For many years after he left the Living Faith Church A.K.A. Winners’ Chapel, Pastor Simeon Afolabi had his ministry’s operational base in Portharcourt. He started the Firstlove Assembly shortly after he left Winners’ Chapel and was in the city of Portharcourt doing God’s bidding.
But about a year ago, the Lord led him to start a branch of the church in Lagos. Coming to Lagos for him was not a tea party as stated in an interview with this medium about a year ago; neither was he trying to join the bandwagon of pastors who believe that Lagos is where the action is.
He told our correspondent at the one year anniversary of the church in Lagos that the vision of the church “is to lead sinners to the way of salvation, and saints to the knowledge of apostolic values and standards” That has been his engagement since he came to Lagos last June.
For Afolabi that vision is coming to fruition. He notes, “The story of the church is that of God’s favour, preservation and provision. We have seen God raise a number of dedicated families who presently constitute the core of our operations.”
One of the favours he has received from God is the provision of an office space for the operation of the ministry in Lagos. While he was contemplating how they would secure a place, an offer came and it turned out that the person who owns the property is a woman who had religiously kept faith with the ministry for 10 years through a copy of the Bread and Wine devotional it publishes.
The woman, according to Afolabi had got a copy of the devotional in 2005 and had gone over it several times. She had also wished she would meet the person behind it. So, getting to know that the church was interested in her property was a divine arrangement and a way of God confirming that he was behind the coming of the church to Lagos.
While stressing that God has gone ahead of the church to prepare a place for it, Afolabi observes that coming to Lagos for the church means hard work. “For us it is like building a ministry from zero level despite the fact that the Lord has established us very well in Portharcourt. We are not growing with existing church members of other denominations but rather the Lord is leading people to us who have passion for the work and we are beginning to build a body of believers who have respect for the truth of the gospel.”
He laments that the church today has found itself in the same situation Jerusalem found itself in the days of Nehemiah. “The walls were broken down and gates burned with fire. The glorious city was reduced to rubbles and had become the butt of cruel jokes by surrounding gentile nations. Then came the call to rebuild. Today also there is a clarion call to rebuild several aspects of the church, and not just rebuild according to any man’s fancy but in tandem with God’s old pattern for His church. Our hunger is to see Christianity delivered from the psychobabble it has been reduced to in many quarters by wolves falsely called shepherds”
He reiterates that the church was called Firstlove because of its passion for the body of Christ to go back to the old landmark as laid down by the apostles. He affirms, “We are committed to seeing a generation of believers who will love the Lord the way the first century believers did. Of this group we can say the believers exchanged the love of self for the love of God. And in loving the Lord they loved him to the point of death. This form of unselfish, untainted love is what must be brought back. And this is what we will do by His grace.”
Afolabi who was one of the leading pastors in the Winners’ Chapel before the Lord called him to a fresh work observed that the Lagos terrain is more challenging because of the traffic situation. He however pointed out that the need to go back to the basics of Christianity cannot be over-flogged. “The situation of the church is robbing off on the country. We have lost certain values in the country. The way to go forward is for the church to go back from where we fell and make amends of our ways.”
He describes the state of the church as worrisome noting that there is a need to redefine the word success. “Many of our leaders need a reorientation of what it means to succeed. Many of us see success from the material standpoint. But that is not success. The beginning of success is to stay in the will of God and to obey His direction
He asserts, “If you lose the basics of a thing you will struggle for a long time. That is why we are in the situation we are in Nigeria. The church has a big role to play in the country. The problem we have in the church is a reflection of the problem of the country. Nigeria is building on falsehood. We are in a country that does not have statistics to work with. Half of the houses in Nigeria have no addresses and there are no records of people that can help government to make plans.”
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