Leke
Beecroft takes you through a series on the growth of the Liberation
Commission known as Winners’ Chapel International from a group of 70 in
the ‘Power House’ in 1981 to a Church of 3 ½ people by December 1983 to
becoming one of the wealthiest and largest spiritual armies emerging out
of Africa.
One of the unique factors about the ministry of
Bishop David Oyedepo, Presiding Bishop of the Living Faith Church
Worldwide is the message of prosperity which though heavily derided and
mocked in the past and even heavily criticised up till now is no longer
disputable. It would seem that the issue many might have with the
prosperity message now is ‘How much prosperity exactly is enough’. It
was thus mind blowing when Bishop Oyedepo declared that The Living
Faith Church Worldwide will soon displace the largest financial
institutions in the world, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well
as the Paris Club also known as the World Bank.
In a
Sunday service, he declared ‘’very soon and surely before Jesus comes,
we (Winners Chapel) shall be strong as Paris club; we shall be above
IMF.’’ He added ‘’the Federal Government has spent N9 Billion to build 6
universities, that is how much we have spent so far on Landmark
University alone’’. Church Gist. As at 2016, over $200 Million had been
spent on the university. He said that church members will shortly be so
blessed that there will be serious parking problems for helicopters in
the church premises. It will be interesting to note that IMF and Paris
club are two of the richest organisations in the world and they give
loans to many countries including Nigeria. As of 2010, the IMF, the
richer of the two organisations was worth $266 Billion with about $65
Billion of that already loaned to different countries.
1ST PHASE OF =N=2.5 TRILLION HOUSING PROJECT BEGINS
The Living Faith Church Worldwide recently commenced a mind boggling
15,000 Housing project to be situated in Canaan land, Ota, Ogun State
which is going to be the largest housing scheme in Africa and second
world over. Dr Oyedepo, made the first announcement to this effect in
December 2007 during the Church’s Annual Shiloh event. Church Gist.
During the Shiloh 2016 Anointing service, he announced it again while
slide pictures of the project were displayed on the large church
screens.
DOMINION AIR HANGAR
The church presently owns 3 aircraft and previously, had paid heavy
parking charges at the airport. A member of the church once tried to
help ease the situation by providing temporary parking for one of the
jets. This soon spurred the leadership of the church to buy land at the
airport for the construction of a hangar. Precisely in June 2010,
Dutum Construction Company, the firm who built the Landmark University
College of Social Sciences commenced construction of the church hangar
and final costs rose to about =N=350 million.
Kenneth and
Gloria Copeland, mentors to Bishop Oyedepo and regarded by many as the
most financially successful pastors in the world as at today, run the
Eagle Mountain International church aka Kenneth Copeland ministries
which owns the Kenneth Copeland airport. Kenneth Copeland airport is
located eighteen miles (29km) northwest of the central business district
(CBD) of forth worth, in Tarrant country, Texas, USA. The airport is
used solely for general aviation purposes, mainly those of Kenneth
Copeland’s ministry which is located near the airport. Church Gist. The
airport was formerly known as Marine Corps station air station eagle
Mountain Lake, until it was purchased by Bishop Oyedepo announced on
March 20, 2011 that the church had acquired a new aircraft. As the
aircraft arrived, the two older ones were sold off like it happened to
the first one in 2004. The aircraft have been very functional given the
fact that during evangelism visits, the Bishop and his team of pastors
on regular occasions visit up to 4 or 5 countries weekly, almost every
week, the aircraft jets out of the country for missionary work according
to our airport sources and always returns to base in Nigeria every
weekend to enable preparations for Sunday services. It is impossible to
maintain such a travel routine with normal commercial airlines while
chartered aircraft are extremely expensive.
