General Overseer of God’s Mercy Revival Ministries, Dr James Akanbi, is known for his teachings, which continue to inspire many within the Christian community. In this interview with FELIX OLOYEDE,he discusses tithing, challenges the church faces in influencing governance in Nigeria and the country’s economic struggles
How has the journey been in the last 25 years in God’s Mercy Revival Ministries?
The journey has been quite exciting. For a ministry, you don’t know what will unfold when you start. We began with 12 people. When all our families came together, we were 46. At our first vigil, we were 173. And then, at the first Sunday service held in July 1999, we were 178.
We operated not by ambition but by vision and followed the script given to us. I tell people that if it were about ambition, you would never find me in ministry because my ambition was focused on something else.
I was the first African general manager appointed in our company. So, if it were about ambition, I was already looking to be transferred to Sweden or Zambia, where we had subsidiaries. It was a vision that brought me into ministry, and I followed it, allowing things to evolve little by little.
It is exciting because every year we see changes; that’s what makes it exciting. When you plateau or stagnate in ministry, it becomes frustrating. But here in God’s Mercy, there is a new vision every year. This year, we are running a completely different vision. The excitement of God leading us year by year makes the 25 years not boring but very exciting.
What are some of the lessons you’ve learnt?
The lessons are many. I learnt that failure is not final, defeat is not fatal, and a bend is not the end. I’ve faced situations that made it seem as if the ministry would shut down. A typical example was during our third or fourth year. We wanted to build and were working on the decking of our house, and just a month and a half before the convention, the building collapsed.
Everyone cried, but I saw it as a time to move into action, not to cry. Within two weeks, we were able to rebuild the decking. I’ve learned lessons of resilience and perseverance. If you fail and stay down, you’ll fail forever, but if you fail and rise, you’ll grow to greatness.
There has been a debate lately concerning tithing in the church. What is your position on this?
I think the problem is that most people don’t understand that tithing is not what finances the church. Tithes can’t finance the church. Tithe is too small to run a church. Here, the tithe that comes in every month is around N2m. Now, take that N2m – that’s about N24m a year. In the past five months alone, we’ve spent over N170m to run this international office and do all this interlocking.
So, how will tithe cover that? But tithe is something that has been stipulated in the scriptures. It is clear. Some people will say, “Oh no, there was no New Testament mention of it.” But Jesus didn’t condemn it; He mentioned it.
He said, “You take tithe, but you do this as well.” Many people out there think that tithe is a massive amount of money coming into the church. The tithe that comes to God’s Mercy can’t even cover my bills for a month.
So, how is the church financed?
It’s the people whose lives God has touched that donate to the church. Freewill donations are different from tithing. Tithing is voluntarily compulsory according to the scriptures, while donations are freewill offerings.
For example, when I came into ministry, I sold my house and gave the proceeds to the church. That’s not tithe. The first house I built in my life, I gave to the church; that’s not tithe. And even if I wanted to tithe from that, let’s say I sold the house for N10m, then, paid a tithe of N1m, that’s lower compared to the N10m I gave to the church. I was building a six-flat apartment, sold it, and gave the money to the church. That is different from bringing the tithe. The tithe is small.
If you value this place we are sitting in now, it is worth billions. How much tithe have we received since the inception of this ministry that would amount to a billion naira? If God lifts someone, and they achieve greatness, they can do something for God. That is what actually finances the church, not the tithe that the world is focusing on. When I see such debates, I laugh and wonder if these people know what they’re talking about. How much is the tithe compared to what we spend? If you look at this ministry’s budget, you’ll see that the tithe doesn’t cover much.
Many believe the church is not exerting its influence as much as it should in governance. What is your take on this?
I completely agree with that. Don’t forget that the church is a microcosm of the larger society; a subset of it. The church reflects the sum of what we have in society, and that includes its flaws.
Charlatans have entered the church; people who have nothing to do with the church are there.
Pastors, who call themselves pastors, people who are not ordained, or people that the kingdom of darkness has ordained to trouble the real church of Christ – they are there.
So, the church can’t speak with one voice because some are working for darkness. When the church wants to speak, these people weaken its voice, saying we don’t need to confront the government because they want the church to be weakened.
They are in the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria and the Christian Association of Nigeria. The devil intentionally sponsored them to weaken the church and turn its light into darkness.
They’ve mixed with us, using money, philanthropy, and all manner of good deeds to attract people, but that doesn’t make them of God. But they have perfected their agenda to infiltrate.
The apostle Paul, in his time, said, “They came privily to look at our liberty.” That’s what these people have done, and that’s why the church has become too weak to speak to the government.
What do you think the Church should do differently?
The church needs to clean its house, and I need to clean mine. The church should return to what it was in the old times – a place of purity, integrity, and honesty.
There was holiness preaching, living, and standards in those days. Now, there’s a very thin line between the world and the church.
