Deeper Life Bible Church: 40 Years after (1)
Kumuyi
By Banji Ojewale
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor polite, not popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right”
– Martin Luther King Jr (1929 – 1968)
If it is supposedly presumptuous for puny man to attempt to trap in a short newspaper article God’s awesome dealings in the 40 years of the existence Deeper Life Bible Church (DLBC), would it not be more egregious to appear to contemn God’s phenomenal work by not acknowledging it at all whether in a brief newspaper presentation in print or on radio, TV, or in tomes or in hours of motion picture?
But it’s been the Faithful Lord in action using His servant William Folorunsho Kumuyi and a large host of fellow poor folk who have come along, to spring up an assembly of doctrinally relentless believers. So even if, as we are wont to do, we hoist Pastor Kumuyi as the brains behind DLBC, he will in turn refer us to God as the One due for the credit. We ought to accord Him honour first and foremost.
We do so correctly; because as observed by interpreters of the history of the Church, God planted DLBC and asked Kumuyi to tend it. Very much like the Edenic story: God organised a garden and put Adam in charge. Who owns the trees and fruits therein: the One Who owns the garden or the one who hoes it?
So the story of DLBC is the narrative of the partnership between God and those who opted to do His will both in spirit and letter, even if at the time of their decision, they launched an unpopular campaign. But God does not engage in popularity contests with man. He is not influenced by the fads of the day.
But it’s been the Faithful Lord in action using His servant William Folorunsho Kumuyi and a large host of fellow poor folk who have come along, to spring up an assembly of doctrinally relentless believers. So even if, as we are wont to do, we hoist Pastor Kumuyi as the brains behind DLBC, he will in turn refer us to God as the One due for the credit. We ought to accord Him honour first and foremost.
We do so correctly; because as observed by interpreters of the history of the Church, God planted DLBC and asked Kumuyi to tend it. Very much like the Edenic story: God organised a garden and put Adam in charge. Who owns the trees and fruits therein: the One Who owns the garden or the one who hoes it?
So the story of DLBC is the narrative of the partnership between God and those who opted to do His will both in spirit and letter, even if at the time of their decision, they launched an unpopular campaign. But God does not engage in popularity contests with man. He is not influenced by the fads of the day.
He will not back down on His demand for absolute righteousness to please the vast majority of His creatures who are unrighteous. You accept Him on His terms or you leave Him and bear the grave consequences. There is no compulsion either.
It’s been a bitter pill to offer a lost and proud society these past 40 years. And Kumuyi has been in straits also. The message he brought was too heavy for the world of 1973 when he started in the August of that year.
That was the first hurdle: hawking Christianity in a country which had three years back emerged from an internecine civil war that exacted a big toll on the population and its economy. There was spiritual chaos that gave birth to a dispirited people. They in turn resorted to crimes and criminality to solve their problems. God was largely absent in the cosmos of most of the populace. This made them open to whatever creed came their way as a solution to the challenges of the day.
And what dominantly came their way was a materialistic view of life: “seek ye first the god of this world (money) and all other things shall be added unto you.” The seeking was by hook or by crook.
It was back to the teaching of Nicolo Machiavelli: the end justifies the means. Everywhere in Nigeria was the theatre to put this into practice. It was not only in the former war zones of the country where the devil and his acolytes reigned. The churches at the time could not help. Indeed, they were, to some extent, part of the problem.
As one Christian observer puts it, they were “survival” and “occultic” churches “which were really on the look-out for what they could get.”
He says: “There were churches that helped the Gospel truth, but they were ‘closed’ in the sense that they felt they were only just surviving, and even under siege. It was difficult to join one of these churches as a newcomer and be assimilated…There was a dearth of the Word of God. Doctrinally and practically, there was a decline in Nigeria’s spiritual climate.” Both the physician and the patient were sick! It was only a matter of time for the death knell to sound.
So, these obstacles, preaching uncompromising holiness and faith-based expectations in meeting your needs in a philistine society and a church vitiated by an overly complaisant stance on Bible doctrines combined to place Kumuyi in a pretty pass. What he was bringing stood in open confrontation with what the society seemed to desire.
The young evangelist and Math lecturer at University of Lagos would not budge because the Bible he held as his authority and its Author (God) he declared as the One who sent him to deliver the message would also not budge. Nor would the churches and the system pulling the strings in the background.
Finally, God broke the deadlock in August 1973 when Kumuyi, still teaching, started a Bible Study Group in his official Flat 2 residence at Unilag. The 15-member team met every Monday under the leadership of William Folorunsho Kumuyi. Here, he sowed the seed of what God has turned into a huge church straddling all of Nigeria and reaching outwards across Africa and to several dozens of nations all over Planet Earth.
What he taught principally on Day One – holiness without which no man shall see the Lord, consistent Christian living with moment-by-moment victory over temptation and sin, opposition to worldliness, absolute trust in God’s promises in the Bible no matter the spiritual or physical challenges, humility (inward and outward), the infallibility of the Bible – are still what Deeper Life Bible Church stands for four decades after it broke into existence.
This doctrinal consistency coupled with the legendary exemplary discipline of Kumuyi remains the critical weapon of the staying power of DLBC.
It is not so much about the personality of W.F. Kumuyi as some informed analysts have pointed out.
There is some weighty point on this submission which we shall discuss soon, God willing. But we must be careful the depth of emphasis we give it, otherwise, we shall be downplaying equally worthy considerations such as the role of the church itself, its organisational structure, the part of members and leaders and above all the unfailing efficacy of the Word of God taught by DLBC.
It is appropriate still to agree with Alan Isaacson in his well-received book Deeper Life: The extraordinary growth of the Deeper Life Bible Church” that “the early history of Deeper Life is very much the personal life of W.F. Kumuyi…Kumuyi’s own Christian life developed because he took the Bible seriously, and so the Deeper Christian Life Ministry has developed in the same way. Kumuyi has preached Deeper Life into existence.”
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