soul to go home to his Lord after the labours here on earth. As he preached one day during a residential programme of his Church, Kumuyi spoke of Heaven and the mansions awaiting the saints. He seemed to have got to a point where the Lord was probably revealing his own splendid home to him. Suddenly, he stopped and made a lunge for some impersonal celestial discourse. Later a congregant, after the service, was heard to observe that God might have shown his faithful servant his own abode ahead of his move there. Not impossible. Perhaps the Lord briefly opened the chink to reassure His servant Heaven is real, with the mansions promised believers who stick to Him to the end.

The point then is that the pillars Pastor Kumuyi successfully deployed to build a thriving ministry for nearly 60 years would be the same that would equip him for the present and the distant future, say the next eight decades and beyond. Circumstances will change from what we have today, no doubt. But, as long as man exists and the earth remains, with a compelling charge to preach redemption of lost souls, the evangelist would need to apply the attributes of fearlessness and innovation.

Like the bold Kumuyi, I’m unafraid to step into the future also. I see him striving to construct new tents for Gospel outreach. A look at his trajectory will guide us. He experimented with an Africa-wide crusade that took him to selected nations of the continent in the first half of the 21st decade. He also came up with the City-wide preaching trips in Lagos, Nigeria’s old capital and economic powerhouse. Here, over nearly three weeks, Kumuyi moved into the populous entrails of the straggling metropolis, preaching to tumultuous crowds and restoring hope to the despairing. Outside Lagos, he would pick the states and make the capital or key city the point of contact with the crowd. Never was there a lack of new converts when he made the altar call.

Yet by Pastor Kumuyi’s evaluation, he hadn’t met the demands of the Great Commission. Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

So the Lord led him to the idea of what we have all now come to embrace as the Global Crusade. It has flowed from Kumuyi’s unrepentant industry in evangelism. He reaches every space of the vast international canvas with his message while preaching from Nigeria. He partners all the known appliances of technology-the Internet, precision cameras, audiovisual recording accessories as well as their endpoints like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, radio, television etc. to present the Salvation capsule to the whole world.  Africa has never had a bigger spiritual export.

It’s the reason this year, witnessing the first anniversary of the Global Crusade series, is being addressed as the year of celebration of the goodness of God in the lives of the people during the month-by-month exercise. Hundreds of thousands of souls worldwide have been delivered from sin and its deadly consequences. At least four have been raised from the dead as Pastor Kumuyi ministered. Hundreds more with terminal ailments and grave physical disorders all over the continents are receiving healing while connecting to the pastor from home, office, hospital, Church, marketplace, prison etc. Former heads of state and serving governors with other dignitaries have been at the venues of the Global Crusade to witness the power of God at work.

So my deposition about the future of Pastor W.F. Kumuyi as we celebrate him at 81: his valorous evangelistic adventurism won’t abate; it will locate new fields.

Happy Birthday,Beloved Shepherd!

• Ojewale is a writer in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria

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