Despite some challenges, our prayers have helped to sustain Nigeria – PFN President
Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) recently rolled out the drums to celebrate its 40 years of existence. The body had a thanksgiving, celebration and veterans’ award service with the theme ‘PFN Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’ at the Redemption Camp to thank God for His goodness, kindness and mercy. In this interview with Bishop Francis Wale Oke, national president of PFN and Presiding Bishop/Founder/President of Christ Life Churches Worldwide, under the umbrella of The Sword of the Spirit Ministries, spoke on the impacts of PFN across the country in transforming lives, ensuring its members are agents of transformation through Biblical teachings, ameliorating the sufferings of the masses, attending to the needs of the less-privileged and positive impacts in governance. BLESSING ADIMABUA brings the excerpts:
PFN at 40, why did you roll out the drums to celebrate it?
We are celebrating because God has been faithful. God has blessed the PFN hugely and to a very great extent, the vision of the founding fathers of bringing the Pentecostal believers together in unity under one umbrella has been fulfilled and it’s been fulfilled from generation to generation. And PFN has made great, positive milestones and impact on our nation, Nigeria. One, in the preaching of the gospel, changing the hearts of people from evil to good, from sin to righteousness. Because the only weapon that can change the hearts of people is the gospel of Christ. When people receive the gospel of Christ, their lives change. We preach the gospel all over and God has blessed it. Also, we teach the people that only God through Jesus Christ saves, we disciple them to live godly lives. The Bible says, godliness with contentment is a great gain. So, we teach them to be true disciples of Christ and all over the nation in years. And then again, we pray for this nation every day. The Bible says, the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much. The prayer of the saints, is helping Nigeria. Nigeria would have collapsed but for the prayers of the people. One man of God, renowned man of God said, the only thing we need to do for the nation to collapse is to stop praying. The moment we stop praying, evil will take over. So, the prayers of our members, we have them in millions, have prevented the enemy, the evil, from taking over our nation. And we give glory to God for that. Also, we are thankful to God for huge landmark impacts PFN has made in this country. We cannot forget to mention a few landmarks that the PFN has stepped into in the nation, whether as an institution or as members of our fellowship. You talk about our impact on the educational sector, look around, count the number of Private universities, Christian universities, you will see that Pentecostals have the largest number of universities, private universities, Christian universities. You look at the secondary schools, Primary and Nursery schools, it’s the same way. Apart from the educational sector, we have also made a lot of impact even in the health sector, one of the earliest private health facilities was by our Archbishop Benson Idahosa of blessed memory in Benin. And it cuts across, whether by Pentecostal professionals or by the churches, as Pentecostals, we are making positive impacts in the educational sector, we are in the health sector, and even among the industrialists, we cannot forget about the impact of certain individuals who are industrialists in this nation and are Pentecostals. Now, you look at the political sector, we have major Pentecostals people in the political arena who are making major positive impacts, whether in the executive, legislative, or in the judiciary. The fact that they are there doing something major is an impact because what we teach them, what they learn from church, becomes a marketplace activity.
Can you tell us some of the teachings you give to your members that are transforming the nation?
The entire Pentecostal teaches the basics of the scriptures. We teach Salvation through the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ, we teach redemption back to God through Jesus Christ, we teach turning people back to God. This nation could have had several names worse than what it is today, but for God’s word that is being taught in churches, particularly in the Pentecostals. This nation is standing by God’s Grace through prayers, if with prayers we still have the challenges that we are having right now, without prayers what do you think our nation will have looked like.
What has been the positive impacts of PFN on this nation, Nigeria?
The impact of the Pentecostals is actually felt across different sectors in this Nation you know how many Pentecostals are governors, legislatures, even in the military, if the nation is getting certain results from them then they have helped the nation and we thank God for their lives. However, I think there is a need to begin to check our narrative about our country Nigeria. There are positive things in this country. Recently, there’s a rumour about coup, and everybody is standing up and saying, we don’t want coup. It should not happen in this nation. We are seated in this office, criticizing government, making presentation. It’s because we are in democracy. Bring in the military, everybody will know the difference. There are good things in Nigeria, and we should begin to identify those things, talk about them, even as we talk about the things that we want to be improved upon. The aspect of just talking always about negative things is not actually right, because if Nigeria is as bad as what we think, none of us would still be here.
