Dimgba Igwe: As our first tenure as church leaders came to an end

by Dimgba Igwe

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Of course, as a pastor and a church leader, you are not permitted to be sad, to have similar problems like other people. Are you not the pastor that should provide the answers to live’s problems?

It’s already four years since that solemn night when the word popped out that Major General Paul Toun and I, then the Deputy Managing Director and Deputy Editor- in-Chief of The Sun Publishing Limited, should be the General Overseer and Deputy General Overseer of Evangel Pentecostal Church, respectively. It was, of course, a joke surely, we thought in those fleeting seconds.

But the point was that we were in the forefront of those asking for rejuvenation of the church with fresh ideas, innovation and manpower.

But it was a case of an idea whose time has come, for our former leadership made up of the duo of Pastor Adebanjo Towolawi and Osondu Anyalechi agreed that after two decades on the job, they were ripe for voluntary exit. On the other hand, we had just reviewed the church’s constitution to introduce a term limit of four-year tenure renewable to a maximum of two terms.

The church’s three wise men, made up of Pastors Towolawi (now Toluwalawi), Anyalechi and Dickson Anyanwu proceeded on extended fasting retreat. They returned with a unanimous verdict. As they told us, God had spoken to each of them separately during their fasting and prayer seclusion and the result was that Toun should be GO while I should be the DGO.

The announcement took us by surprise, not the least, Toun, who nearly flipped over. In the eyes of man, he was the most unlikely candidate for the job, being given to brash military ways, too liberal for a core conservative church like ours and certainly not in the least interested unless, of course, you wanted him to invest in the work of the Lord, which he would rather willingly do. As for me, whoever heard of journalists – acclaimed trouble makers – heading a church?

In a manner of speaking, we were stuck with the choice. We can’t advocate for change and then turn down our choice as agents of change. Besides, the past leadership devised all sorts of concessions to make the offer easy for us.

In Nigeria, they say deputies are like spare tyres but in my own case, the most that can be said is that I was more of the two rear tyres rather than spare ones! It is amazing how two can work together if there are strong shared vision, a driving passion for a common goal, generosity of spirit, absence of individual insecurities and lack of personal agenda, despite minor irritations and imperfections.

How do you run a church with half a dozen branches? We’ve focused on re-engineering the ultra-conservative mindset of the members without derailing from the core fundamentals of our faith.

We’ve tried to upgrade the infrastructure, build a permanent site for a primary school, train, train, train and retrain leaders, focusing on discipleship, pruned off non-performing branches and added new ones, grappled with the challenge of generational shifts from the old to the youths, fantasized about the digital challenges and the implication for growing the twenty-first century church, including operating digital FM station by our ultra-modern Lekki branch, etc.

It is already four years and looking back, we are hardly satisfied with the results so far. Suffice it to say our results fell far short of our own expectation, a good enough reason we felt, that we can now safely hand over to new leaders with fresh ideas.

Leading a church is no walk in the park. It is exhausting, exciting, frustrating and for those of us, who refuse to be paid anything by the church, financially draining.

As a pastor, you are to provide answers to so many problems from the spiritually complex to financial, employment, unpaid rents, school fees and hospital bills, small scale business loans, housing crisis, including helping to acquire lands by those whose money is below the price, marital entanglements and police cases.

Of course, you are not just everyone’s spiritual guide but ultimately the psychotherapist and gynecologist with particular expertise in fertility matters.  At times, for every cheering news, there are two tales of the jeremiad. Pastors, I guess, more than anyone else, including the government and political officials, are the best barometers of the dysfunctional state of economy, for we bear the brunt most of the time.

Of course, as a pastor and a church leader, you are not permitted to be sad, to have similar problems like other people. Are you not the pastor that should provide the answers to live’s problems? Many pastors, who allowed themselves to be carried away by such superhuman presumptions, end up with wreaked health, homes and, at times, marriages. Nowadays, good pastors’ wives are trained to protect their husbands or spouses from ministerial burn out syndrome that is now very rampant – a situation where pastors get so overworked they suffer physical breakdowns, collapse or sudden death.

As our first tenure came to an end, there was no question that Toun and I were quietly looking forward to a change of leadership so we could regain our lives again.

But sorry mates, at a leadership retreat last month, the Board of Trustees of the church unanimously re-elected us for another term. We didn’t know whether to clap or cry! Where we claimed we had failed or underperformed, they praised us to high heavens, leaving us stunned and trapped!

