‘The church should cater to spiritual and physical needs of mankind’

Pastor (Mrs.) Ngozi Oluwagbamiga has been in the ministry for about 25 years. A pastor of a church (Famous Gospel Proclaimers’ Ministries) under her husband, she also runs a missionary outfit, Charity Mission Empowerment Foundation, that covers the West African region with focus on rural areas. She spoke with Seyi John Salau on the plight of women in ministry and what the church must do to salvage Nigeria from its current socio-economic challenges. Excerpts:

As someone who has been in ministry for over 20 years, how do you see the women ministry in Nigeria?

The women ministry is going on fine for now but at the same time needs a revolution. A lot of women cleric should go back to bible school because why we have lapses in the women ministry is due to intellectual incapacitation in ministration. Lots of women minister once they can see vision, dreams, maybe God reveals a problem to you, you jump into ministry, but that is not enough. From my own experience, I would say they should go back to bible college, they should go back to acquire knowledge. Bible college is not the only place to learn; if we must restructure the women ministry, the women minister must go back to the word. Women are prayer warriors but prayer is not enough in solving the problem of man, we need knowledge. Therefore, skill acquisition in terms of knowing the God you serve, His word and method of how to get it done is very important so that we can be more effective and structured in ministry. It is very important that we give ourselves to knowing the word, understand the nature of what we are doing so that we can balance spiritual, physical and intellectual aspects of ministry. Women ministry also should be such that upholds the place of prayer and I will use this opportunity to urge us to go back to the place of prayer, because when mothers pray things happen. Finally, the women in ministry should stand for holiness; we should stand for the truth and there should be synergy in women ministry now than ever.

What would you consider the role of the church in nation building?

The role of the church primarily is spiritual. The problem of man, if we must accept the truth, is first spiritual, and God has planted His kingdom as a system in which man can be recycled back to Him, but method differs. We have different methods; some churches believe in focusing on people they have within their church and bringing the best out of them, so they do not care about extending their hands out to others. Some churches believe in extending but in something that can benefit them, and there is still nothing wrong in whatever way we use in driving to this destination, we should do it. But, first and foremost our role is the spiritual aspect; once you can deliver a man from ignorance and blindness, separation from his God, that man is on his way to finding his purpose in life; when he discovers his purpose, then empowerment can come in. When you empower him, he will be able to live life and be meaningful to himself. Today the church is so distracted with many things, but we should be doing things to affect lives positively, to change lives, and not necessarily to bring people to our church. So, if our primary role is spiritual, how do you then attend to spiritual needs of a man? It is by going on your knees, you start on your knees and intercede on behalf of the people. We should start praying, prayer brings change, prayer cannot be neglected if we want our society to change. So, the church should maintain its spiritual assignment first. Secondly is the physical dimension. The bible even said it, if you see a man that is hungry and you pray for him, ‘God bless you’, without giving him what to eat, you have not done well. You must attend to his spiritual needs first but must not close your eyes to his physical needs.

What is your opinion on Christians going into politics?

Life is about finding your purpose; some are born for certain things. If there are Christians that God has made to rule, He has given them the ability to have the mathematics, regardless of whether they are Christians, they should go in there. I support Christians to go into politics but do not support weaklings, compromising Christians going into politics. Currently the kind of Christians we have in politics are not encouraging others to come onboard because they always appear as weaklings once they come into power, the things they promise before going there they just forget and submit to whatever they meet there, and that makes it hard to call them Christians. So, Christians should wake up especially those God has purposed to be there, and once they are there they will not be able to sell their birthright. A good example in the bible is Joseph. Joseph was a very good Christian and politician. Therefore, I support serious Christians going into politics, Christians that have been trained.

What was the need you saw in the society at the onset of the foundation that you set out to meet?

I can say I have an inborn desire to help people at the grassroots because I came from the grassroots myself and out of the little we had, we still extended a helping hand to people at the grassroots. My father is so compassionate that he can give his eyes out to help anybody. For me, I can say the foundation is a God-given assignment. I feel attached, moved whenever I see a need, and I myself as an advocate for needy people, that has helped shape my view towards helping people. God pointed my attention to it, I embraced it, and since then my life has been all about charity. In 2000, I was into deliverance ministry in my office and God called me and showed me a scavenger and asked me a question: ‘Do you believe I died for people like this?’ And I said yes. ‘Then reach out to them,’ he told me. So, I sent for the guy, he thought I called him to pick up bins. He rushed to my office and I said no, the Lord said I should reach out to you and your type. He smiled and said no, that I could not reach out to him, but I engaged him in the word and the Lord took control, and at a point, he gave up and opened up to me. He was away from home for 14 years and his family did not know if he was dead or alive. He gave his life to Christ afterward and that is why I said what I am doing is beyond NGO. Instead, I call it charity evangelism, that is, I am doing evangelism through charity, but not as bait but it is to help humanity.

17 years after, are those needs being met? What would you have done differently to make the mission stronger?

What I would love to add will be well understood when people understand what we have done. Charity mission, usually called SIMENS, is an organisation that has done so much because we provide medical services that cater for whatever our capacity can shoulder. We provide counseling, seminars on health that have changed lot of people, and we have taken these services to the rural areas even to the police station. We also believe that if you are healthy then you can talk of empowerment, and one of our core focus areas is skills acquisition. Charity mission also provides welfare support especially for widows, majorly old people because of my passion for the old. Aged people are left uncared for, and are even referred to as witches, but from experience within the 17 years I have seen that they are really lovely people who are into what they do because they lack care. So, with care and love we have got a lot of them. Just like when you give a wrapper to someone that is old, you will hear them say things like, ‘Nobody has given me something like this before’, and several others. So, we give them food, take care of their needs and empower their children, and to me that is our greatest achievement so far. Looking at what we can add to improve our operations, I would say to modify our method of rendering these services. I see it as a challenge because what we have done within the years, we cannot really say can be monitored or confirmed if the people we empowered are using it to serve the purposed intended. Our goal now is to improve on what we are doing and cover more places by touching more lives.