Many people are beset with hard through circumstances of birth. Such ugly inheritance Remain with them a snag and retarding factor that tends to pin them down for as long as they refuse to shake it off and let themselves loose. It is easy to say I want to shake it off and go but don't think actualising this intention is also easy until you must have heard from Bishop Osagie, the human founder of Powerline Church. Extraordinary offering for open door The problem I have ever had has always been that of finance. I was an usher in the days when I was still with Pastor Joda. On a particular Sunday, we had a preacher from USA who came to minister in the church at Surulere.

His message was on door, liberation from hardship and breakthrough. The preacher at a point in his message challenged people that wanted liberation to come out and make an offering of a particular amount. I hadn't anything both on me and at home. I. cried and lamented bitterly because as I stood there listening to the preacher, my mind raced back to the episodes of hardship I have been through in my life, how I used to go to the farm with my mother, peel cassava, take it home and prepare garri. I used to fry it myself. I also prepared palm nuts and knead it with my legs to produce palm oil.

And moreover, my mother was still living the same level of life while I languished in Lagos in hard­ship. So I resolved to get liberation, and the only thing that came to my mind was to offer the pair of shoes I had on. I decided to rather go back home barefooted than remain in the hardship.

Meanwhile, the shoes were so bad and worn out that I had to stuff papers in to the hollow in the sole to make use of it. After making up my mind, I had no alternative to offering it. I moved from the door at back and took off the shoes. I boldly walked up to the altar weeping. On getting to the altar, the preacher from his point saw the nature of the shoes and asked is ‘that what you wanna give'. I said yes.

He asked again, you mean you want to give that', I said that's all I have and I desperately needed libera­tion, and I wanted to offer the shoes.' He looked at me and noticed the paper underneath. He called me closer and prayed for me passionately and told me that I was going to reap what I prayed for and so it has been since that day though it has not been easy.

A replacement for worn-out shoes
You see as God works, I never knew someone in the congregation noticed when I pulled off my shoes, so by the time I came back to my position, the brother who saw me pull off my shoes and take them up to the altar had dashed across the road and bought a pair of sandals from one of the shops near­by. Immediately I came back to my position, he gave me the new sandals and that is what I wore back home.

Past pains motivate my works
I do most of the things I do for people, for instance the benevolence ministry simply because I have known pains in life, and there is nowhere I could see people in problems and just look the other direction. It is not possible that I should pray, work or come to the level I am today and pretend that things are just smooth for everybody, no, no, no. That is why I always pray God that as long as you give me life and the means to live, I shall not cease to live for other human beings in suffering; and anywhere I find pains, I will do my best to see it is taken away.

One egg-roll for a day's meal­
I recall when I came to Lagos newly, the little money I had on me was the savings I made during my service. Can you believe there were days I would buy an egg roll at 30k and split it into three and that will be my meal for three times in the day. I mean it was so bad, but one never contemplated defrauding anybody or stealing anyone's money but remained resolute to face one's problems and -overcome one day.

Aswani market trader
In those days, there was a time what I did was to go to the Aswani Textile Mills at the location of Aswani market and buy discarded products from the factory. The factory always discarded any product with any defect, no matter how little. So I used to go into the factory and buy up such discarded products, bring them into the Aswani mar­ket and pick my bell. I will keep ringing, shouting and standing in the sun for a whole day. I rang and canvassed for buyers and through that. I would make some money for my upkeep. That has been part of my life, and I never forget those trying days.

Powerline church
Everything that has happened in the Powerline Church is as a result of God's favour and experience, and every experience guided by God leads to an upward direction. Of course, you know that anything God is involved in must experience growth which I said earlier lead to movement in the upward direction.

The church has grown from its rudimentary size in September 1989 when it was established. Today, we have branches and thousands of members scattered all over the world. But nothing happens overnight, so it has taken time. What I always say to everybody is don't try to take shortcuts in life, because anything you get through shortcut will cut you short. Keep your dreams and focus and at last you will get there.

We have not arrived in this church; we are still under construction, because Jesus said I will build my church, so he is still building it. We started here with a structure we erected with bamboo that we bought from Badagry. We used palm fronds and made the roof and after sometime, we bought mats and covered the floor. At a time, I had to order the refuse disposers to dump their refuse here because there was no money to buy sand and fill the swamp. So the whole place stank of the refuse and dirt from all over Lagos . But do you see the refuse here today?

CAN PFN relationship
CAN that is the Christians Association of Nigeria is the big umbrella that carries all Christian bodies in Nigeria . It is the bigger platform while PFN, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria is a sub group that carries all charismatic, Pentecostal and bible teaching/believing groups. While CAN is the bigger body, the PFN that is under it has a very good relationship with it. On the other hand, Powerline Church as a body relates to CAN through the PFN, because you know it is CAN the Nigerian government knows. So that is how it is. CAN is strong PFN is also strong and there is no misunderstanding or conflict of roles anywhere. The Church of Christ is one and there shall be no division and it is the prayer of every Christian in this nation that the Church of Christ in Nigeria shall never see any division.

So few churches
I don't agree that they are so many churches in Nigeria . From the meaning, church is simply by interpretation, the called out ones. On that premise, there is just one church. But coming to what you mean by so many churches in Nigeria , I don't also think the number of churches in Nigeria is many. Jesus Christ died for the whole world and up till today, the whole world is not yet saved. So if the church is doing her work very well, we should have more churches. I know that every good

Must have the tendency of being duplicated wrongly. I t is like that in every other profession where fake exist side by side the original. It does not mean the presence of original puts away the original. In fact, there shall be no counterfeit without the original from which it is copied. So, there are still the few churches that are good, focused and doing the right thing God wants them to do.

Church to grow community.
People should not worry about the number of churches in town. Let us allow things to run the normal course. A time is coming when church would start to diversify into many other functions. There shall come a time when churches would adopt highways for instance for the purpose of cleaning them, you can also see churches taking up humanitarian roles, for example, that handled by Pastor Chris Okotie's Church.

Here in Powerline, in our little way, we feed the poor. There are many people in the benevolence group that sacrifice so much to make sure the poor in the society get some succour. But you cannot do the things without the resources. We have about 250 widows, who are not even our members that we feed and give some other provisions on weekly and monthly basis. That explains that there are so many other functions for the church to accomplish time.

Homosexuality: I am proud of Archbishop Akinola
Before I give you my view on homosexuality I the church, I should first of all thank God for the life of Archbishop Akinola, the head of the Anglican Church in Nigeria. He is doing a very marvelous work as a man of God. All Christians in Nigeria should be proud of him and feel happy that GOO gave us such a man who can stand up and boldly say an evil is evil. It is gladdening to remember that Akinola is also a Nigerian. It is unfortunate that the world has given undue attention to a minute percentage of Nigerians who are bad.

Homosexuality is an act against God. It is a misnomer because God created them male and female, and said it is not good for man to live alone, and said I will give him a helpmate good for him. The helpmate was a woman and not another man. If you go through the Bible you will know that it is nauseating for people to live that way, yet in the Bible calendar, it would be found that these are the evil days was prophesied.

Culled from The Sun

What is your comment on this story?