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The Church of God Mission International, Lagos-West holds its zonal conference April 26-28, 2018 with the theme ‘Empowered to Succeed: Vision 100%’. Ahead of the conference, Reverend Charles Shedrack, pastor of the Maza-Maza Province of the church, speaks with SEYI JOHN SALAU on the church’s 100 percent vision to evangelise and reach out to its neighborhood.
The church’s zonal conference comes up in the last week of April. Could you speak to the theme of the conference ‘Empowered to Succeed’?
‘Empowered to Succeed’ is the global vision of Church of God Mission as enunciated by our Archbishop; she was led by the Holy Spirit to make that declaration and we believe it is a year where we are empowered to succeed. The empowerment is not coming now, we have been empowered already; Jesus has empowered us. As he said on the cross, “It is finished,” but sometimes what denies us of enjoying that privilege is ignorance. A man leaves $1 million for his son in the bank and the son does not know how to access the money, and he struggles for bread with everybody while he has $1 million somewhere in the bank idle. But the day somebody comes to him and says, “Who are you? Are you not this man’s son? This is what you will do to access your money in the bank. Get your birth certificate and other documents,” that day he gets knowledge and that knowledge delivers him from poverty to access what is already his. Such declaration helps those of us that are still low in faith and may not know the scripture so much, and maybe have gone through much trouble in life that their faith is beginning to wane, to build their faith. It reminds us that we have been empowered by the blood of Jesus on the cross of Calvary; all I need do is to rise in faith, do a meaningful job, business or career and succeed, and out of it God can bless me. The other aspect of it – Vision 100% – is our local vision as a church; it is like having a vision in the vision. We are running with the global vision of our Archbishop, but as a local church we have our own challenges and so, our own local vision is called ‘Vision 100%’ because we want to reach out to our community. We want to go out there and let them know that Jesus is Lord. It is 100% Jesus, 100% evangelism, 100% outreach, and we are at the stage of preparing the church to buy into the vision. We have divided the church into groups of 17 squads; they have their leaders, assistants, and secretaries according to where we live to go out there and tell the neighbourhood about the love of Jesus. We want to tell those who do not have a place of worship that they can come worship with us, or if you are going far away to worship, why go far away when there is a church here close by to you?
That takes me to the issue of faith, creed, and believing in Christendom. At what point do we draw the line between Christianity and idol worship?
Of course, sometimes abuse is inevitable in whatever human beings do because of certain excesses. Even when you look back, Jesus also used certain symbols. For instance, he spat on the ground, took some sand, mixed it and rubbed on somebody’s eyes and the person regained his sight. Elijah in bible – an axe fell into the river, he told somebody to cut a stem of a tree and put it at the spot where it fell, and the item floated. In the book of John, the bible told us that if any is sick, let them call the elders and let them take the oil; the anointing oil and the prayer of faith will heal the sick. It is not the anointing oil that heals, it is the prayer of faith that heals, but as I said, abuse is inevitable. There is so much abuse in the body of Christ today when it comes to the use of all these symbols, but the Christians of today should realise that with or without the symbol you can be healed. Jesus did not make it a regular practice to heal people with spittle and sand; Elijah did not make it a regular practice to heal people by cutting of sticks; the early disciples did not make it a regular practice to sell anointing oil and holy water. Yes, we have anointed people with oil and seen them get healed; we have even given people water to drink and seen miracles happen, but the first thing you notice is that we pray over the objects, and so it is not the water and the oil – it is the prayer of faith that does the healing. But sometimes it is difficult for people to believe. I must throw a balance here not to criticize what is happening but I think that sometimes people’s faith is still not big. People exhibit small faith – when they see a symbol, maybe anointing oil, they believe not because they believe in the anointing oil but they believe that through that anointing oil miracle will happen.
But most still place emphasis on the symbols. Not that they believe the anointing oil is the miracle worker; they know Jesus is the miracle worker but through the anointing oil – maybe they have seen their pastor anoint somebody that was sick, prayed for him and the person became healed. So, that means anointing oil can heal, it helps to lift their faith. So, no matter what, it is the faith that has been lifted that brings the miracle but there is a lot of ignorance. Some of my colleagues who are pastors have abused this privilege, and I say here it is not about the oil, water, cane or whatsoever it is; there is extremity to these things and I must confess that some of them are manipulative. But God will bring to judgment some of these people who are intentionally manipulating the ignorance or the naivety of the worshippers. But generally speaking, there is a place for the anointing oil, there is a place for symbols, but they do not take the place of prayer and faith, and it is not those symbols that bring the miracles, it is faith in Christ that brings the miracles.
The scripture talks about the prayer of faith healing the sick; how come most believers still look to other persons in the church for prayers and other things?
I think as Christians we should read the bible. The bible is simple, it is written in English and as long as you can understand the English language, you can understand the bible. You do not need too much of education to understand the bible. There is no other name by which we might be saved but by the name of Jesus, but sometimes people want to hinge their faith on something they can see as a means of aiding their faith to believe more. When you have a personality that is strong and have affected your life so much, sometimes you believe in him so much, you believe in his word so much but that does not mean the person does not believe in Jesus. He believes in Jesus but somehow he sees somebody that is like a father figure to him that helps him believe more. So, you see how God is helping the man, how God is using the man and maybe how God is working through the man and you wish you can be like him because if you be like him, you can be more like Jesus. So, I do not think people put their faith in man; they put their faith in Christ but somehow for some of us as Christians, even for some of us as pastors, we also have our mentors. So, it is not just the congregation that is guilty of this, even we pastors are also guilty. But, it’s more of respect, honour for somebody through whom God has blessed my life, without whom I would not be where I am. I believe in Jesus but I love this man and I am excited about him as a father, mentor, and I reverence him. However, our faith is in Christ. But then people should not make the mistake of thinking that without Pastor A or Bishop B or Archbishop Z, I cannot receive from God. With or without any man anybody can receive from God, but of course, if you have somebody you love, cherish because of the role he has played in your life, no problem, go ahead and cherish him, honour him, but never take your eyes away from the cross.
