Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor is the founder, Word of Life Bible Church, Warri and was a former president of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). As an erstwhile leader of leaders of all the Christian bodies as well as the entire Christian population in the country, he could not wish less but for the growth of the church in the country. However, much as he would like to expand and populate all parts of Nigeria church, he had reservations about how this is being done by some of his comrades-in-the-vineyard. In this interview, Oritsejafor opens up on some of what he considers inappropriate in missionary work and shared his own experience of priesthood. Excerpts:
You have been at the pulpit for over four decades, how has the journey been?
TRYING but exciting. Uncertain but today, I can say fulfilling. Adventurous but today, I can say I can see clearly now. I am grateful to God. One thing i would say to young people, don’t do anything if you are not sure, its God. The way I see people getting into the ministry today, is very troubling to me. As a leader of Christians in this country I am very troubled. As a leader of the youngest move of God, which is the Pentecostal Movement, I am very troubled.
Why are you troubled?
We are almost an uncontrollable group of people and the way it is, is because we have had an experience which is called the Holy Spirit experience; which is good. The problem that has come out of it is that when people cough, they say it’s the Holy Spirit. How do you challenge a man who says he’s motivated by the Holy Spirit? This is what we have done to the Pentecostal Movement and it is very painful. The consolation God gave me is that for every move of the church, there had been teething and trying periods; beginning with the great Roman Catholic Church to the protestant, the Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, to the Presbyterian, Baptist and so on. There are trials, problems that happened so long ago that people don’t really know.
How and what was your turning point into Christianity and, by implications, priesthood?
The turning point in my life was the day I gave my life to Christ which changed everything. I believe that change begins from the inside. One of the reasons Nigeria is struggling today is because the transformation agenda we are talking about is not yet focused at persons and who they are from the inside. The constitutional amendment they are currently talking about, I don’t believe, is the problem of Nigeria. You can amend it, but who will implement the new one? Is it not the same people who have been using the old one? Everything about change must begin from the inside. If the man inside doesn’t change the man outside won’t change either. The turning point of my life was the day I took that decision in Sapele to give my life to Christ, because suddenly I saw myself the way I really was. A clear picture came to me and I realized why I was living that way. It’s because I was living my life without God. I was trying to live my life the best way I could without realizing there is a better way. There is an invisible person that influences us as Christians even when you don’t see anybody. That was how the change in my life began because the places I used to go I stopped going there and the people I used to move with I stopped, since the changes on the inside did not agree with those kinds of people. I bought a bible and I started seeing life in a different light as my eyes opened to better possibilities.
We will like you to relive your experience at the Church of God Mission where the turning point actually started?
I will never forget Church of God Mission because that was where I became a Christian. I was in the Baptist church but I knew nothing about God. I gave my life to Christ under the ministry of the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa and immediately became an active part of the church. One thing I would be grateful to God for about that man was that he was able to identify potentials in people. I knew him from the day I gave my life to Christ but the day I had the closest encounter that changed my entire life with him was during an evening service in Benin; the place was packed and he wanted a song and I jumped out to lead the song. By the time I finished that ministration, he asked me;”Who are you” I told him my name and he said;”I know your mother. Tell your mother I want to see you. I want to see her too.” That was how a very close contact started and I started coming to his home and spending a few days there even when I had returned to Sapele. He liked me. I became assistant pastor and very vibrant but there were certain situations I don’t want to get into, that led me to go to the Baptist seminary. He didn’t like it. However, when I returned, my heart was to start a church and I went on a seven-day fast. But on the fifth day the lord said to me:”Break the fast. I have answered your prayer.” So, I had to break the fast and the very next day I had a knock on my door and it was Archbishop Idahosa with three other persons. It was strange to me. He asked me what I wanted to do now, but I couldn’t answer him. So he said, you must be a pastor in Church of God Mission. “You don’t have a choice. I didn’t come to ask you. I came tell you.”The way he said it, there was no room for discussion. He added: “When I leave here, I am going to see your mother to tell her the same thing. The interesting aspect was that God spoke to me later: “That’s why I told you to break the fast that I have already answered your prayer.” That was how I came back to the Church of God Mission where I was asked to start a church. In six months my branch in Sapele became the largest in CGM as a whole.
How did Word of Life Bible Church come into being?
When I got saved God ministered to me, saying that at a time I would go back to my beginning. I was born in Lagos where I started my early life. So I started thinking immediately I left Church of God Mission so that I would go back to Lagos. I didn’t understand that my beginning was right here. My plan was to move to Lagos because that was home or so I thought. But in my usual way of doing things I had to pray just to get proper clearance from God. I prayed and He said: “Son, you are not going anywhere.” I was discouraged because all my things were already packed. I prayed again but God still said “This is home. You are not going anywhere. This is the beginning.” That was one experience I will never forget. So I had to start Word of Life Bible Church.
How was it starting it and what were the challenges?
It was rough, because I had nobody I could call my own. There were just one or two people that I could send a message. To find money to rent a place………look, it was rough! I didn’t have anything. There were those who were just laughing at me, saying ‘you are crazy. You are stupid.’ But I took the risk because this was God’s mind for me. After I prayed, I settled it. I fixed the date at that time being a military era, you couldn’t preach on TV, so I couldn’t even make any announcements on TV. Radio and TV stations would not accept any religious advertisement. So what I did was to hire a microphone and one horn speaker and mounted them on a rickety vehicle with one o f my cousins who likes talking inside the vehicle. While the vehicle was driving round Warri, she was announcing the beginning of Word of Life Bible Church. Do you know that even at that I was afraid of what was going to happen on the inaugural day which was a Sunday. I intentionally fixed it on a Sunday because I knew it was a day of worship and those who want to come would come. I left my house late that day because of fear, but to my greatest surprise there were people there and I spent most of the service weeping: not out of sorrow as such but rather it was joy. I didn’t know that people would turn up but they did. I immediately announced a two-week prayer seminar, which started the next day, Monday. Pastor John Ahre of Life Christian Centre in Ughelli sang for me that day a song he reckoned I loved so much; “Lean on me.” The next day, I started the prayer seminar and whatever offering we gathered we used to make one or two chairs. I got carpenters around who were coming to our aid. Little by little we gradually developed until we moved to where we are today.
