He is a combination of grace, sophistication and intelligence. Indeed, he is a man of many parts. A Chartered Accountant with over 19 years of experience in Accounting, Auditing, and Financial Advisory Services, Pastor Ituah Ighodalo is also the Pastor of Trinity House, Lagos. Recently, the erudite accountant/consultant, who also sits as chairman of several companies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) spoke about his passion, marriage, journey to fulfillment, his thoughts on Nigeria and his plans for the future in this interview with Senior Correspondent, ARAMIDE OIKELOME. Excerpts:
Pastor Ighodalo
Over the years, you have worked with youths. What would you say are the peculiar challenges of youths?
A youth is a youth and they are limited in knowledge and experience. Therefore, the challenge with them is that they have no leaders, no role models, no mentors, nobody to tell them the truth. They are left to find their own ways by themselves and they are beginning to see wrong examples in terms of media, leadership, and environment. And I don’t know how they are going to help themselves, because, they really cannot, except they are taught and led. In our days, somebody used to tell us what was wrong from what was right. These days, older people don’t know what is right and what is wrong. And that is a serious problem.
Older people will also argue that although these youths attend the very numerous churches around, with many seeing their pastors as role models, they still get involved with so many vices. Is it that the pastors are not doing enough or that they have simply refused to practice what they are thought?
It is just that people like us are in the minority; the other people are in the over-whelming majority. Only about half of Nigerians are Christians; of that half, only about 20-30 per cent are Pentecostals. Of the Pentecostals, only a handful of them actually want to teach on ethics and truth. A lot of them speak on money making, deliverance and so on; things to stir up the people, but very little on things to guide them on the proper way of doing things. So, what you are asking people to talk about is not popular.
In those days, you will hear it from schools, homes, universities, you will hear it from institutions where people work; but all that have been watered down. Now, you have homes where parents encourage their children to go into prostitution; you have parents who hire people to write exams or buy over the examiner for their children. Then, you have several things influencing the youths badly, either from within and outside. You switch on the TV, you are seeing movies on homosexuality, even in Nollywood, and the average innocent child watches it, especially since you are not at home to censor what they watch. These films have the capacity of reaching about four million homes. I speak to a congregation of about 3, 000 every week, half of which are listening, half of which are not. But, the bad films go into almost all homes.
So, how do we rectify this problem?
If a small group of people would decide that this is the right thing to do and stick to it, then we can change the world. Most movements were started by few people. The prayer is that Nigeria will be able to gather together those few people who are ready to give their lives for this thing. Christianity was started by one man. Jesus gathered a group of 12 and thought them and unleashed them and it changed the entire thinking of the world at that time. Martin Luther King and a group of people from Alabama gathered together and 40 years after, produced Obama, as president of America. It is the same thing in South Africa, the Boers, the Afrikanas, went into South Africa and transformed the landscape. What we need now is that small group of people that are morally upstanding, bold and courageous to transform Nigeria. It may take us a while, but with commitment and doggedness, it would happen.
How did the inspiration for Trinity House come about?
You know about five years ago, for some reasons or the other, I had to leave the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) where I had served since 1993. So, I went back home and began to ask whether after pastoring for almost 12 years, I was no longer useful to God. So, it was a time to rest, meditate, think and ask God what next. So, I spent the first six months just resting and calming down. I had to adjust to another routine in life of not having to wake up around 4.am, prepare sermon, dash to Church at 6.am and preach in two or three services.
I remember in those days that I would wake up on Sundays and be thinking of what church to attend. I may then decide I would go to this church this week and then another next week and so on. For me, it was very refreshing because I began to see how differently people did their own things in different churches. The only problem was that once I entered the church, people won’t let me rest; they begin to pull me here and there and all I wanted to do was to enter into the church, be ministered to and then go away. Again, it was bothering me because I couldn’t move around freely. Anyway, sometimes, I get to sneak in and get away without being noticed. And it was very amusing to me each time I succeeded and nobody recognised me.
So, after six months, I took a trip to Israel and London. On my return, I began to have that feeling that the Lord still has need for me and that this was not the end of the road, because I was really at a point where I wondered whether I should just return to my practice fully into my profession, which I hadn’t left and then start chasing after money, making money aggressively. But, I began to hear the Lord say that “there is life after money. Yes, you have left Redeemed Christian Church of God, but you haven’t left me and I can use you. Then I asked how? One day, it dropped in my spirit, Trinity House; build me a House where they will dwell and change the world”. And then, God began to bring to me people. I started with a small group of four people, praying regularly for about six months and then eventually, the strategy to open began to unfold and we opened. And it has not been the same.
What are the challenges of starting a new church?
The main challenge is to hear God and to hear him clearly. Sometimes you don’t hear him well and you are thinking of going in one direction. For me, the first was that I had the kind of church I wanted and I called a few people to help raise this resource. I can tell you that not one of them came back with anything. So, some of the money that I used came from an unexpected lady whom I shared what I was thinking with and she just went out on her own from her friends and came to give me. The place I thought I would get from, not one kobo came from them till today. One of my biggest supporter and financier in Christ Church at that time, first of all went broke, and secondly, he ran away from me. So, my help came from the Lord.
