By Alté Jay and Okereke Udoakpuenyi, YeyeNews.com, October 9, 2021
With the recent controversy resulting from his sudden dismissal of 40 pastors from his church, founder of Living Faith Church Worldwide, Bishop David Oyedepo has made another shocking move by suspending tithe and offering from his church on Wednesday while addressing the congregation after rubbishing rumors that he had sacked the pastors because of their low turnout of revenue.
“The lord has blessed me tremendously,” he said while addressing the congregation, “I am a billionaire by his grace. I have fleets of expensive cars, private jets, and even a yacht. What more do I need money for? My church has thousands of staff and we have never owed them or taken an overdraft to pay them. Even this church stops functioning the Lord has blessed me enough so that my net worth is enough to pay all my employees for the next 20 years.”
It will be recalled that the issue of tithe has been at the forefront of every debate that has to do with “Prosperity Teachings” of the Pentecostal movements all over the world. YeyeNews.com learned that so many pastors all over the world, particularly those in poor countries like Nigeria, have been accused of using tithe to enrich themselves at the expense of the mostly poor church goers.
The cleric further revealed that he sacked the pastors because they were unfruitful and not winning enough souls for God, and that his church has no patience for failure. “We are after souls not income,” he said. “We have never lacked money even though we have never prayed for it. And to prove that the Devil is a terrible liar, we are suspending the payment of tithes and offerings for now,” he further added.
YeyeNews.com learned that since Bishop Mike Okonkwo, Presiding Bishop of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM), revealed in a confession in March 2018 that pastors use threat of curses to force church members to pay tithe, all has not been quiet in the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN). “So many pastors know that the teaching has ‘K-leg’ and want to stop it but don’t know how to tell their members that they were wrong in teaching it to start with. If you tell them, the question will be “So you have been lying to us?”; “What other lies did you tell us?” So, it is a very difficult situation”, one pastor who wants to remain anonymous told YeyeNews.com.
Another pastor who is also a financial security analyst for a firm in Lagos who spoke to YeyeNews.com expressed his love for Bishop Mike Okonkwo and said that he was a true man of God for recognizing his mistakes, confessing and repenting. She called on other pastors in PFN to follow Bishop’s example and confess their sins of deceptions, intimidations, robberies, obtaining by tricks, general fraud, and so on. “If Winners Chapel or Redeemed church was a public company listed on Nigeria Stock Exchange, EFCC would be all over them long time ago’, she said.
Another pastor, a media personality and an opponent of tithe imposition on Christians, told YeyeNews.com that perhaps Bishop Oyedepo had decided to repent and this suspension was his subtle way of beginning to stop the wrong teachings and interpretations of the scripture. “Let us pray that very soon every PFN pastor will be as bold as Bishop Mike Okonkwo”, he said.
