Embrace technology, church leaders told at digital conference

Churchplus digital conference

Pastor Oladimeji and Peter Ihesie

By Wilson Adekumola

The CEO, Church Management Consult, Pst. Seyi Oladimeji has charged church leaders to avail themselves the use of technology even as the world is bracing up for a new world order.

He gave the charge at the maiden edition of Digital Church Conference, powered by Churchplus, theme, “Disruptive Digital Technology and the Church,”

The event held on February 20, 2020 at the banquet hall of National Theatre, Orile-Iganmu, Lagos.

Churchplus is a nondenominational organization established about seven years ago with its headquarter at 3^rd Floor, Tapa House, Imam Dauda Street, Off Eric Moore, Surulere, Lagos.

It’s vision is to sensitize the church on the need to use technology in carrying out their church activities.

Oladimeji, who was the keynote speaker at the event, observed that mode of preaching will take a new dimension in the near future urging church leaders to learn how to use the social media.

He said, “Messages will not be preached in the four walls of the church as usual. Internet will take the front doors instead. There will be multisites to replace branches and the same message will be disseminated due to technology. Networks will begin to grow among pastors.”

While advising participants at the event to learn how to use social media, he said the first place of call for people will be the internet even before coming to the physical structure of the church.

He also predicted a change of baton between the old and the new generation preachers, “The issue of succession is going to be paramount in the church of the future. As the founders are growing old they have to take the back seat for the new generation to take over. If the Pentecostal churches don’t take care, the new generation will take over as it happened to the Orthodox Church. The youth will definitely find their way out.

In his own words, Pastor Adeleke Adekoya, said the changes that will happen to future will include the name of a church is named, church location, disciplinary strategy and style of worship.

The banker-pastor who talked on the topic, “Exploring digital motivation in church and how one can leverage for growth”, urged the ministers of God to be “configured relevant”. “You have to be configure relevant. You must repackage and restructure what you have to be relevant to your generation. There must be digital content so that the sermon can be available for those who were not physically present in the church.” He reasoned.

Speaking with Church Times at the event, the convener, Peter Ihesie, a Software Architect and Developer who is also the founder of Churchplus, said “what we want to achieve is to work with the media team of the churches to enlighten them on how we can leverage on social media as a tool, just like every other tool we have, we must know how to use it.”

While explaining the concept of the conference, he said, “In this conference we want the church to understand this tool to be able to engage, to be able to connect and to be able to win a lot of souls to the Lord through social media. To achieve this, we need to get industry experts that understand how it is done and get them to the church. We also need to get churches that are already using these tools, let them share their practical experience on how to use this technology so that all of us can learn and begin to adopt it in our ministry. Though some still see technology as from the devil, they should realize that even Jesus Christ used technology of his days when he was in the world. Our goal is to provide technology to help Nigerian Churches and give them tools that will help them improve their ministry. That is what the conference is all about.”

He said the programme has impacted a lot of churches. “I can give you names of churches that are using our software and they are communicating more, getting better with vision making. Now, most churches are already using our software. Like I told you, Churchplus was established about 7years ago. We have not just started just that we have not held tremendous event like this. I am grateful that we are able to impact lives and by His grace we can only get better.”