By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
Pastor William F. Kumuyi, the General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church, easily stands out as a man of God with an unshaken resolve to please God always and undertake the divine assignment given to him with zeal, dedication, meticulousness and sense of urgency.
He continues to demonstrate a clear
understanding of his mission which is to win souls for Christ and teach them to
embrace standard Christian living to remain at peace with God and rapturable.
Pastor Kumuyi turned 81 on Monday, June 6.
Although not a member of his church, I have derived illumination and edification from his recorded messages, books and attitude to God’s work. The internet has now made many of his messages accessible – both the old, timeless ones and the more recent ones.
It will be difficult to continue listening to
Pastor Kumuyi and heeding his teachings on salvation, sanctification, Holy
Ghost baptism, evangelism, follow-up and exemplary, Christ-like life and miss
heaven. Unless the person, at some point, allows depreciation to set in and
start paying lip-service to the transparent Christian life that he is
teaching.
Here is a preacher who firmly believes that
only sincere repentance from sin and total, genuine surrender of one’s life to
Jesus after confessing one’s sins to God can make one a Christian.
He also stresses the need to maintain one’s regeneration experience by ensuring
that one is always in church to listen attentively to sound Bible teachings and
sustains a practice of diligent personal study of God’s Word and communion with
Him through personal fellowship.
His emphasis on holy living as a condition for
seeing God at last grows with each new day (Hebrews 12:14; Matthew
5:8).
To Pastor Kumuyi, the divine assignment of
winning souls to Christ and teaching them to persevere and grow in their
genuine Christian experience should be the foremost concern of every pastor. He
has traversed several cities of the world preaching the undiluted truth about
genuine salvation and holy Christian living.
At every forum, he continues to urge believers
to allow Biblical prescriptions guide their daily lives and that no development
should justify any attempt to adjust the Word of God to suit mundane
preferences.
The ongoing Deeper Life Global Crusade has seen him in various states of Nigeria proclaiming the gospel before multitudes. He is taking advantage of modern technologies to ensure that his crusade messages are broadcast across the world.
Over the years, he has earned immense respect
from a broad spectrum of the society with his sterling Christian life, sound teachings
and exceptional leadership qualities which have helped to spotlight the Deeper
Life Bible Church as one of the best coordinated organizations in the world.
This sterling reputation helps grant him open
doors as he gracefully draws the otherwise unreachable political elite in each
state he visits to his meetings to hear God’s Word. I saw former President
Olusegun Obasanjo, for instance, telling the mammoth crowd at the Abeokuta
edition of the Global Crusade how grateful and honoured he was that Pastor
Kumuyi had invited him to the programme.
People who missed the crusades live still have
the opportunity to watch the messages on the internet.
Although Pastor Kumuyi’s emphasis is on true
repentance and holy living, startling testimonies of miracles and healings have
continued to occur in his meetings. Top among the miracles witnessed in the
ongoing Global Crusade was that of the 85-year old woman, Mama Alice Oladepo,
from Itele, a suburb in Ogun State, who was raised from the dead after she had
slumped and died in her house.
As the man of God prayed at the Lagos edition
of the Global Crusade which they listened to on radio, she came back to life.
Interestingly, one of those who witnessed and testified about the miracle was
her daughter, Fausat Oladepo, who is not even of the Christian faith. According
to her, she had even closed her mother’s eyes and had laid her on a bed,
preparing to take her to a morgue, before God intervened and brought her back
to life.
In the late 1980s when I worked with the old
Anambra State public service, Deeper Life used to host a 30 minutes telecast
called Miracle Time every Thursday evening. Pastor Kumuyi used
to give a brief message and pray for viewers after a choir ministration. One
evening while a friend and I hurried home to watch the programme, my friend
suddenly called my attention to the fact that the streets were deserted. He
exclaimed that most people were indeed at home to watch the programme, hence
the empty streets.
It was such a period of refreshing listening
to the man of God and I believe many were blessed by the telecast, else the
streets would not have been deserted, even in a town where Deeper Life was yet
to raise a large congregation at that time.
It is difficult to find Pastor Kumuyi’s eyes
not strictly focused on his task. No doubt, he learnt early enough to draw a
very clear distinction between attraction and distraction, substance and shadow
and the wheat and chaff.
In recent years, he has utilized every
opportunity to preach the gospel by accepting invitations to feature in some
churches whose methods, interpretations and practice of Christian lifestyle may
differ from that of Deeper Life. But I have watched him clearly tell his church
that no matter where they see him go to minister the gospel, Deeper Life still
remains Deeper Life, and nothing about everything he has taught them about
personal Christian deportment has changed.
As the echoes of the end-time reverberates across the world, Heaven-minded believers and their leaders should listen more to Pastor Kumuyi and be inspired by the zeal and meticulousness with which he undertakes God’s work. At no time should the gospel be preached unceasingly and with a sense of urgency than now.
At 81, Pastor Kumuyi is showing no signs of
slowing down. His Master’s business appears to be his life. He is out there
ministering to the world, but not at the expense of his local congregation. No
external engagement is allowed to come in the way of the Monday Bible Study
which appears to be the backbone of his church. Jesus is coming for a spotless
church and it behoves every pastor to ensure that his congregation is not
excused from the adequate preparation that this hour calls for.
It is heart-breaking to see the extent of
relaxation that has crept into the larger body of Christ. One would think that
the Master has withdrawn the Great Commission. This is the time for the body of
Christ to hear that clear voice speaking from Gbagada, Lagos, and rouse itself
from several stages of slumber and lethargy.
At a time when bits of confusion are creeping
into the church due to various attempts in several quarters to water down the
gospel, Pastor Kumuyi is a voice that should be heeded without any fear of
being misled.
In his foreword to Leonard Ravenhill’s
classic, Why Revival Tarries, Dr. A.W Tozer said: “Not all
books, not even all good books come as a voice from above, but I feel that this
one does. It does because its author does, and the spirit of the author breathes
through his book.”
Permit me to paraphrase this text to sum up my
view about Pastor Kumuyi’s messages: “Not all messages, not even all
good and expertly delivered messages come as a voice from above, but I feel
that Pastor Kumuyi’s messages do. They do because the man who preaches them
remains connected to Heaven, and the Spirit of God breathes through his
messages.”
Happy Birthday, Pastor.
*Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye is a Nigerian journalist and writer. His book, Nigeria: Why Looting May
Not Stop, is available on Amazon.com (scruples2006@yahoo.com; twitter:@ugowrite)
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