Churches should go beyond revival meetings to do economic empowerment seminars, Pastor Ejiogu

Cyriacus Nnaji:

Lead Pastor of Evangel Pentecostal Churches, Pastor Iheanyi Ejiogu, has advised men of God to move beyond revival, crusades and outreach meetings to begin to do economic empowerment seminars for their members.

Pastor Ejiogo made the disclosure at the DogoodFriday empowerment programme held at Church at Okota, Lagos State recently.

He described poverty in Nigeria as mind burgling “An average Nigerian that earns N36,000 per month that is $100, he lives below the UN poverty line; someone that earns $200, that is N70,000, he lives below UN poverty line. What that means is that over 60% of Nigerians are poor, just by that statistics. That alone is mind burgling, the poverty is not percentile but endemic, it is system poverty, the whole system is poor.

“It tells you that glossing over issues of economy is the greatest disservice we can do to ourselves as Nigerians, and we cannot look the other way, churches should go beyond revival meetings, beyond crusades, beyond outreach meetings to begin to do economic empowerment seminars. How do you teach a man to turn 5k to 50k? How do you teach 10 people that have 50, 50k, how they can put it together and come up with a small industry that will pay more people on the long run? Because sometimes Christians are carried away by this spiritual dimension of it and forget that there is social responsibility clause inside spirituality.”

“Continuing on the poverty in the land he said “If you are a spiritually minded person, you should be aware of the needs of the other man. That is what makes you spiritual, you are sensitive that other people have struggles, so if you are so sensitive to sin, but you are not sensitive to poverty, you are selectively sensitive. We are not allowing our full sensitivity manifest. I can only take care of 2000 people, if we have more, we could do more, but that suggests that we are in a time where beyond preaching  to the heart and ears of the people let us also preach their strategy, lets preach their capacity to earn, lets teach work ethics.

“I remember in the 80s, dignity in labour , war against indiscipline , lets begin to teach a cleaner to be proud to clean, because that is how she will earn pending when she will move to a better position in life, so the teaching is not tallying with reality. So the church should become more socially responsible, after the healing service organize in the weekend economic empowerment, after deliverance service begin to teach people apprenticeship, a lot of unemployed young people don’t understand the culture of apprenticeship, so they don’t know that they can go and work for a company free to learn how it works and once you do well they will retain you, once they retain you they would pay you. When they pay you, you are employed.

Speaking on DogoodFriday, he said it is a vision planted in his heart by God “DogoodFriday is an event that God put in our heart to reach to our the world. I strongly believe that one of the hallmarks of Christianity is selflessness and love. God told us to reach out instead of just talking Good Friday, God told us to do good Friday, let us do something practical, that will show people that God loves them, even if they don’t come to our church tomorrow that is not the primary purpose, the primary purpose is that somebody who is tired today can realise still that God is still interested in them.”

 Ejiogu stated that the event was the second since conception in 2018.

The empowerment designed to be part of the Easter celebration was made up lawyers, medical personnel, barbers who were on hand to render services to attendees. There were gift items which include rice, spaghetti, Indomie and others. The children were also given Excise books, math-sets and sandals. In the end there were smiles on the faces of the people.

The General Overseer said about 2,300 people were registered in order to receive gift items at the event as against last year’s 2,000.

Ejiogo said DogoodFriday is an annual event. He also hinted of plans to commence what he called DogoodNigeria which would be observed every October 1 being Nigeria’s Independent Day.

“It is annual, but at the same time I always listen to what God is saying, how God is saying it. Two of our churches have also started it, so it is becoming two in a year.

On sponsorship of DogoodFriday he said it is based on donations 

“The first time I announced in the church, first one month nothing was coming, I used my own money bought 10 cartons of Indomie and put it in the store, so somebody saw it and came out and announced there are things happening in the store o, four weeks late, there were hundreds of cartons of Indomie, bags of rice, so I think people just wanted to see how sincere the vision was before they got on board. So we are trusting in God that corporate organizations can get involved.

Other corporate social responsibility by the church include helping in grading the road in conjunction with Okota community.