NO ONE SHOULD BE A MIDDLEMAN BETWEEN GOD AND PEOPLE –  Pastor Evans Adetokunbo Emmanuel

Pastor Evans Adetokunbo Emmanuel is the setman of Grace Missions International, a teaching and Christian ministry development consultancy that helps ministers and ministries make eternal impacts through grace. In this interview with Dr. Bola Adewara, he looks at the Christian ministry, the church, pastors and sermons from our churches, the current youth and the youth ministry and the rarity of Bible study sessions in many Churches today. Enjoy the interview.

Did you ever imagine you would end up preaching God’s word on the pulpit? Tell me about your background

Yes and No. It wasn’t what I wanted to do. Though I was born into an Anglican priest’s family, my sister and I used to play with those liturgical programs as kids. We’ll conduct imaginary naming ceremonies and other things we saw our dad do. But that’s just all about it.

I was thinking more about being a soldier at first; that should be due to seeing soldiers when we were young; during the Civil War, an army Barack wasn’t too far from where we lived, so they’d walk past in their uniform, I used to admire them a lot. My dad bought me a toy soldier drum. Growing up, I thought of many things I would have love to be: a medical doctor, a businessman, a livestock farmer, etc.

Those pushed me towards the sciences even though I did better in geography, commerce, and history. I got the prizes for the best student in the last two in my form 3, but I didn’t go to the Arts or the Commercial departments but to science. After pursuing admissions to read medicine for about three years, I opted for Animal Science.

Preaching wasn’t part of the plan. But towards the end of secondary school, I was born again, and I sensed that God had given me the grace to understand scripture and to be able to communicate things I never knew anything about before. Even then, I didn’t think it was something to pursue full-time until later.

What was your childhood like? Tell me about your family, upbringing, parents, and education.

As I have said before. My dad was an Anglican priest. So, I grew up in the vicarage up until I was 10 when he passed on. My mum raised me from then on. I attended St Paul’s CMS primary school in Omu Aran, Kwara State of Nigeria. Afterwards, I went to Titcombe College, Egbe, when it was still in Kwara state, now in Kogi State.

I spent two years there before changing schools to Aisegba Community Grammar School. Went to A’ Level School at the Federal School of Arts and Science, Suleja, Niger State. From there I proceeded to read Agriculture (Animal Science) at the University of Ibadan, graduating in 1994.

Can you compare your parenting with that of your parents and the parenting we see today? So many people are disappointed with current children and how parents raise them. Your observations, sir.

I had a very tough experience because I lost my dad when I was just 9. My mum did her best to raise us to desire to know God, continuing where my husband stopped.

She was a teacher, and she didn’t have a lot of money, so financially, it was tough, but we had three meals daily, which, looking back now, was fantastic. All they did didn’t stop me from being rough as a young boy. But it prepared me to give Christ a thought when I had to make the decision for which I’m eternally grateful.

I think it could be easier for my children because they grew up in a more close-knit system. They got to know God from the start, and even though they had to pass through their challenges, they understood what it is to walk in faith and to trust and obey God.

Pastor Adetokunbo Emmanuel, Grace Missions International.

We didn’t have the distractions of television and social media in our days, and so it helped our focus today a young person can key his or her relationship with God into social media, but it might be difficult, and that’s where parenting with that in focus is key in today’s Christian parenting.

Children’s rights weren’t so much an issue back then, unlike now when children have become so assertive and can question their parent’s choices and decisions. It calls for parents to know more about life and what they are doing.

Now, we must be sure we are being more exemplary than just being authoritative or authoritarian. When they see goodness in their parents, they don’t mind copying, but they will react negatively to double standards.

How did your movements through secondary school and university dovetail into having a ministry? Who would you regard as your fathers in the Lord and mentors? Who were the people you saw those days that inspired you?

I got born again in my final year of secondary school. We used to call it Form 5 then. My faith was sad in those early years. By the time I was in A’ level school, God was already seriously tugging at my heart. I had worked briefly at the Ajaokuta Steel complex before going to A’ level school.

There, I met some wonderful Christian folks who showed me some basic things I was missing, especially about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. When I received the baptism, it wasn’t just the speaking in tongues which actually came later, but the fire. It ignited so much zeal and love for God in me, which still drives me till today.

So, when I got to a level school, I gravitated towards young people like me who were also having similar experiences, and that was it. I began sharing the scriptures with people because I saw things that amazed me from the scriptures. We had a wonderful time in fellowship and in the Spirit of God. I started public preaching in there in school.

Our leader heard me share some scriptures, and he felt the whole fellowship must hear. That was it. I was also a member of the Anglican Youth Fellowship at home at St Paul’s Omu Aran. They also gave me the opportunity to share in our fellowship and Bible study meetings. Until one day, God told me at home to prepare that I was going to preach at the English service that Sunday morning.

Ordinarily, we usually invited senior friends to come minister to us on Sunday mornings. But God told me to prepare, and He gave me what to preach. I prepared and went to church and sat down. Back in the day, we got to church before the service and sat quietly.

While seating the sister who used to coordinate came to me and said Brother Tokunbo, you’ll be preaching this morning. I was shocked to see how God had planned things. I preached to God’s glorious name. That was my first public preaching outside of the school fellowship system. It was 1988…that was the day God brought me out to preach among adults and in a public service outside of school fellowships.

I got to the university that same year with a mandate to go preach and teach. I got to school before resumption, and I was allocated to a room in Kuti hall wooden blocks, UI. One of those days, I was sitting quietly in my room when two brothers came in.