On Saturday and Sunday, we had the third National Convention of the church where we ordained new pastors, elders, deacons and deaconess on the one hand and our new term of four years was formally proclaimed. At the convention, one of our advertised guest speakers, a powerful minister in his mid-forties, was hospitalised, suffering from exhaustion! With 24-hour notice, I became the substitute speaker on Saturday!

Meanwhile, on Sunday, it was my turn to declare a charge for the next four years before the guest speaker, Reverend Dokun Adebayo, brings the main message. To avoid a clash of two messages, I distilled my charge into a small speech, which I simply read.  I’ve excerpted from that speech titled, Vessels of Honour, below in case you may want to read:

“It is not the critic, who counts; not the man, who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man, who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and at the worst, if he fails, at least, fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls, who neither know victory nor defeat.”

—President Theodore Roosevelt’s address at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1910

 

The great Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:12—15:

“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things, which are behind and reaching forward to those things which ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

“Therefore, let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.”

Finally, the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2: 19 – 21:

“Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: “The Lord knows those who are His,” and “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”

“But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honour and some for dishonour. 

“Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honour, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.”

 

These are indeed powerful words not only from God but also from one of the most powerful leaders in history. A fundamental link between the three quotes is a recognition of the infinite capacity of people not only to shape history, but also their own destiny based on their own choices, actions and faith.

As a believer, you are already a member of the great house of God. But whether you are going to be a vessel of gold and silver or that of wood and clay is a choice.

Silver is good but I choose to be a vessel of gold! I choose to pay the price in righteousness, in service and by faith.

I am personally frustrated by some of those in the church, who remain the same way year in, year out. No progress, no testimony of the goodness of the Lord. That is not like our God. He is changeless in nature alright, but He is also the unchangeable changer of lives or people, especially His people.

It is His greatest pleasure to give us the kingdom. He is God, our Father; we are sons and not hirelings. Sons inherit the kingdom, but Esau did not – because he was a moral reprobate, who despised what God treasured. He was a vessel of dishonour made of wood and clay.

Jacob got the blessings – and, therefore, the kingdom because he invested in what really mattered. He was a son, although not perfect – like the Apostle Paul hinted above in his epistle to the Philippians.

Even from a slippery character like Jacob we learn one fundamental lesson. We must put our faith to work. Vessels of honour must be people of action. We must be doers. Faith is a verb!

Better die doing than live empty like the timid souls who never know the joy of success or failure!

Please, please, please, I charge you with a heartful of love: get into the arena of life and show by your works whose child you are…The sons and daughters of a most high God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. 

Truly, the battle is the Lord’s but He needs our bodies as a vessel to operate. But, He needs a clean vessel. A righteous vessel to work through, for a dirty vessel repels His holy presence and quenches the move of His Spirit. 

Yes, our God is a Spirit, not physical and unless we co-operate by offering our vessels, He may not do so many things He would’ve loved to do in the church and in our lives. The Spirit is pleading with us…please, please, please, loan me your vessels…I want to fill your vessels, not a few…

So, brethren, resolve to do something from now—even if you fail. For the righteous, failure is not a full stop, only a coma—at worst, a semi-colon.

Proverb 24:16 says: “For a righteous man may fail seven times and rise again, but the wicked man shall fall by calamity.”

If we are born again, then we are made righteous by Jesus and therefore, born to rise as many times as we fail until we win the battle. That is our destiny—to be more than conquerors through Jesus who loves us!

For the righteous then, failure is a training ground and a stepping stone on the way to success. Don’t be afraid to step on our failures, learning from them in the process. Don’t let failure put you down. You can’t remain a failure—unless you agree!

Again I say brethren, don’t be afraid to get involved. In other words, serve the Lord, be a vessel of honour, sanctified and useful for the Master. 

If anyone desires to enjoy the greatness of the Open Door, (our theme for the Convention) you must first offer yourself willingly to the Master to be “prepared for every good work.”

As the Spirit is crying into my ears, the harvest is plenty and the field is ripe. Lets him that has ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches!

Let’s the next four years announce your triumph. You are the next miracle on the way, rise and fly on the wings of faith. The just shall live by faith and you are the one. I wish you God’s speed as you fly!

 

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Read this article in the Sun Newspapers

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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