So, to start, God just gave me a breakthrough. Between my wife and I, we did some transactions, some big money came and I just used that money to start. As we started, favour came. I will never forget that then I wanted to use the Civic Centre, Jim Ovia said he wasn’t going to charge. He said for the first two Sundays I could use the place for free and subsequently, I should pay as I was able. So, the pressure of not being able to pay to have a service was removed. Not one day did Civic Center call me to say I owed until I was able to pay them as I was able. Even my former musicians in Christ Church gathered together and said they were going to support me for the opening. I was surprised.
What is your relationship with Pastor Adeboye now?
Very good! I have no problem with Baba. He and I are good friends; we are relatives. I can walk up to him for anything at any time. We have no problem at all.
Do you do any other thing apart from pastoral work?
Yes, I have one or two businesses that I am involved in. I am Chairman of several companies and NGOs. So my plate is full.
How do you run these NGOs?
It is not as complicated as they seem. Some of them are my idea to meet a particular need. For instance, I saw a need to have a Motherless Babies Home. I conceived the idea, then I called somebody who at the time was childless and I told her to run with that idea. Naturally, she resisted it because she had no child, wondering how to run it. I convinced her and God gave her her natural child after she started doing that. It turns out that she is even more passionate now than I am. So, my job is simple. Find an idea, find somebody with equal or greater passion, make them run with it and I give them broad vision and direction and let God give the provision.
Some others, it is somebody else’s idea. One of the gifts I have is that of helping others to fulfill their dream and develop it. I get a lot of proposals. I take a look at them, if they have merit, I support. If they have merit and it is not yet time, I tell them so. If they don’t have merit, I tell them not to bother. So, this is how I operate and this is what has led to the formation of many NGOs and vehicles to doing many things.
Marriages are under attack of the enemy with divorce rate going on the increase on daily basis. Where do you think Christians are getting it wrong?
I have been through my fair share also, having been divorced also. What I think is that even as Christians, we don’t understand the fundamentals of marriage and we don’t teach about marriage properly. So, people get into marriage and they don’t understand it.
From my own personal experience, I became born again; there was a whole lot of pressure on me to get married because they knew my background and my antecedents and they were afraid that if I didn’t get married I might begin to misbehave. And they were just saying this girl is nice, marry her. It is not being nice that one needs in marriage, there are many nice girls that are marriageable, but not every nice marriageable girl is quite suited for you. What about compatibility, vision, direction, communication and all sorts of issues? Another mistake is that they think once you are born again, everything is alright. No! You still have your fundamental character, your desire, and behaviour.
Another thought is that when you marry, the girl or boy will change. People don’t change. So, a lot of churches and pastors have mistakenly forced people into wrong marriages.
And then the other thing is that once you have found somebody, go and tell your pastor, let him or her pray about it. Once he says it is okay, then, it is. Sometime, it is all not quite like that. Some people think a pastor is infallible. How can he be? He is just a man. Elisha was working with the Shunamite woman and her son died, and the woman came running to him. Elisha said God has killed this boy and He didn’t show me, meaning that God must always be God. There are some things about you that He will never show me because it is not my business. It doesn’t matter whether I am your pastor or not. God has to continue to be God. And sometimes, He can just tell the woman, this is the process you must follow to receive my miracle. There are other reasons like self-deceit also; razzmatazz, camouflage and all sorts in the name of God.
There is also this teaching that God hates divorce, which is true and correct and important. But, if you are going to manage a marriage situation that is difficult, it must be from a place of understanding and not from a place of God hates divorce and so you mustn’t divorce, without trying to understand what the issues are, how to unravel the issues, how to work out some understanding. So, a lot of people are under pressure and people can’t tell the truth. Then there is a place of prayer also.
So, we must all go back to the drawing board and begin to tell ourselves the truth. Some marriages were mistakes from the beginning. One of the things the church will not admit is that it was a mistake from the beginning because they will say God does not make a mistake. It wasn’t God that made the mistake, you made a mistake. David slept with Beersheba. God was there; he didn’t stop it. But, the good thing about Him is that he makes everything work together for good for those that love him. So, ab initio, it was a mistake; but, God can find a way to turn it around. So, what we now need to do is to look at the mind of God and try and see how He wants to turn it around into something good.
So, this is where we are and it is a deep thing. We all need to look at it and try to walk around it. It’s not irreparable situation. The first thing is that we should be honest. If the marriage was not a good idea admit it.
Secondly, let’s identify the fundamentals of each person. The third thing is how we manage ourselves forward together or even separate if necessary. If the marriage leads to lifelong emotional damage, with a potential or possibility of depression and death, then, we have to be realistic.
The post Churches, pastors force people into wrong marriages –Ighodalo appeared first on Daily Independent, Nigerian Newspaper.