…Aggrieved members tried hard but failed to stop programme
Over the years, members of the Assemblies of God Nigeria look forward to the coming of their annual Peniel Revival Convention.
This year was not any different although the members had at the back of their mind the leadership crisis rocking the church as they came for the annual prayers.
Thus when the 2014 Peniel Revival Convention approached, most of the faithful were armed to come to the convention ground to pray for the crisis to end.
However, as the day for the convention approached, there were moves by the aggrieved members to scuttle the annual event.
There were several text messages, Internet messages, and phone calls, as well as other means used by those who were determined to truncate the convention, yet it turned out a successful outing.
As the convention kicked off in the penultimate week, over 80,000 members of Assemblies of God stormed the Evangel Camp, Okpoto in Ishielu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State for the event.
Indeed, the majority of the worshippers came to seek God’s intervention in their leadership crisis which has raged unabated.
The suspended General Superintendent of the Church, Rev. (Dr) Paul Emeka was absent; so the acting General Superintendent, Rev. (Dr) Chidi Okoroafor, was in charge and officiated.
Also a former General Superintendent of the Church, Rev. (Dr) Charles Osueke and his wife and other clergy men from across the country and beyond attended the convention adjudged to be a huge success.
As the programme began, the major messages given were on agents of revival, wind and casualties, extra-mile for heights, uprooting the seed of hatred, the price, the fire of God, God of judgment, the power of revival, the virus of sin, the barrenness of a busy life and power night dangerous trade by barter, among others.
During the power night, over 600 worshipers received the Holy Spirit and many people were healed.
The church also used the event to organise a fund raising for its Evangel University, as well as Ebola sensitization by Dr Okechukwu Okonkwo of Greenfield Health Management Limited who spoke on the prevention, signs and symptoms of the disease, urging the church members to take precaution in Ebonyi State.
Rev. Okoroafor while preaching on the theme, ‘Revival Fire,’ urged the Church to eschew politics and focus on evangelism, warning the faithful to desist from feasting while the souls are perishing.
According to him, “If you get into a position that God did not give you, it is either you kill the position or the position will kill you. Every believer must pray, walk, and work towards being agent of revival. The storm is over and we are back to God’s vineyard. The spirit of the Lord speaks expressly to the Assemblies of God of the need for a great return unto him. The rapture is very close yet the church is sick. If the Lord returns today, shall He find faith.
“Men seekers shall be disappointed but seekers of God shall find Him. They shall have unusual new but positive experience. Every water that has come down to quench the zeal and commitment of the Church must be leaked or dried up as the fire of God comes. Let the fire Oh Lord in our days let us see revival.”
He noted that it was high time the members of the church realized that they must be one to carry on God’s assignment, stressing that agents of fragmentation were not working for God and His Church.
Rev. Okoroafor urged the suspended General Superintendent of the Church turn a new leaf, adding that God is a God of judgment and those who destroy and deceive their fellow men cannot escape or survive God’s judgment.
“We have traded evangelism, church growth and missions for pursuit of position, money, entertainment and pleasure. This gave the devil an inroad to the church. It is time for the great return to our main assignment and purpose, Oh Lord! Take over your church,” he prayed.
Later in an interview, Rev. Okoroafor said that the crisis and Peniel made the church to become stronger.
“Our heart desire is that God will bring back to life teeming faithfulness that we shall be active and begin to carry on God’s assignment for the church. Winning the hearts of the faithful and bring back the dead bones to life so that the church will stand as a giant and begin to move forward again.
“Look at the weather, God gave us three days clement weather, meaning that heaven is interested in what we are doing today, look at people from the North, from the East, from the West and from South gathered here irrespective of the efforts of detractors to stop the Peniel programme through bulk SMS and text messages that we should stop the programme that there is a suit pending in the court, telling people not to attend.
“Peniel is a meeting of the church, how can you say that the church will close, it is not possible. It is even through prayer that God can intervene in our situation. Nigeria will not close down because we have internal problem likewise the church, nobody can stop the church from gathering, let me tell you that persecution is as old as the church, persecution does not scatter the church but makes the church stronger and more strengthened. That whatever the devil has bastardized will be destroyed and the church will move forward and carry on her God-given assignment.
“The crisis is a family problem; it shouldn’t have gone out of the church because there is no family that doesn’t have internal problems. I want to say that it is the enemies that did that by taking over the crisis and over blow it, sending it across to the media and social media, it is very unfortunate. The church is marching on, the gate of hell cannot prevail against the church. You must have seen the crowd; we have not seen this type of crowd in the history of the Peniel convention which means that the church has resolved to come together as one and move forward without allowing the crisis to set us back. I want to say that the crisis has duration and it is not something that will last forever, it rather makes us stronger and stronger. And Assemblies of God Nigeria will come out of this crisis stronger than ever,” he said.
