“Honestly, I feel that one of the problems with the church today is that we have become lazy and we have told ourselves that young people don’t have what it takes to follow God because we have pushed religion on them so much, rules that we give them and when they break it we assume that they are useless in the sense that we think they have to grow up first to understand. But that is wrong.”
I don’t remember how I got saved because people always have the experience of seeing ‘the heavens open’ and all, but I don’t remember exactly, it must have been in JSS1. I think I had either heard the fear message of hell being the consequence of not serving the Lord or something else, but I heard a message and gave my life to the Lord. It is supernatural but I am sorry, I have no spectacular story to tell.
So Since JSS1, you have remained consistent with the Lord?
No! oh no. That is so wrong! As far back as I remember, I have always had a love for God, wanted to work for Him and serve Him but it was more of a wish than anything – to be better. I used to watch Atmosphere for Miracles and was very fascinated by it even though I did not know what was going on and I just knew I had zeal for the things of God but it did not translate into living a Christian life, so it was more of being zealous without knowledge. The fire actually came when I was in the University in my second year.
When did you start to gain knowledge about Christ?
After I graduated from secondary school, I went on to the University and was still loving God and not knowing what to do about it. I did mess up at the beginning of school, became a ‘chief sinner’ by the acts of wrong conduct, had the wrong friends around me and was just not right. It was in my second year that while dating a girl, I was asking another girl out and this girl was spiritual (I liked spiritual people, still do, it has always been in my heart). She invited me to church and because I liked her and wanted to impress her, I agreed. Although, I had been going to different churches in school, I just could not connect or relate with any of them but I got to her church, Dominion City and I just knew I was home.
I returned, joined (one of) their units and began to grow, joined a cell and then grew to be a leader. I just feel that God had been waiting for me and I grabbed the chance because I met people who were able to explain God to me and God became real to me, someone I could communicate with. I was taught how to hear God, pray in the Holy Ghost, live a holy life, explained these basics, and for the first time I understood that God was not hard to reach and that was how my journey began.
How did your teens’ ministry begin?
It is interesting the way things happened for me, and funny too because I remember being back in University, sometime in third year and I was praying, (if you ever went to a fellowship in school, you’ll know that there was a lot of praying). So when we prayed I would see pictures of my secondary school and I would be ministering to teenagers on stage and it dawned on me that God has a way of linking things. I was reading a book and it explained that sometimes God speaks in pictures and impresses things in our hearts that he wants us to do and so I connected the dots and asked the Lord what He would have me do and He made it clear that I was supposed to go back to that school and hold a programme.
So during the long holidays I came to the school with the request and He also gave me a message for the school owner about her school and I delivered it, and was allowed to have the programme with SS2 students. It was for an hour in a hall and it was small, it was awesome and also confirmed what I said about the predictability of God because He wasn’t far away and after it was done I thanked God and went back to school. This was my final year now and we were praying for a programme where our Senior Pastor was coming to Ghana (that was where I schooled) and during the prayers, I was seeing myself back in that school and would see miracles and healings and I would wonder what was happening but the more I stayed with God, the more it dawned on me that He was sending me back to that school.
So as I was collecting my certificate, I knew I wasn’t going to look for a job, or pursue NYSC, but straight back to that school and that was exactly what I did; went to the owner of the school, told her my vision and she being a lovely woman and also passionate about young people, confirmed that I was an answer to her prayers. I just remember the first student I spoke to, it was in the music room, spoke to him, got him praying in the Holy Spirit which really does not happen because the supposedly ‘ideal situation’ would be when a man of God comes, and the hall is packed full and then the Holy Spirit moves and someone falls down screaming. But I just called the guy, explained a few things to him and he started praying in tongues, he was scared. From there we gathered more students and I just began to teach them.
I remember the first meeting we had, I told them to ask me any question about God that they had and they were amazed, (of course before then I had been reading extensively, I guess God was just preparing me for the future). And from there I gained loyal followers from the teenagers and as I taught, they listened and that was how a revival broke out in the school as more teenagers followed God and then God’s power was evident everywhere.
Did you then come as a Counsellor or Pastor? Is that how you got the job?
