Reverend Solomon Olayiwola is the Senior Pastor of Glory House Ministries, Ibadan. The architect turned pastor, who hails from Ilase in Ilesa, Osun State, speaks with PMParrontng.com’s OJO PETER, on issues in Christendom and Nigeria. Excerpts:
How did you hear the call of God?
The call of God has always been with me right from time. Precisely in 2001, the voice of God came to me while I was observing a three days marathon fast to give us the mandate we are running and it is the mandate that has turned to Glory House Churches today. The voice said ‘go into the world and harvest the world’. It is an evangelistic mandate and it has about four different phases. The first phase is the church and the mission; the second phase is the media and publication; the third phase is the training and we have trained series of pastors that are doing well in the gospel faith today. Some of them have planted churches and the fourth phase is the outreach which leads to international ministry. By the grace of God, we have been able to take the word of God outside the shores of Nigeria and within Nigeria also.
So, the mandate is to go and harvest the world with the power of the word. We are an evangelistic church that has the end-time at heart.
What have been the challenges so far?
Life is full of challenges and challenges should be normal for a Christian. Challenges are normal to life. Challenges are not really the problem. Challenges are stepping stones to glory; they are life obstacles that lead to a miracle. Christians don’t take challenges as opposition; they actually help to make you get better. There is no pastor on earth that has pastured as far as I have pastured that would say he would not see challenges or has not seen challenges. I have seen all kinds of challenges including loss of children and it has not actually made us to go down, it only added to our faith and helped us to do it better. I believe when you reach a challenge that you cannot handle, you go back to the person that gave you the vision and it’s not about you. There is no challenge that is bigger than God. Ministry is God’s leading. God has to lead you to do what you are doing. If you were really called by God, every challenge is going to turn to a miracle and not ridicule. I also believe we are all meant to embrace challenges. Ask great men of God that what are their challenges…they will tell you people and the greatest advantage in the ministry is people. Another challenge is monetary challenge and it’s normal. Also, another challenge is that there is no man of God that is going to reach for the sky that would not be faced with people talking all kinds of junks about him. There is no great man of God in Nigeria that people have not spoken evil of.
How do you think the federal government can tackle the menace of insurgency in Nigeria?
I want to tell you that the problem of Boko-Haram activities in Nigeria is the problem of the church. When I talk like this in ministerial meetings, many of them are not always happy with me but the truth has to be told. When the Northern part was ripe for evangelism, nobody was pumping money to the North. When they refused to pump money there, other people pumped their money there and washed their brain and took them to the other side. Instead of them pumping money to the church, I am not saying what they are doing is wrong; it is good that they build buildings but all those buildings are not what will take them to heaven. God is concerned about the souls of men it’s not just about buildings. That does not mean I am by any means attacking excellence or that people building churches for God are not right.
They have turned the church to a business. I am not saying doing a business is not good. We need to put things right. They have pumped all the church money into businesses and they begin to build the best university in the world. All those monies were made to harvest the North with the word. If we had taken time to preach the word of God to them, they will also preach to other people and they will not carry guns. Some of our church leaders are not ready to give their money to the church and that is where we are having more problems. Somebody has to be ready to go to the North to tell them that Jesus is alive. Somebody has to be the martyr.
Do you subscribe to the anti-corruption war of President Mohammadu Buhari?
It takes more than integrity to rule the nation in as much as integrity is important. I respect him. I pray for him in our churches.
We believe God is going to help him. Corruption is not the only problem Nigeria is facing. The problem Nigeria is facing is multi-faceted. Nigerian government will start a project they cannot complete. Nigeria is a place we see that administration is not working. One of the reasons is while the man is the man is because the man as the structure, when anything does not have a structure, it doesn’t have a feature. Your life is based on your structure. We need a president with a vision for the people. We need health vision; we need educational vision; what you are doing must be practicable, something practicable that the people need. The important thing that people need in Nigeria is food. To you it will look funny but people are dying of hunger every day. We need a President that is going to be fast in doing all things; we need a President that will be thinking wide. I know the president is doing his best. We need to buckle up. We expect him to do more. We voted for him. We didn’t vote for him to build this kind of mess.