40 years of existence, what should Nigerians expect from PFN as a Christian body going forward?
We will keep praying for Nigeria. We will do more of it because our nation needs more prayers, and until we get to the El Dorado, where we can say it is Uhuru, we will not stop praying for this nation because the importance of prayer cannot be overemphasised. Secondly, we will continue to teach more of the things that can help Nigerians to be who they ought to be, from the perspectives of the scriptures. There’s so much the scripture has to teach about righteousness that exalts a nation. There’s so much the scripture has to teach about living right with our neighbours. There’s so much the scripture has to teach about peace in our nation, as well as governance in our nation. And we are looking forward, by the grace of God, to bring those things up much more. We will intensify effort to teach the people the need for a rebirth in our nation in different aspects. Though the rebirth won’t happen overnight, undoubtedly, you keep building, just as we emphasised during our last Biennial conference, there is a need for a rebirth in this country, and we’ll keep teaching on that.
40 years of existence is a milestone, how are you uniting the body?
By God’s grace, PFN is one body and one of our key purposes for coming together is that we might be one. One of Jesus Christ’s prayers in John Chapter 17 is that the church may be one. If, as at that time, Jesus was praying for the unity of the church, it means that he saw a challenge ahead, and he was talking to the Father to do all things and ensure that the church that is coming out of him come together as one. We are ensuring that with true Biblical teachings, true exemplary Christian life we work together to achieve God’s purpose and we keep building it up more and more. Our capacity, by the grace of God, to be able to bring the different leaders in the Pentecostal together, and be able to have teachings, buildings, praying, dialogue among ourselves, resolving issues that come our way, have all been yielding positive purposes.
Insecurity has been a major challenge in this country; in what way has PFN been helping in stemming this?
Like I said, our strongest weapon is spiritual; we are praying to God, we believe God is answering our prayers, and we shall continue to pray; however, that does not mean we don’t have other things that we do.
Most times, we help to douse the tension in the nation by talking to our people about the need to see what we can do with all hands on deck to fight insecurity, with the government taking the lead.
What are your major contributions of PFN to move Nigeria forward and better the lots of Nigerians?
We are praying for Nigeria and Nigerians in and outside the country, irrespective of their religious affiliations, ethnic biases or tribe, we pray for the government at all levels. We pray for the world at large. We propagated the need for unity and oneness in this country, irrespective of religious affiliations, tribe or ethnic differences.
We teach our people to have a positive commitment to the growth of this nation. Also, the level of awareness that we are also giving our people about governance and the politics is a major contribution of the PFN. I’ll give you an example. We now have a department in the PFN, called the Department of Politics and Governance, headed by a former Deputy speaker of the House of Assembly, who is now a preacher, a pastor, a prominent person in Nigeria. Reverend Femi Emmanuel, that Department is educating Pentecostals, educating churches to see the need to enter into governance and show practical examples of how things ought to be done. That department is synthesizing and encouraging Pentecostals not to leave governance just to the people, because if you don’t enter into the ring, you can’t join in the fight. We do not want to stay only at the point of praying, we want to prayerfully raise people who have Godly character and the godliness that can be presented in the marketplace to show example of what Christian living is, even in the public square. That department has done so much in not only educating Pentecostals and the Church of Jesus Christ on the issue of politics, but making Pentecostals to see the need to be part of governance from the point of election, participating in political activities, to the point of being elected into office, and then getting there and showing the practicality of how governance ought to be.
I think that is a major contribution, because in the 40 years of the PFN, we’ve not had things like that. If you do know that early in the Christian faith, you hear people say, politics and Christianity do not go together, you leave it for them, for the people. But we have now found out that rather than talking and praying for the people alone, we need to go in there, we need to teach people to see the need to vote and be voted for, as well as being part of governance by taking elective offices, and see to it that by the reason of what such individuals achieve in governance, project the image of Jesus Christ, and of course, the Pentecostal. Before now, there’s this apathy, there’s this no politics in church thing, you don’t have to do anything with politics, ‘it’s for them’ thing, then, and that has thrown people into governance that we eventually cannot control.
