The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Jesus Assembly Zone, Lagos Province 29, Alakuko, Lagos, recently dedicated its new building purchased at the cost N55million. Pastor Joseph Adeyokunnuin charge of RCCG, Region 31, who represented the General Overseer of the church, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, dedicated the Church. The Pastor-in-charge of Jesus Assembly Zone, BODE OLAWUNMI, who doubles as the Assistant Pastor-in-Charge of Province (APICP), Admin, in a chat with CHRIS IREKAMBA revealed what necessitated the purchase and other issues.
Why is today a special day for you and your members?
Today, we are celebrating the glory of God who helped us to purchase a building amid economic hardship. In fact, God helped us to buy and renovate the building and, today, we are dedicating it to God.
Before now, all of us both adult and the children clustered in the old auditorium and space was a constraint. Sometimes, we put canopies outside for people to sit under, which was not good enough. So, theneed arose for us to expand the church andour drive for expansion led to the purchases of new building.
You can see, we have about 400 children every Sunday and we have to put them in different classes, so that, adults can have space to worship God.
What is the capacity of the new building?
The new building has two floors. The ground floor is forchildren, while upstairs would be used by adults and for some offices. In all the building can take about 1,300 worshippers— children, young people and adults.
What is the cost of the building?
The initial cost of the building was N55m, but we used same amount to renovate it.
Any advise for members as they have begun to use the building?
My admonition to members is that we don’t build because we have money; we build because we have God.If anyone looks at the economic situation, he/she will be discouraged to do things for God. He moves in His own way and not by our economy. In one way or the other, God will always provide for His projects; that is one thing I know.
What is your vision for the church?
Our vision is to align with the vision of the Redeemed Christian Church of God and that is to make heaven and to also take as many people as possible with us. Another, is to build churches in any five minutes walking distance.
What we teach our people is the vision of heaven and vision of faith because it takes faith to work with God.
God is a God of faith and he works in that direction.
What is the church doing for its members, especially the poor and needy?
You can ask any of our members and they will tell you what this church has been doing for the poor and needy. We have a lot of things that the Redeemed Christian Church of God allowed us to do and we call it, “Corporate Christian Responsibility” (CSR).
For example, we have paid the school fees of the children of our members. We also empower students to register for JAMB; in fact, no student in this pay for JAMB. To this also, we give food items to every member every month; sometimes we provide cooked food, too. Sometimes we give them foodstuff at reduced prices, for example, a loaf of bread that cost N1,500 could be bought at N500. At a time when a derica of rice was about N1,200 we gave it to our members at N400. We do this almost every month.
In addition to that, we empower people with special needs like house rent and other needs.
We have equally dug boreholes and provided potable water for the publicfor free.
What is the procedure for dedicating a church?
Of course, we have procedure in our church. Normally, all churches are dedicated by the General Overseer himself, but because of the spreading of the church to other locations across the country and the world, he has to appoint a representative in person of Pastor Joseph Adeyokunnu, Pastor-in-Charge of Region 31 to do it.
