by S’ola Filani

Founder of Winners’ Chapel, Bishop Oyedepo has explained why his church is often regarded as the “Church of the Rich”.

“It’s for all the people who believe that Jesus already paid for them to be rich. And those who don’t believe, when they come they start believing when they see it happen in a lot of people’s lives. And we are not ashamed to be called the church of the rich. If they call your family poor, will you be excited? Nobody would be excited.

“Even when a family is poor, they hate to be called poor. No man in his right mind enjoys being called poor, and nobody truly wants to be poor, people may pretend. Which is more honourable between being a giver and a beggar? Most of us came in very poor, but the light of God’s word came on us and we walked out of poverty in grand style into wealth and riches,” he told the Punch.

Explaining why there is such wealth in the church despite the poverty in the nation, the General Overseer said “The kingdom of God is funded by God’s resources. We are not funded by the economy of the world, but by the economy of the kingdom, which has a budget for all of its agenda on earth. We’ve been here since 1999 and we have never had power outage or water shortage. The main players are Nigerians, the builders are Nigerians. There is no building here that any foreign expert took part in. There is no foreign company’s presence here, including the tabernacle. Some of the revered foreign companies here in Nigeria are technicians in Germany, and they are all political contractors, not that they have something special to offer.”