Blurb
Olamide Adekunle is a missionary pastor and the Pioneer of Pneuma Christian Ministries in Lagos.
He speaks with ASSISTANT POLITICS EDITOR, DANIEL KANU, on his vision, exploits, challenges, corruption in the church and Christians in politics, among other national issues.
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Vision for missionary exploits
I received the summons and the call in 1992. Then I was an undergraduate at the University of Lagos.
I had an experience and in that experience I was called to live the life of preaching the Gospel.
In a dream or trance?
Well, I wasn’t asleep. I was wide awake so you could call that a trance, and I have had similar experiences many times.
I have also received confirmation of the calling from other Christians whom I had never met before and they used exactly the same word the Lord used in those experiences.
It seems the Gospel and nothing else matters to you…
(Cuts in) you just captured it well. The conviction is in the reality of who Jesus Christ is, is known to me, so I know the truth.
It’s not that I chose to be a preacher or a missionary, my conviction comes from my Saviour, the one who saved me and asked me to partner with the Holy Spirit to reach people.
And that is my priority, the centre of my life: preaching the Gospel, the Great Commission, reaching the unreached for Jesus Christ.
Many Christians do not have your type of evangelism fire, the passion…
(Cuts in) its natural. Some may never have it, because I suppose in life, even in the kingdom of God, there is specialisation.
There are those God called to do certain things and they respond with great passion and conviction.
There are other believers, too, yes they will evangelise but they may not prioritise evangelism as I would because I believe I am called to do it, that is my life work.
Why are many ministries empty religious rituals without Biblical backing?
When you talk about Christians you have to define what or who a Christian is.
There are those who go to church who may actually not be disciples of Jesus Christ, they may not be following His teachings.
So when people complain about those that go to church and claim to be Christians but are not living up to the values then that means they are not Christians, they are not disciples of Jesus Christ.
Even on my Instagram and Facebook page I describe myself as a follower of Jesus Christ, a disciple of Jesus Christ not just a “Christian”.
I am not just somebody who goes to church, I am somebody who follows after the Person, I want to be like Him, and I want to live like Him and follow His teachings and to do what He did on earth. That is what I am here for.
So if in our time we find people not following after Jesus Christ then it’s simply the fact they are leveraging themselves as Christians but are not; it’s now the responsibility of us, who are the “leaders”, to teach them how to follow Him.
It’s our responsibility to preach to them, they are part of our mission field, our responsibility to go and preach to them, confirm them and disciple them.
Scope of missionary work
What I do basically as priority is that I teach and preach the Gospel. I introduce people to Jesus Christ, I present the Gospel of Jesus Christ, promote it and I bring them into discipleship.
I recruit and train missionaries and send them to specific mission fields or mission fields they feel they are led by the Spirit of God to work in. I also visit mission fields to strengthen, to encourage, and to build up the work of God.
That is basically what we do for now. We are preaching the Gospel, disciple and training those in leadership and disciple those that have just come to Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Mission work in the North East where Boko Haram poses security threat
Now we do not have anyone we are sending to the North East. We have a couple of Hausa-speaking missionaries from the North East that we have put in training.
We have gone to Kwara, we are sending missionaries to Niger State, and I will soon be in Niger State myself. I have worked in Zamfara, Sokoto, Nassarawa, and Abuja, et cetera.
It’s a great responsibility. We do understand that persecution and physical violence are some of the risks we have to face but we have to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.
People have to hear from Jesus Christ, and I know that even when we lay down our lives for Him, lose our lives, there is martyrdom and it’s not something we shy away from.
Of course we are security conscious. If we hear there is something going on somewhere (that will instantly claim our life), of course, we are not going to work into it.
But if it happens we just take it as a great honour that in the service of God we are martyred.
Apart from that we do pray for protection and the Bible says the Spirit of God will warn us of things to come. So the Spirit of God does warn us and we do obey to avert certain dangers.
Your greatest challenge
Honestly, the greatest challenge for me is not necessarily financial.
It’s all about the worker, all about you, the individual as a person, all about you standing up for the truth, rejecting the lies and just living for God and obeying Him, no matter how harsh the reality of the mission field is.
The truth is that it is not a sacrifice, it’s an honour and a great privilege, to be used by God in the work of ministry.
So the greatest challenge for me is a personal and emotional matter. It is asking yourself: Am I doing the right thing? Is this what I want to do? etc.
Nothing physical or financial to me is a challenge, I see the challenges as purely emotional.
Corruption in the church
It’s a global phenomenon and I see it as part of the field or work that God has sent us to preach the Gospel and disciple them.
Yes, there is corruption in the church and the fact they are corrupt means they are not living up to the standard of Jesus Christ.
They are not following His values, they are not living for Him or following Him. So they are part of the people we are to save, they are part of the people we are to disciple.
But some pastors are involved in this corruption?
Yes, some of them may have the title of pastors, but you do know and must have heard the words “backsliding”, “reprobacy”, “apostasy”, etc.
There are people who have embraced God, who have the titles but along the line they are not living for Him.
Those people have to be put back into discipleship, they have to be rededicated to the Lord and it’s our responsibility to call the backslider back.
So we do it in love, we confront and correct in love and with truth.
I see corruption in the church as something we can easily handle if we just face it head-on in love. Corruption can be dealt with if we, people like us, will just stand up and do our work in the fear of God, and things will change in time.
If we keep on speaking the truth and standing up for what is true, in time truth will prevail.
Christians in politics
Christians in any form of industry that is not criminal, that is not immoral, for me, is okay. Christians are in engineering, music, drama, furniture making, etc. So politics is just one field that Christians should not shy away from.
But what I want to emphasise that not only should Christians be involved in politics they should reach out to politicians. Politicians are human beings, too, they should have the opportunity to hear the Gospel and be discipled.
Christians must be in every area that is not criminal or immoral, in my view.
But politics is seen as immoral in this part of the world?
It’s a matter of concept. It’s a lie as far as I am concerned.
There are principles guiding how politics should be played. There is a proper way of doing it and Christians can come in and be an example in politics.
Just like in every other area of life, Christians should be leading in the sense of being an example morally.
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