adenekan.htm

of God, fit and ready to make exploits in this end times. In this interview with Bola Adewara at his Sagamu office recently, Adenekan, a PhD holder in Pharmacology handles so many questions with the same ease he treats questions live on television. Excerpts.

How did the call to service in the Lord's vineyard come and what was your initial reaction?
I got born again around 1975 at the University of Ibadan after an elderly man of God, Edgar Web was invited from Britain to the University by some fellowships on campus. He was the first man I saw who would lay hands on people and they would fall under the anointing. There was a counseling session where two to three people were. When I came in, the man looked at me and said ‘I speak to you by the word of the Lord that you are chosen…” He said some other things but I did not commit all of these to heart. This was in 1977.

Again in 1978 December, I was at a Christian convention where I heard the Lord calling me to ministry. I did not take that serious. Six months after, I remembered the very encounter I had with the man of God from Britain and since then, the Lord told me to begin to get prepared for the job ahead. My understanding of preparation was going to a Bible school but He Lord said no, I will train you myself. So I left it that way and I began to read the bible.

In 1978 while serving in Yola, I had an ample opportunity to read the Bible because where I was serving, there was nothing to do other than show up at work. When I got back to the South, after my youth service, I met one Rev. Emiko Amosika, who had a fat library, what I would call a mini bible school with books on all those early pastors and ministers of old. I was able to read so many books in this library.

I also came in contact with another friend, Olubi Johnson. At the time of the call, I never knew I would one day become a full time pastor. I had thought I should be an itinerant pastor like Gbile Akanni, Kenneth Copeland, etc. but all of a sudden, I began to have the urge to stay in a place . Moving from one place to the other was not bringing the actual result of discipling people on permanent basis so the urge to start a church began.

I shared the view with Olubi Johnson and Emiko Amosika. The teaching at that time was that rather than start a new church, go and team up with an established church pastored by a born-again person and help the church to grow. The attitude was really discouraging. But when I discussed with one Reverend Dr. Paul Jinadu now of New Covenant Church in England , who was then with Foursquare at Oke Bola Ibadan, he encouraged me to go on. This was in 1982.

One thing I have learnt from Kenneth Hagin is that when the people around you are so doubtful of your new line of action, you should be careful and go slowly because these are the same people you will run to later. So I had to soft-pedal on the ideal of starting a church.

But later in 1982, Reverend Tunde Joda, who was also a friend started up with Christ Chapel in Lagos . People were getting blessed daily, lives were changing. Olubi and I were then living together in Ibadan . One day, he suggested we go to Lagos to see what Tunde Joda is doing. After the visit, we were encouraged to start the Church and that was how Scripture Pastures started in Ibadan on July 29, 1984 just after I completed my PhD in early July, 1984.

After my PhD, I went to work at the University of Ife and was coming to Ibadan every weekend to pastor the church. But all the while, I have had the burden to work in Ogun state. I had regarded Ogun State a spiritually disadvantaged state.

One day, Professor Fola Tayo, then in the US was invited by the then Ogun State government to commence the Pharmacology Department for the Ogun State University . One of the conditions he gave the government was to be given a free hand to raise his team and so he sent for me. It was like an answered prayer for me and I jumped at it. My idea then was to work in Ogun State and be pastoring the church at Ibadan .

Coping.
The church here began in 1986 but I did not leave full employment until 1992. We were using one of the classrooms in the university and gradually, we went to rent a place due to expansion. Gradually we got this place and we began to build. I had told God that I would teach for seven years after which I would go full-time into the church but I forgot.

There was this day I was traveling to Benin to submit an academic work. In my car, I heard ‘what are you doing here?” I was taken aback and wondering what was happening. It was then I realised that the seven years I promised had elapsed. However, I still went on until I began to fall in and out of sickness. I traced it to not fulfilling the promised I made. The Lord reminded me that the time was up so I made up my mind to go.

place to pastor a church. Her temperament, nature and background greatly contributed to my ability to carry one.

As a pastor, you expect a lot of people to come around you, they look up to her as a mother. She has played her role so well. But that is not to say that she has not tried to complain when people tend to take all my time and keep her needing my attention.

Of course I know that some pastors have taken their church functions too far that their families suffer. My wife knew how to call my attention and I have been able to agree with her. I slow down when I need to and move when I need to. She has done that a number of times and I have found myself asking her to let us look at the situation again.

The first two years of starting off was particularly hectic for me because there was a drop in the finance and we cannot stretch the church finance too much. At that time she gave me extra support for which I will be externally grateful for.

Pastor Explain This
In our Church here, the last Sunday of every month is a question time. It replaces our normal Sunday bible study. We saw from the monthly programme how feedback could evangelise better than the regular sermons. The power of feedbacks, in terms of people asking question on areas they don't understand cannot be underestimated. So many pastors go on preaching without knowing if the people are getting it and what their congregants feel about the sermons. This is an area we pastors are leaving out. The best way to evangelize is to allow people ask questions. This inspiration we had from Scripture Pastures.

