Global Harvest Church is a fully Pentecostal church led by Pastor Victor Adeyemi and has branches in Lagos and Ibadan. Since I wasn’t too familiar with the venue of the 2 other branches also located in Ibadan, I decided to join the new branch – Grace Cathedral located at Liberty Road Ibadan just by Jogor Centre.

When I concluded in my heart that I was attending Global Harvest Church, I had high expectations. First was about how the service would go and the second was the excellence of aesthetics – The Daystar kind of lighting and sound, COZA kind of protocol, The House on the Rock kind of podium and all of that. I had to caution myself to tone down on my high expectations towards the church service as anything less of what I had in mind could affect my reception towards the word. Talk of the work of the Holy Spirit yeah… Somehow, on my way there, those thoughts and ridiculous expectations tried to creep in but I was able to bring them under subjection to the word of God. Hallelujah. Amen. LOL.

By the time I got to the venue, I was disappointed and it was a good disappointment. The branch at Liberty road is a new one hence, the exterior and some other parts of the interior were left uncompleted but looking very neat I must confess. I was shocked.

Let me tell you why I was shocked. I was shocked because our mind-set has been shaped in such a way that whenever anyone is about to start a church or ministry, one of the first few things he/she would be thinking of would be lights, a very “tush” venue, excellent sound e.t.c. As much as these things might not seem bad in themselves, it is only an expression of how our desire for fame, popularity, crowd and the good life can take so much priority over the really important stuff. So, for a church like Global Harvest to have a branch whose building is halfway completed told me there was more to a growing church than those things.

I looked round and saw the culture of love amongst the members, workers and pastors alike and noticed how well they connected to each other. There were loads of smiles, laughter and fun even as people walked into the building for the service. After all, in the pursuit for excellence, they wouldn’t go ahead to rob a bank! That could only mean one thing; the love, fellowship and bond they shared meant much more to them than all the aesthetics and beautiful stuff.

I saw the excellence in the little things too. They didn’t wait till they had grown massively before exercising excellence. For example, the environment was clean and tidy all through, cars were parked in appropriate places, dust wasn’t flying all over the place neither did I find cobwebs too. The ushers were very smart and prompt with their job, the presentation from the children showed weeks of consistent practice and not just a wish-washy job.

I am sure in a few years from now when that venue would have grown into a mega church, they would be grateful to God that they waited through the process of growth and also gave themselves the opportunity to grow.

To balance things up, this does not in any way connote that any new church that has a comfy venue beautifully decorated and designed place of worship at its early stage has missed the process of growth. My point, in essence, is that we shouldn’t necessarily go out of our way to get these things as they would definitely come with time and are not priority needs.

The main reason behind the church is fellowship and not a show of aesthetics, let it remain so. It’s not just about the setting of the church. It’s about every single person involved.