Enoch Durotoye is the senior pastor of Wisdom Christian Centre, Ibadan. In this interview with JUSTICE NWAFOR, he speaks on the need for Christians to have clarity and understand where they are going to; proliferation of churches and the duty of the government.
What is the place of transition and clarity in the life of a Christian?
Everything that God creates grows. So, as a believer, Proverbs 4: 18 says ‘the path of the just is as a shining light; it shines more and more on to the perfect day.’ So, it means that for every Christian, you need to keep growing and growth means moving from point A to point B — that’s what transition is. No matter where you are, there’s a next level; there’s a height that God wants you to attain — that is a transition too.
However, in order to embark on transition, you need to have clarity on where you are going. As Christians, we’ve got several areas in our lives that God wants us to move forward on. And to move forward, you need to gain clarity. If I am not clear about where I want to go, then every direction becomes the way. Not just for Christians; everyone God created needs clarity. To attain the next level, you must know what the next level looks like. How will I know when I get there? That’s the need for clarity.
Amidst the growing crime rate, what do you make of the proliferation of churches in Nigeria today?
We must not confuse the responsibility of the church with the responsibility of the state or the nation. The nation is meant to provide security; that is not the responsibility of the church. So, you may have more churches but more churches do not mean that the church provides security. So, the nation needs to stand up to its responsibility of providing security for lives snd property.
However, what the church needs to do is to start going into what I call strategic evangelism. This is because every criminal that you see has the potential of becoming a saint who can help in changing other criminals.
So, what the churches need to do is to start looking at how to strategically reach out to these people, because one criminal a church is able to reach out to and convert has the potential of turning more criminals over to God. That’s what the church needs to focus on going forward.
The church is set to stage a programme that will involve professionals from different sectors. What informed this?
Discovery Conference is our flagship programme at the Wisdom Christian Centre. This is a programme that brings other churches, professionals, politicians, leaders, businessmen, employers and employees together. This is because the Bible says God has made us kings and priests. We are not meant to become priests alone but kings and priests. What that means is that we are supposed to connect people to God and as kings; we are involved in the daily running of what happens in our society.
We bring forth policies that make society better. We bring kingdom values into our workplaces and our relationships. So, Discovery Conference is our flagship programme because it’s all-encompassing. It touches both Christians and non-Christians. It touches people both in church and outside the church on their relationships and leadership. That’s what makes it different.
This conference is will commence from March 4 to 6, at the church’s auditorium as it has always been, we have a lot of people coming from all over the country. It is our biggest conference and we are looking forward to seeing everybody.
Are there testimonials of all-encompassing growth in the lives of attendees of the conference?
You are right, the Discovery Conference has been on for years and the truth is that every year, it gets better compared to the previous years. Each year, we get testimonials from individuals who attend the conference with remarkable moves in their lives from one point to the other. I’ve got a lot of people who have testified that after the conference they got new visions for their lives. We’ve got people who got so much clarity that they knew what to do. So, we’ve got a number of testimonials from attendees of each of the conferences. And this year’s will be remarkable with more testimonials.