They started to share God’s word with me, and we started discussing scriptures. Suddenly, they exclaimed, “You are the person. You are the person.” I asked what happened? They said they were outgoing officials of the Prelim Science Students Fellowship and that they’ve been praying to ask God to show them the person He had chosen to lead the fellowship next.

They said God told them the person was in Kuti Hall wooden blocks and that they should go there, that He would lead them to the person. That was how a great ministry experience began for me in UI…all to God’s glory.

Tell me about the Nigerian youth and the nascent culture of sagging, hairstyles, nose-rings, earrings, mini or macro skirts, exposure of breasts, nakedness, etc. Pastor, are these youth serious? Are they capable of directing the future of Nigeria, more particularly, the Church?

Every generation will always have such things. We, too, had haircuts, dress codes, etc., that made us think we were enjoying life. According to the scriptures, these things are all about youthful lusts, which the young man and woman must flee. But we must not mix them up with things that may not be out of place naturally but are preached against on a mere religious basis without having any spiritual implications.

It’s a dicey thing, really; we have seen young people who kept the religious codes of dressing and public manners without having any spiritual substance within so that when they face real temptations, they have nothing to withstand. We must ensure that the young man and woman have a genuine encounter with God in being born again and know Jesus Christ as his or her Lord, who must be obeyed, revered, believed, and served with everything they have.

When this conviction is deep-seated in them beyond mere church attendance, we’ll have wonderful people who are anointed to do great things. The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life must be fought in three children so that they know what God hates from what God loves and choose what He loves.

Today, young people are being focused on money without God. They aren’t being taught that God gives and owns everything they can get, and that’s a hazardous thing we must deal with in these young people. We must be careful not to let them think they can become anything outside of God’s works in their lives.

A spate of criticisms is rushing at the current pastors, especially the Pentecostals. Issues of tithes, salvation, prosperity, ostentatious living, etc., are topical on social media. A pastor just apologised for saying non-Tithers would go to hell. How do you respond to all of these?

It all tells us that we must be more sensitive to how we present the gospel of Christ. When we are more about building our organisations and institutions than about preaching and teaching people to develop personal walks and relationships with God, we will always get to this position.

I am happy that we can apologise and retract things we wrongly preached and presented in the past. But it calls for our being more circumspect in our dealing with scripture and with God’s people as Stewards of the Mysteries of God. In stewardship, it is required that a person be found faithful.

If we see building institutions as ministry, it’ll be difficult to be faithful as Stewards of God’s word because the goal of having money to build our institutions would colour our interpretation and the presentation of the Gospel. Christ and the apostles weren’t about building institutions but influencing a movement to make God King and make Jesus Lord. Nothing else.

They didn’t want a name or a building. They didn’t seek anything. They didn’t lay up treasures on the earth. They were all about the Kingdom of God, which to them was about people following the teachings and the practices of Christ. They didn’t feel that they needed a house, but they were never in lack of what they needed.

We need to pay attention to what Jesus taught and didn’t teach; we need to pay attention to what He practised and didn’t practice, and in so doing, create a wave of people following Him. We have so many things we do and preach today that we didn’t see Christ or His disciples do.

Yet, people are reading their Bibles and seeing Christ in there and comparing that with what we are doing…that alone is setting up a rebellious system against the status quo, and we have to be careful and return to Christ.

Every street has churches upon churches, yet there is a feeling that we are not making it spiritually. Looking at yourself and your fellow pastors, how much blame can be pushed on you? Are you people doing the right thing?

It’s not about having many churches but about what we teach and practice in those churches. We won’t see spirituality on the streets if we preach carnality in the church. What we see on the streets results from what we preach on our pulpits. Every time we claim we have a crowd, we indict ourselves.

If we have so many millions of people going to church, but our workplaces and politics are filled with thieves, we should check ourselves. If we have millions of people in our churches, but they leave the church and go and rig elections, we shouldn’t complain that we are rigged out in elections; we have just gotten our report card.

Pastor Adetokunbo Emmanuel

We shouldn’t rejoice that we have large crowds when they don’t mind breaking traffic rules on their way from church. And this is mild compared to more heinous things the so-called churchgoers do outside the church and even in the church system.

What we preach in the church shows we should never deceive ourselves on the streets. We must check ourselves before meeting Christ Jesus.

You have an online prayer and Bible class ministry. What has been your experience? Do people like to study the Bible? Someone said most churches don’t have Bible classes anymore. All they do is pray, pray, pray. How do you respond to this?

If we knew our jobs as ministers, we would encourage people to study their Bibles, understand them and develop solid personal relationships with God. But many ministers are tempted to be mere merchants who peddle the ministry.

They are tempted to seek patronage and, in doing so, would have to develop a dependence system and structure by which they remain the go-to persons for spiritual things. Such would be tempted to keep them more and more away from the Bible because the truth would set the people.

No one should be a middleman between God and people except Christ, the Mediator. But we often are tempted to seek patronage and customers. We seek members for our churches, and we desire they are less members of the body of Christ, but we are called to build the body and not our own institutions; in doing so, we will point people more to Christ through His word than to ourselves and our churches.

People don’t mind studying the Bible. It is all about the appetite we have developed in them. If we had helped them to love the Word of God in all sincerity and have taught them that the solutions to their problems are in the Word, that God speaks to them primarily through the Word, and that they should seek the Word for every solution to their problems, how would people not seek the Word?

But we don’t want to do that. Some preachers are even threatened when they see their people receiving understanding through the word by themselves. To them, the person is about to be rebellious… Such attitudes brought us to where we are today.

We must work with Christ by pointing people to Him through His word. If we are not gathering with Him, then we are scattering.