The fire will always burn on the altar; it will never go out. -The Holy Bible
IF you have forensically studied Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi, General Superintendent of Deep Christian Life Ministry, DCLM, through his thousand and one books and sermons and also read all about him in the newspapers, or if you’ve spent days and nights tampering with the Internet to follow him, there are two old discoveries you’ll make time and time again: the venerable clergyman’s fearlessness in defying the odds for the sake of the gospel of his Lord, Jesus Christ, and his endless search to discover uncharted territory in evangelism. This man of God will dare death, devils, demons, fate, handicaps and distractions to “seek…first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”
These two concerns have characterized the founder of DCLM since he was born again on April 5, 1964. At age 81 on June 6, 2022, he has behind him the tales of a flint man who would eclipse giants of every hideous form. to proclaim his faith in every word of the Bible, even if it cost him his life.
Once, in the UK for a course in October 1974, a maturing Kumuyi trashed the postgraduate program he had taken in London and rushed to Birmingham to seek the power of the Holy Spirit which he believed he had. need for productive gospel work. Another time he looked elsewhere, the Stations of the Cross, when he was offered a lifetime chance to step through master’s degree tutorials and improve his academic bouquet with a doctorate. Even more: when Kumuyi discovered that a man who would have been an asset in raising awareness for him and his ministry was in the throes of anger, he severed the partnership. “Don’t befriend an angry man; and you shall not go with an angry man, lest you learn his ways, and your soul be ensnared.” Proverbs 22:24, 25.
In each case, it was OK if he was hurt or deprived of personal gain and satisfaction, but without a dent in his beliefs and the Word he preached.
Pastor Kumuyi has been compared to Galileo, the Italian polymath (astronomer, mathematician, physicist and engineer) who rode two centuries like a Roman colossus. Like the man from Pisa who gazed into his powerful telescope and boldly declared what he saw: contrary to official and religious opinion at the time, it was not the sun that circled the earth; it was the other way around. God made it a solar system. Persecuted by the Church for his position and summoned to retract, Galileo could not help saying to his executioners, eppursimuove (but she (the earth) is moving).
The founder of the Deeper Life Bible Church, DLBC, showed the same remote fearlessness and the same tendency for novelty in his work in God’s vineyard. I identify them as the compass to guide any understanding of this international evangelist of this age. We all agree that he is the “main problem” in the firmament of the universal Church at this time. He teaches and both interiorizes and exteriorizes the precepts of holiness as prescribed by the Holy Bible. He also looks at the sky. He has in fact abandoned this world, with his octogenarian body the only substance seeking to be abandoned for his soul to return to his Lord after labors here on earth. While preaching at a residential program at his church one day, Kumuyi spoke of Heaven and the mansions that awaited the saints. He seemed to have come to a point where the Lord was probably revealing his own splendid home to him. Suddenly he stopped and leapt into an impersonal celestial speech. Later, a devotee, after the service, was heard to observe that God might have shown his faithful servant his own abode before he moved there. Not impossible. Perhaps the Lord briefly opened the breach to reassure His servant Heaven is real, with the mansions promised to believers who stick to Him to the end.
The point then is that the pillars successfully deployed by Pastor Kumuyi to build a thriving ministry for nearly 60 years would be the same ones that would equip him for the present and the distant future, say the next eight decades and beyond. Circumstances will change from what we have today, no doubt. But, as long as man exists and the earth remains, with a compelling charge to preach the redemption of lost souls, the evangelist must apply the attributes of fearlessness and innovation.
Like the daring Kumuyi, I’m also not afraid to step into the future. I see him striving to build new tents for evangelism. A look at its trajectory will guide us. He experienced an Africa-wide crusade that took him to some nations of the continent in the first half of the 21st decade. He has also offered city-wide preaching trips to Lagos, the former capital and economic powerhouse of Nigeria. Here, for nearly three weeks, Kumuyi dwelled in the populous bowels of the scattered metropolis, preaching to the tumultuous crowds and bringing hope to the hopeless. Apart from Lagos, he chose the states and made the capital or key city the point of contact with the crowd. Never was there a shortage of new converts when he made the altar call.
Yet, in Pastor Kumuyi’s assessment, he had failed to meet the requirements of the Great Commission. Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.
So the Lord led him to the idea of what we have all come to embrace as a worldwide crusade. It stemmed from Kumuyi’s unrepentant industry in evangelism. He reaches every space of the vast international web with his message while preaching from Nigeria. It combines all devices known to technology – Internet, precision cameras, audiovisual recording accessories as well as their terminals like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, radio, television, etc. to introduce the Salvation capsule to the world. Africa has never had a greater spiritual export.
This is the reason why this year, witnessing the first anniversary of the Global Crusade series, is considered the year of celebrating God’s goodness in people’s lives during the month-by-month exercise. Hundreds of thousands of souls around the world have been delivered from sin and its mortal consequences. At least four were raised from the dead during Pastor Kumuyi’s ministry. Hundreds more with terminal illnesses and serious physical ailments on every continent are receiving healing while connecting with the pastor from their homes, offices, hospitals, churches, markets, prisons, etc. of the global crusade to witness the power of God at work.
So my deposition on Pastor WF Kumuyi’s future as we celebrate him at 81: his valiant evangelical adventurism does not waver; it will locate new fields.
Happy birthday, beloved shepherd!
- Ojewale is a writer in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria
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