There was a time we brought one Dr Okey Onuzor here and I told him that we shall allow questions. He had thought question time will waste time and I told him to wait and see. After the programme, he was so impressed and we thought we should put a programme like this on TV. This will be refreshingly different from what others do and it will generate the same effect the others do on a larger scale.

The television version has been on our minds for about three years and we have been asking God for finance. It eventually began in August 27, 2002. This interview to me is like commemorating of third year anniversary.

On our website, we put a form there where people could send in their questions. At a stage, we had to remove the form because the questions were too many that I couldn't cope with other jobs.

The most regular question on PET
The most regular question I receive is on masturbation. There is no week I don't get two questions on masturbation. “What do I do about masturbation?” “How do I handle masturbation?” “Is masturbation a sin?” etc

How do your respond to the masturbation question considering the fact that some people want to get away from fornication, HIV, AIDS, etc?
My response to this is that masturbation will only offer a temporary result rather than a permanent result. Why don't we look at the ultimate result rather than the temporary? What will happen at the long run is lower self esteem. So what I tell them is so many of us went through bachelorhood without masturbation. So when you fill your heart with the wore of God, you feel bigger that those things that leads you into it and you walk tall always.

Are you impressed with the quality of sermons from our churches:
To be frank with you, I am not. There is this programme on TV, Hosanna hour which allows so many pastors to come around and preach within an hour. This gives me an opportunity to see them. I am not impressed by what I see and hear. A lot of sermons are shallow. In that one hour, maybe one or two can make sense. All they say is prosperity, prayers, etc. It's almost the same message all over. Pastors make prosperity sound like abracadabra. We should preach something holy. Declare the whole counsel to people rather that what I call marketable side of the gospel. Pastors tell people what they want to hear. Rev. Jinadu always tell me that so many churches will fold up the moment things get well with Nigeria, because they will have nothing to preach anymore.

Generally I am not impressed with what we see today. Some people are on air not for evangelism but for PR. They will be marketing their churches rather that preaching Christ. They always look at the romantic side of the gospel, prosperity, what the people want to hear. They leave areas that will touch and prick people conscience. I'm not impressed at all.

How can we sanitize the church especially now that Pentecostalism has created a leeway for anybody to start his own church and do whatever he or she likes
Well, it's a free world. The problem is not only with the small churches of the Pentecostals where anybody can move, it even occurs with the big Pentecostal churches where we see them having a central body. For example, the Redeemed Christian Church of God. We have heard reports of so many misbehaviors of their pastors, same with the Foursquare Church led by Rev. Wilson Badejo. I heard of a deliverance pastor in a parish of the Foursquare Church who while attending to a person who came with a problem, tied two chairs behind each other, saying that is how the Lord will turn the two people against them selves and then brought a whip saying that is how the Lord will whip them.

I made sure that I passed this story to Rev Badejo. This is a church with a hierarchical control yet its happening there. In 1994, during my discussion with Rev. Wilson, he said the church will sanities itself. I wish to see him again and ask has it sanitized itself?

What I suggest is that let there be some form of body where a certain number of qualities will be noted about this body. This body will ensure that nobody in any church will be an Alfa and Omega, every church leader should be answerable to them, you cannot spend church money anyhow on cars, travel, etc. There should be accountability. That body will have a name, logo and any church that has that logo in their sign board, people will respect them.

PFN
PFN cannot do it because it is a political organisation, a loose body of Pentecostal body. It was formed for political purpose in response to CAN. CAN itself was formed for political purpose when some money was given to Muslims to build their mosques and Christian reacted and government said Christians have no single body to represent them so quickly CAN was formed. But CAN did not recognise the Pentecostal and so the Pentecostals quickly came together. So for that reason, PFN can't do the job. So if we have a body that can set standard.

Nigeria at 45, are you happy?
How Can I be happy? Who in his right senses can be happy? I mean everything has deteriorated in this country. If anybody told me that my daughter would have worse education that I had, I would never believe that. These days, I find myself supervising my daughter's biology. I couldn't have imagined that my daughter's university education would be worse that I had. Our certificates are not recognized again. In 1975, we said we are growing, 1985 we are growing, 2005, we are still growing? No no no. We have problems with focus, with direction, with sincerity. It's a big shame. We have people who have questionable wealth and yet we say we have no proof to question them! A man who was a pauper some years ago and suddenly is in fabulous wealth, and yet we say there is no corruption!

Could you speak this frankly on TV?
I cannot speak this frankly on TV because I have signed a document not to be this critical on TV. Someone once called and said it's like God is hardening the mind of President Olusegun Obasanjo so he could destroy him like Pharaoh. For a question like that, I can only be diplomatic on TV but on my own and outside the TV, I speak my mind on any national issues.