I just came as a passionate person who just wanted people to know God and I am really grateful to God for the school, they gave me the platform, gave me an office (to work from).
Was it through the initial success that you birthed the Young Ecclesia Nation (YEN)?
When I came here, I didn’t know it would grow into a ministry. I thought I’d invite them to my church and they’d stay there but overtime God made it clear to me that He was making me a father to these young people so it wasn’t about churches or denominations but fatherhood, about mentoring, preparing these young ones regardless of the denomination or church that they were in. Overtime, God began to reveal (things) to us and when I say us, I mean myself, the kids in the ministry because we had groomed leaders; we have elders (teenagers who are pastoring right now) in Unilag, Babcock, Covenant University, Adamawa, Hungary, leading YEN fellowships. Some came from this school, others from other places because it had spread beyond us.
How did it spread?
We were getting references, through word of mouth but I believe the expansion began with the first summer camp that we had in 2015. It started with God speaking to me about starting a summer camp for teenagers where they could come and experience Him and know His will and that was exactly what we did (myself, the V.P and the teens), we ran with the vision and it was born. We sent invites to other schools, they came, saw what was happening, keyed in and became loyal because one of the things we emphasize to these kids is that they only have one purpose and that is to ‘go out and make disciples of every nation’. So wherever you go you are to extend the kingdom of God and so our teenagers are mandated that whenever they enter a new environment they are to raise disciples there.
So one of our girls went for our A-levels and she spent a year there and within that period she was able to raise about 20 girls and disciple them too. There’s this young man, one of my spiritual sons, his own is so peculiar, he has the fire for evangelism, he would go on twitter, we call it ‘twitter-vangelism’ and God will tell him to click on a handle and speak to the person, and then God gave him a strong gift of prophecy, so he speaks to the person, says one or two things and the person begins to open up and that’s how we got someone in Hungary and we disciple her over the phone and twitter and now she has a fellowship there.
Do you people have elders, mentors over you?
I mentioned earlier that it is not a church thing but obviously, we are affiliated with churches, as I am now I am still in a church, in fact I pastor the teens’ church there which is Dominion City. For me, I have mentors especially the one who raised and trained me back in university and we are still in contact, he still pastors me and so I am accountable to him and whatever major decision I want to take, I tell him and he advises me. Whenever I have challenges, I call him and he counsels me because the truth is that you cannot do this alone, you always need people who can see ahead of you and so I have people I am accountable to.
What of YEN, do you people have a structure, a body that you report to or is it all about you?
Oh no, it is not a one man show, I have a vice-president and we have a structure although it is not fully fixed we have people we work with – partners, friends, even some parents of the teenagers. Right now, we don’t have an official governing council of adults but we have people who work with us like at the last summer camp they were available to help us but we have plans to make it more structured, build a formidable team because a ministry like this grows bigger and bigger. We need someone in finance, social media. So yeah, we are definitely building towards that.
How do you get funding?
Well just like any other ministry, finances can be a challenge like at the last summer camp we had over 300 teenagers in one place and we had to feed them for a whole week, let’s just say God has been faithful and He pays for what He sends you to do. For example, we’ve had help, like the owner of this school (Dansol High School) has been a major help, it is a temporary arrangement but for the past three years she has been amazing. She gives us her hall to use free of charge, gives us food, we are able to do what we do because God sends people like that to help us then. We have other sources but we are working on better financial structures to help us go about this thing.
How do you handle all the teenage challenges like relationships, puberty etc?
One thing I have also gotten to believe is that, and this is from study of the scripture and experience with the word of God. I have realised that every teenager has the potential and ability to be an adult in the things of God. From scriptures you see someone like Jeremiah that God called at the age of 15 or 16 or Timothy that Paul would say ‘let no man despise your youth’ and we know also from scriptures that Timothy was a bishop, an overseer over pastors much older than him, overseeing churches and he was young but Paul never treated him like a child. He only saw the potential for him (Timothy) to work in the light of what he knew, to walk in maturity and the things of God and so I take the same approach with my teenagers.