On what the church is doing to resolve the crisis, Okoroafor said: “The church has a constitution and a process of doing things, whoever is concerned should follow due process. For instance, Assemblies of God suspended somebody who erred and Assemblies of God noted for this, the human founder of the church was suspended, other great people were suspended and then they came back by following the due process feeling sorry for what they have done and the church will receive them back.
“Let me tell you, you don’t win Assemblies of God by attacking them, you rather win the church by submitting, if you submit to the leadership and to the church, then the church can open up, but you insist on fighting the church through the court, through various ways, then fighting the church means fighting God and nobody can ever conquer God.
“So, the best thing to do is to follow the due process because it the constitution of the Assemblies of God that brought us and kept all of us together. Let me tell you, suspension has no duration in the Assemblies of God; somebody may be suspended in the morning service and reinstated in the evening service. We are where we are today because of the attitude of the suspended GS and that is why it has lasted. Any moment the attitude of the suspended changes, the church will know the appropriate thing to do. It is either the church will submit to the suspended or the suspended will submit to the church,” he said.
The Chairman and Coordinator of 2014 Peniel Rivival Convention, Rev. (Arc.) Sam McJaphet, described this year’s programme as the most successful and well attended since the beginning of the programme.
He said that the turnout was to prove to those who want to destroy the church of God that people still have faith in God not in man, as well as to prove to doubting Thomases that the gate of hell would not prevail over the gate of God, adding that the Church of God must move forward despite the plans of evil men among the church.
“The aim of the Peniel is to put the church in a platform for a renewal, actually Peniel means coming face to face with God, the founder of Peniel, Rev. Dr. Charles Osueke will say that ‘Peniel is exposing God to the people and exposing the people to God’. So, when such a thing happens, impossibilities are bound to be turned around. We have about 600 people baptized in the Holy Spirit last night. In the healing service, a woman with twisted feet and paralyzed hand was healed on the spot and a man who has been operated because of prostate cancer and he could not walk because of the operation and could only walk with clutches, he was called up in the healing night and he saw himself running and climbing the staircase and he was healed. So, many others that their healings took place that we didn’t have time to take their testimony.
‘The former General Superintendent doesn’t believe in this year’s programme, he had officiated three Peniels since 2011, as you know since March 2014 he was suspended in office as the General Superintendent. This is a programme we did not believe that this type of crowd will attend but to God be glory, the hall was over filled and some people were outside, the purpose of the programme was realized, we had over 80, 000 worshipers that attended this programme,” he said.
Also Rev. Etim Okon from Calabar District said: “I am here for Peniel, it is our annual revival programme for the church. Peniel 2014 is glorious, in fact, of all the Peniels I have been attending, I have never seen them this way, this one is so glorious and beautiful, and it is incomparable.
“What made it different were the messages, prayers and the turnout. There is joy, everybody is jubilating, and everybody rejoices, in fact, the fire of the Holy Spirit came down. The crisis is helping the Peniel to grow and I can say that the crisis is over because the crisis is human made, it was not from God. What we see is God coming into the church to build the church, so we are strengthened, we are reviving and we are helped. In short, I don’t see any crisis here, there is nothing like crisis, whatever that happened, happened because somebody has decided to give himself over to the devil. God says that I will build my church and the gate of hell will not prevail against it. That implies that actually the gate of hell is there and is trying to destroy the church.”
Also speaking, Rev. Ndubuisi Ogbonna Michael from Umuahia Central District said: “People came from all walks of life to this programme and they are really eating food from the throne of the Lord. This is the largest crowd or turnout of Peniel since inception, the crisis in the church did not touch the convention and will never affect the church. The crisis is on a personal basis and not for the church, the church stands for God and we will continue to stand for God, so it doesn’t affect it and it will not affect it.”
Also, Evangelist All-is-Well Bethel from Ekwere District Rivers State said: “It has been wonderful, the grace of God has been in our mist and there is nobody that has been here that had not been a beneficiary of what God is doing. The ministers we have here are well loaded and the organization par excellence. Many of us were threatened that the programme will not hold through text messages that we should not be here, but God at work led each and every one of us here successfully.
“When we came here it was not what we expected that we saw but God in action, many have been blessed, during the night of baptizism of the Holy Spirit we saw over 600 receiving the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, the other night was healing service, many people were healed. Even among the apostles, God allows crisis because he wants to do a new thing, some crises came for God to do a new thing and make the church grow and be strengthened”.
Source: Sun
