The Founder of Sword of the Spirit Ministries, Bishop Wale Oke, has urged churches in Nigeria to embrace Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on the back of the current global pandemic (COVID-19) ravaging the world, stating that the church has moved to the digital age and warned that any church that does not adjust to the current realities will lose out.
Oke gave the warning in a live online chat with Pastor Poju Oyemade, senior pastor of Covenant Christian Centre at the recently held WAFBEC 2020.
According to him, churches should begin to adjust and apply technology in all activities. “Any church that does not want to connect to technology will no longer be relevant. Yes, we will still be having our large gatherings. But the reality is that God wants the church to be in every home,” he said.
Oke commended the likes of Oyemade who have been using technology to drive church activities, stating that it is now time for all to embrace technology.
“We are in the end time. God is wrapping up all the phases of ministry. The healing era, evangelism era, teaching era and the prosperity era are being wrapped up for this end time to achieve a greater harvest. The church is now in the digital age and the only way to remain relevant is to make use of technology,” said Oke.
On his burden for upcoming ministers, Oke said, “My prayer for them is that they will learn to be patient and build capacity in order to carry God’s glory. God takes time to prepare his servants. I pray that God will enlarge their capacity to carry his glory,” he stated.
He opined that his greatest prayer also for young ministers is that they will not fall into the temptation of gold, girls and glory. “If a servant of God can withstand the temptation of gold which is money, glory which is pride and girls which is women or the opposite sex, such servant of God is on his way to greatness. I pray for younger ministers that they will be greater than those of us that are old in the field.”
He however, counselled pastors against trying to play God in their ministry by staging miracles because God is the one that does miracles and he does it at his own time. “What we need is to stay in the presence of God and get direction from him. If God gives us a word and we act on it; it will produce miracles,” he said.
He recalled, in the chat how God cured a man of cancer during his ministration at one of the WAFBEC meeting organised by Pastor Oyemade, Oke said God blessed a woman with the fruit of the womb, though she had been clinically declared unfit to have a child in one of his meetings in Abuja, stating that miracles are real.
When asked why he started a church since he was known as an itinerant minister, he said: “I never wanted to start church. I did not like the idea. I fought the idea for years. I just wanted to serve the Lord and preach the gospel. Bishop Oyedepo counseled me to start one. I declined. Pastor Adeboye also persuaded me to start, I declined. The late Archbishop Idahosa also came to me in Ibadan and tried to persuade me to start a church, I declined. But the Lord spoke to me one day while on a prayer walk that it was time for me to start a church. That was how I obeyed the Lord.”
Oke however, warned young pastors against establishing church for economic reasons, stating that such motive will always boomerang. “It is good to stay in the calling of God. We must not run ahead of God. I will also advise that no matter the ministry we run, we need to stay in a local church and be under a leader we can take counsel from. Pastors of local churches should also support itinerant ministers morally and financially so that they can stay in their calling,” Oke said.
SEYI JOHN SALAU