100,000 CAPACITY AUDITORIUM-FAITH THEATRE
On
December 11th 2010, Bishop Oyedepo declared that the Faith Tabernacle
had become too small and there was need to move to a bigger place. The
congregation gasped. Many in attendance also weren’t sure they heard
properly. Also, Bishop Oyedepo announced to the pastors of the church a
plan to build a 100,000 capacity auditorium. Again, he announced that
the Tabernacle as functional as it was, had become inadequate. It will
be remembered that movement in 1999 to Faith Tabernacle was because the
Winners Chapel in Iyana Ipaja, Lagos had begun to run 4 separate
services since her capacity had been exhausted. Furthermore, he stated
‘don’t you think that we have to be in this sanctuary (50,000 sitter)
forever, we have to start planning how to build another one. You say
‘’what are they going to build?’’ just relax! When the plans comes,
you’re going to see the plan and the same one who built this (50,000
sitter) without putting pressure on you or me will do it again. We can’t
end in a small sanctuary like this. He (God) couldn’t be bringing all
those people and expect that we would be here… for how long? So we have 5
services? Start service at 4am? Or 7 services then you start at 12
midnight?.....we will be stupid not to build another one because the
present enlargement is for 7 years. We will also build a place for
helicopters to land and there will be no place where we will have
helicopters as much as we will have here for Sunday services.
The
church structure is broken into provinces, districts and zone with
about 10 to 20 cells forming a zone. There are about 28,000 cells
presently. Church Gist. During the past Shiloh 2015 and 2016 events
respectively, the construction of the 100,000 seat church as well as
plans for members to buy the Canaancity homes were announced.
As
part of efforts to fill up the new structure on arrival, the Bishop
announced that the church’s target was to achieve a goal of minimum of
600,000 members (from 140,000) at the Faith Tabernacle. By 2015,
attendance had crossed 400,000. The new target is 3 services on
commencement of the use of Faith Theatre. Faith Theatre will have a
100,000 overflow capacity facility.
EFFECTIVE MASS TRANSIT SYSTEM The
church has plans to start a Lagos-Ota rail system to ensure easy
transportation of members. The Nigerian government formally announced
the approval in August, 2011 for private establishments to invest in
rail transportation. Governor Amosun of Ogun State reiterated this
during Bishop Oyedepo’s 60th birthday in 2014. Presently however, the
WINNERS HIGHWAY, a four-lane expressway of over 20km that will link
Ayobo to Lagos is being constructed and a trip from Ota to Ayobo which
will normally take at least one hour will now take about 30 minutes once
this road has been completed. NEW UNIVERSITY The
church has commenced the construction of her 3rd university.
Investigations revealed that the initial plan had been to build the
third university in Calabar, Cross River state, before building the
fourth in Abuja, the Federal Capital. However, due to the Nigerian
governments desire to have a ‘world class’ university situated in the
capital, pressure was mounted on the church authorities to reconsider
and locate the third institution in Abuja and these may well have paid
off. The National Universities Commission (NUC) thus visited Goshen, the
site of the proposed university along the Abuja-Nassarawa Expressway.
It was reported that they were impressed with the facilities they met on
ground at the sight and the church authorities quickly corrected their
impression and told them that the university construction was only about
to begin and that the structures on ground were strictly for other
church objectives. Requirements for the university construction is
already available for deployment by the church which is known not to
accept loans. Oyedepo stated that the university, just like Landmark
University will be built without taking a single offering. The
university may turn out better than her predecessors in terms of
infrastructure by the time construction is completed.
WE ARE NOT COMPETING Bishop
Oyedepo has stated firmly that the Church is not in competition with
anybody. Speaking during the last Covenant Hour of Prayer service, he
stated "This current move of the Holy Spirit is not a church ambition
neither is it a competition with any church or nation. This is not about
building the largest church auditorium on the earth. We are not out to
make any name". Bishop Oyedepo said the whole agenda presently being
pursued by the Church started in May 2nd 2015 when God told him "I THE
GOD OF WONDER DOUBLE, I AM VISITING YOU".
He said God showed
him plenty planes in April 1982 and when he asked, God said to him
"These are aircraft with you inside, bearing the gospel to the nations
of the World". According to the Bishop "We are in pursuit of Divine
Agenda and no one can stop divine agenda from coming to pass". Bishop
Oyedepo reminded that God had also told him in 1982 that very soon,he
will see millions gathering and stated that 179 nations were already
regularly connected to the Church services at Faith Tabernacle online.
He said the Church was on her way to her realm of millions and that it
was not the case of one big church doing a big thing but purely the
'Great God' unfolding his plan. In the growth of the Church lies the glory of the Church In the growth of the Church lies the glory of the Saints Every move of the Spirit moves people forward said Bishop Oyedepo in summary.
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