Pastor Adepoju Johnson, a senior pastor and vice chairman of the highest ruling council in Ye Are the Light Ministry, speaks to a number of issues about the church, Nigeria and sundry others, in this interview by WALE EMOSU. Excerpts:
WOULD you say the church is playing its role in the society as expected of it today?
No. The Lord sent us to the world to win souls, to bring people to Christ. That’s the primary aim; the fundamental belief. I got born-again in 1979 and we went from one house to the other to preach the gospel. Any house we got to and we saw anybody doing anything, we would join them; we fetched water and participated in other household chores because we wanted to win their souls and people responded positively. They could see the humility, the character. Not only that, even in our vicinities, in our areas, we would join them in whatever they did. We attended their ceremonies in those days. However, all of a sudden, things changed. Initially, all the schools established by churches were meant to improve the society.
But some churches began to use them as sources of income for their ministries, and in some cases, the society became forgotten. Instead of giving to the society, what we are looking for is to collect from the society, which is very bad.
How do you think this can be remedied?
To the glory of God, some of us that got the revelation have not departed from it. I have seen some ministries making efforts, but the efforts have not been enough. We are trying to reach out to some of the up-and-coming pastors on the need to correct our ways and by and by, our messages to the society are changing, bringing people to the light.
What is your take on the seeming imbalance between church proliferation and moral decadence?
Some of these churches ignore the primary aim of winning souls and making impact. While some prioritise winning souls for Christ, some use the church to make money; the truth must be told, we don’t need to hide it. We need to go back; it is like going back to Bethel. We must be enlightened on how to worship God. We need to go back to the Bible. When you go back to the Bible, we go back to the love of God. We must love God; many don’t love God. It is when you love God that you love the people. Do you know one thing? We don’t even love the people we preach to, because what we need from them is their money; take their tithe, take everything from them, but we don’t bother about their souls. Do we love them? And the Bible says, “For God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son…” and whosoever would now preach to the world, must first of all love those people. We need to go back to the foundation; we need to go back to Bethel. When we go back to Bethel, sharing the word of God, let them be convinced. When you preach to someone, let him surrender his life to Christ. When you are born-again, then every other thing can be built.
What is your advice for government, in the light of the present challenges the country is faced with?
All we need to focus on is building strong institutions. Let Nigerians support the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC); let us support every established institution. It may not be perfect initially, but when we build on it, the institution will become perfect. Let us forget party affiliation and instead unite as Nigerians. We have many problems in Nigeria, but what we need as solution are strong institutions.
What can you say about Nigeria’s future?
Nigeria’s future is great. Thank God for the recession, I always say this, I don’t know how you are going to put it: We have the Gbelepawo people and we have the Work and Eat people. This recession is affecting the Gbelepawos; they are the people who sit at home and make money, while some people go out to work for money to eat. Do you know that the class of people who go out to work for their money are enjoying, even in this recession? Recession is not new. I have been in the US and the UK when they were experiencing recession. At that time, it was very hard for someone to give out even one dollar, but because they have strong institutions, they bounced back. When you experience recession, it is not about the government; it is about the need to review our lifestyle. Nigeria has a bright future. This recession is one of the keys that everyone should use, including the church of God. Soonest, Nigeria will be a great country that people would love to visit. Whoever has not been working should go and start working. The Bible admonishes us to work. If everyone works, we have many things around us that we can gain from. We are surrounded by money, the issue is just to locate it. When you have a deeper revelation, you will get it around you, if you are not lazy. A lazy man must not eat.
and then