The Special Assistant to the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God on Personnel, Pastor Julius Olalekan has said the entire population of the church is still below 3 million.
He made the disclosure while trying to motivate some top workers in the church to key into the Church’s Vision 2032.
The vision according to him is aimed at harvesting 40 million souls into the church by the end of Year 2032.
Olalekan who gave gripping statistics of the numerical strength of the church as monitored online by Church Times said many in the church had lost steam and were not doing the work of evangelism.
statistics of Region 2 of the Redeemed Christian Church of God
Basis for the vision
He said the vision 2032 is predicated on Genesis 13v14-15. That is the scripture where God spoke to Abraham about the need to look around him and take possession of the land as far as he could see.
According to him, RCCG is presently in a state of stagnation. “Where we are today is a state of stagnation. For the past few years, workers and ministers in RCCG have been just content with doing church. But there is a lot for us to do. The number of parishes is multiplying, provinces are multiplying but the attendance is not growing”
He recalled how the church made waves in the late 90s after the world acclaimed Lekki 98 and the subsequent revival that followed adding however that since that time the growth of the church has stagnated.
Region 2 statistics
Region 2 statistics
Citing the example of Region 2 in the church, he said there is clearly more work to be done. He noted that the region has 1461 parishes with 88,539 members. Of the parishes, 114 have less than 10 members each while about 811 parishes have between 11 and 50 members each.
356 parishes have between 51 and 100 members while 83 parishes have between 101 and 150 members each. Only 43 of the parishes have between 151 and 200 members each. 28 of the Parishes have between 201 and 300 members while only 14 parishes have between 301 and 400 in membership.
Parishes that have between 400 and 450 members are just 10. Only 7 parishes can boast of between 450 and 600 members. Parishes with a population of between 700 and 1000 are 4 while only one parish has a population above 1000
The implication is that only 13 percent of the region’s parishes have 100 members while 87 percent of the region’s parishes have a population of less than 100
Need for aggressive prayer
One critical area Olalekan emphasised in his presentation is the need for aggressive prayer. He noted that many members of the church no longer pray for the salvation of souls. “ We don’t pray for souls anymore. We need to pray people into the kingdom. We need to engage in special prayers for people to come to church. It is only God that can save the souls of men. To get all these things done, everybody must cooperate. Ushers must be up to their duty”
For the vision to be a reality, Olalekan reeled out the modus operandi noting, “For us to achieve this number of membership we need to establish 400,000 units of 100 persons per unit. A unit consists of 100 persons meaning that if there is a parish where the membership is not up to 100 it is not a unit. This will give us 40 million souls.”
He also noted in the presentation that workers in the church will have to give sacrificially towards achieving the goal of soul-winning.
According to him, the church can’t be built on tithe alone. He said the funds being remitted to the headquarters by parishes are used to sponsor mission work across the world including Europe and the US.