The church has entered the world, and the world has entered the church. The two have mixed, creating an unholy alliance, a compromise.
When sand and salt mix, you need a serious chemical process to separate them.
People believe that the gospel of prosperity is a way of scamming the church. How would you respond to this?
It’s the same issue of bad eggs spoiling the batch. Prosperity wouldn’t be a bad thing if it followed the scriptural purpose.
It wasn’t meant to be materialistic but for God’s purpose. When the children of Israel left Egypt, God prospered them and gave them silver and gold to build the synagogue in the wilderness.
That was the purpose of prosperity. But now, when God blesses people, they turn it into materialism. Materialism is different from prosperity, and that’s the problem we have.
The gospel of prosperity wouldn’t be bad. Jesus performed miracles and even got money from a fish’s mouth. So, God wants to bless us, but for what purpose?
Is it just to dress in extravagant clothing and buy expensive stuff? To go to America and shop, turning into Hollywood in the process?
That’s not God’s purpose. God intends to prosper His people, and He will always do so. But we need to understand what prosperity is meant to serve. When you don’t know the purpose of something, abuse is inevitable.
What are the plans for God’s Mercy Revival Ministry in the next phase?
We thank God for where we are now. We’ve already started another phase, even from here. Anyone who comes into the ministry would know that we’ve changed our administration and structure. We are moving forward. This is just the preliminary foundation for the new phase we want to establish after this 25th year.
Why did you recently say lack of continuity is one of the major challenges the country faces ?
We don’t have institutionalised administration. Institutionalised administration is continuous and ssccessive governments should come in to meet that structure. But in Nigeria, everyone comes in with their own principles, policies, theories, and economic models. That’s our problem. Nigeria doesn’t have institutionalised politics. We don’t know what to expect from APC or PDP. But in the UK, we know what Labour will do, and we know what the Conservatives will do.
In America, we know what the Republicans and Democrats will do. But in Nigeria, it’s what the president wants to do that we see. Institutionalised administration has a blueprint that you meet and work with when you came into office.
What is your advise to Nigerians currently battling hardship?
They should be resilient. The bad time is now, the good time will come. We have seen bad times in the past and good times come around. Bad times are here, good times will come.
I told some guys earlier that the other regime had a fixed exchange rate, while this one is doing floatation.
Those are economic theories that are enemies; they are not going to work together.
With this enemy coming after the other one has come, there are going to be complications.
Before we can see any respite, there will be a lot of complications; trouble, and real hardship. But eventually, there may be a solution.
But the problem is this, when another regime comes, what if that one shifts again to a fixed regime? Another complication will start again.
Are you saying that if you were to be in charge of this country, you would go with the current reforms, in terms of having a floated exchange rate?
We can’t single out one policy out of the plethora of what should be. We have to know if this floatation will flow with other policies. What is the real manifesto of the political party that is in power? How do we synchronise and reconcile this type of floatation with their thrust of policy? There’s no policy thrust.
So, if I get there – well, it’s impossible for me to get there. But, the point is that the parties themselves, first of all, should be able to know that this is our standard manifesto.
Then the country also has to have institutionalised administration so that we would know that if this party comes in, this is the type of economic policy that we would have. If this one comes in, this is the kind of economic policy we will have.
There must be something like that before we talk about either floatation or fixation. What I see here is that we are placing something on nothing. What is the foundation of the party that is in government? What do they have to support this policy that they are bringing on board?
Everybody knows that after you bring in floatation there is going to be food inflation.
What have we done to be able to handle the food inflation? Go and look at the price index and you will see that it has actually blown the roof. We were meant to have seen all this before removing the fuel subsidy. Have we brought in buses that will be able to help people so that transporters will not jack up the prices?
We have not done some of the infrastructural policies that support that kind of economic model before they are put in place; that is where we have a problem.
Finally, you said Nigeria can’t crash. Do you still hold this view?
Nigeria can’t crash. I still hold that view
Why?
Look, the Bible said God created nations and those nations will exist until Jesus comes. Nigeria as a nation can’t crash. It will look as if it will crash and it will stand again. If Jesus tarries, you and I will see that Nigeria will still exist. Nigerians may be suffering, but we are very resilient here; very persevering.
The policies might take us to the brink of failure but another party will enter again and bring us back. In Britain recently, their inflationary level reached a point that it has never reached but another government came in and brought it back to normal. People thought, “Oh, the nation will fail.” But nations don’t fail like that. Go to the Caribbean nations where things are terrible. Go to Haiti and Belize; these are places that should have crashed a long time ago.
But we saw what happened between South Sudan and Sudan and some other African countries.
They split but they didn’t fail. South Sudan is doing well. Even though they are fighting, they are still a nation. Even if they have to split themselves into two or three, they will still exist as a nation.
So, a nation will continue to be a nation. The worst that can happen to Nigeria probably is if it breaks into two or three. But Nigeria in the end is in the Nigerian.