That is our focus – we train, teach, and explain. We tell them that they have the nature of God, that they are the image of God which means that they can actually walk in the things of the spirit. Depression is not necessary because it is a choice, you can decide to be down and always see the wrong side of things or you can learn to walk in the Spirit and be happy, to be patient and joyful, to rise above your circumstances because the scripture says it, Paul in the midst of afflictions will say ‘rejoice’, ‘count it all joy when you face all these things’. So we take a biblical approach; we don’t like all these psychological stuff, although it does play a part but the scripture is the standard for raising these young people.
One thing we frown on a lot is to let emotions rule the day in the sense that while we acknowledge that it exits, we put them in their place and manage it and learn to walk in the Spirit because walking in the flesh is simply acting in the way that you feel while the spirit is denying yourself of some ungodly emotions and working to what is in own your insides which is what the Word of God says about you. That is how we raise our teenagers. They are solid, of course we have had cases where this one was unstable and ran but then what we do is that we keep our arms open and tell them that we love them and care for them.
What other activities does YEN do?
We have a lot of things planned. Of course as a ministry we have a lot of things that we want to execute – outreaches we want to do, crusades we want to hold reaching out to teenagers in other schools, clubs we want to form. But we are at that phase where there are the basic ones that we are executing like ‘the prayer and word retreat’ held every December where we do 3 days fasting, prayer and word study, take the teenagers away from the noisy environment and bring them to a place where they are cut off and we just pray and study. Last year, I think we went for 6 hours at a stretch. This year we will increase it to 10 hours and we will keep increasing it every year.
Hold it! Is that not putting pressure on the young people?
Honestly, I feel that one of the problems with the church today is that we have become lazy and we have told ourselves that young people don’t have what it takes to follow God because we have pushed religion on them so much, rules that we give them and when they break it we assume that they are useless in the sense that we think they have to grow up first to understand. But that is wrong!
We or I have seen that if you sit a teenager down and explain to them, just like saying if you have a baby or child from the age of 0-9 and you give them instructions for their own good, they may not question you, but when they get to 12, 13, 14 you tell them to do stuff and they ask you why and you take it as disrespect. But he genuinely wants to know why and so we take the same approach with teenagers in church and when they question we say they are rebellious but they just want to know, they are designed to find out things, to explore.
You see a teenager with a girl and you are wondering why, what do you expect them to do? He is a teenager, that is what he would do, his hormones are itching to explore so what do you do with him? You have to believe that the Holy Spirit in him is not a junior Holy Spirit, it is the same one. It is not a different bible he should read, it is the same you read and the some principles you apply. The difference is in the strategy, approach that you bring to them.
So many times, we don’t know how to break things down to them, how to play with them, how to let what we are teaching sink in. Truth is, these principles of Christianity are universal. In fact, teenagers are actually the ones who have more potential to press deeply into the things of the Spirit than adults. If you check ministers of God we have today, pastors and whatnots, many of them who are pillars today began in their teenage years.
These days, we have teenage churches with a television on with inspirational quotes and videos. I have heard people say that their attention span is so little so make it short, ten minutes or so and that is so wrong. Listen, I have been with teenagers, 6 hours, teaching non-stop. The retreat we had in December, we not only prayed for 6 hours but on the last day I taught for 6 hours from 9 or 10pm to 4am in the morning and they were 12 year olds sitting down there (wide awake) looking intently and listening eagerly.
So first thing is the mind-set, when you tell yourself ‘no, they cannot’ because of your experiences you put a limit on what could happen. We have had teenagers who went on the road and met a Muslim woman who was bent over and the Holy Spirit ministered to them. They went over to the woman, prayed and she stood upright. And these were teenagers! So let us believe the word of God and not our experiences, that they can do these things and actually see what God can do with them.
Is there an age limit to being in YEN?
YEN is a ministry that will just keep on evolving. The heart of what we are doing is to reach out to teenagers, young people who are always transiting and growing older with the oldest of our teens being 18,19, 20 and they are already leaving but it is a ministry that they will forever stay connected to based on the fact that I am a parent (father) over them. But they will go into the world. Some of them will start churches and so there will always be a connection but the heart of it remains the young people. We might have things in future for the older ones but our focus will always be the teenagers.