By Tony Eluemunor
Since 2018, the Christos International Worship Centre, Abuja, has hosted thousands of Pastors, Ministers, Evangelists and dozens of Bishops in a yearly conference. While the themes of the conferences have differed from one year to another, the aim has always remained the same; to enhance the unity in the body of Christ, help the budding workers in the Lord’s Vineyard to navigate hidden land mines, learn how to stand firm in the face of adversities and to encourage networking and foster even more love among them. And to grow stronger and become more effective as soldiers in Christ’s Army.
The two–day Conference will kick off on Saturday, 14th June, with a grand gathering of Ministers’ Conference. Thousands of church Ministers – Pastors and evangelists – will converge inside the sprawling Christos church headquarters called the Dome, at No. 1 David Ogudu Avenue, Off Kabusa New Express Road, Apo, Abuja, opposite the African Medical Centre of Excellence (AMCE), a gigantic hospital which President Bola Ahmed Tinubu commissioned a few days ago – on the 5th of June this year.
The following day, Sunday the 15th will mark the closing of the conference and it will witness ordination of Pastors and Thanksgiving.
Yes, on the final day of the conference, the Bishops present help to ordain the new shoots coming out from the vines of the church, the new Ministers and Evangelists that will go on with the work of spreading the Gospel of Christ. And Thanksgiving? Oh yes, those who have been attending the Conference over the years must have noted one solid fact about Bishop David Ogudu and the Christos International Worship Centre: that the Conference grew from the heartfelt, massive and celebratory thanksgiving the Church and her Bishop render unto the Lord for the great event of June 11th. Yes, that is when the church celebrates the God of June 11th. Why? Answer: God called Bishop David
Nwachukwu Ogudu, while he was a student of Chemical Engineering at the Bida Polytechnic, was aged 19! And he has been in the Lord’s Vineyard now for some 30 years. Does that tell the entire world his age? Oh, don’t worry about that; he even declares his age right from his pulpit. So, yearly since 2018, he has hosted the God of June 11th Yearly Prophetic Conference.
To watch Bishop David Ogudu in action is to have an idea of an Old Testament prophet in action. No, I’m not dwelling on the fire and the brimstone part of it, though he is not averse to calling them down if the Spirit leads him. What stuns the first time visitor to his church is his confounding authority. He would first tell someone of his, say, medical problem and then ask “Oh, did you bring a copy of a lab/medical test from a hospital” (which proves that someone is actually ill)? He could just pray and ask for a photocopy of the medical test result, then tear it into pieces declaring with all authority that the person has been healed. Then, please, wait for this, he will then make the patient promise to return to the same laboratory at an appointed time for another test which should be taken to the same medical doctor to prove that a miraculous healing has taken place. For that person to come to give testimony, he or she must come with the result of the subsequent lab test or doctor’s report, which would scientifically prove that a healing has actually taken place. He puts himself to that rigorous test!
In fact, he encourages the members of his congregation to take adequate advantage of the goodies medical sciences have to offer. So, too, he hates people who would refuse to work but spend all their time in praying for miraculous benefits to fall from heaven. He said that to be idle when there is work to do is sinful and that we must work as hard as if success depends solely on how much we work and to pray at the same time as if our success comes from God alone. He added that there is no confusion there because the life and energy we have to enable us to work comes from God who also blesses the work of our hands.
And oh, he does take church hymns and worship songs, very seriously. No, I’m not saying this because he waxed a music album this year, which is doing well in the number of downloads and shares it has received, but he intersperses his prophetic messages with hymns, leaving the congregation in no doubt that he hears the hymn first with an inner ear. Then he would approach the choir, asking it to match the tempo or cadence as well as the melody of what he heard in his inner ear.
Sometimes, he may not even know the title or the wordings of the song.
And if the choir flows with him, the more the prophecies flow from his mouth. In fact, Bishop Ogudu explained that this Sunday will be a prophetic service.
He also said that the theme of this year’s conference –Upward and Forward- is biblical, and comes from the Book of Revelations, chapter 4 verse 1; “After this I looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven; and the first voice which I heard was, as it were, of a trumpet talking with me, which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.” This verse describes the apostle John being invited to a higher place, a spiritual realm, to witness events that would take place in the future. So, this year’s conference is geared towards helping the invitees to develop their closeness to God and their spiritual gifts.
Last year’s theme was on how to know how to avoid burn-out while labouring in the ministry. That year, General Overseer of Christos International Worship Centre, Bishop David Nwachukwu Ogudu, from Okposi town in Ebonyi state, stressed the need for Pastors and Evangelists to learn how to juggle their duties towards their church congregations and taking adequate care of themselves. He said that if they unduly forget to take care of themselves, especially to take adequate rest, they will experience easy burnout as their health would begin to suffer. He said then that the Pastors should remember that they often have spouses and children, as well as other members of their families such as parents (for the young ones) to take care of.
He said sagely that the same God who gives holiness and answers their prayers and performs miracles through them, also gave them wisdom at the same time.
Also, on that final day of the conference, the church will empower some 250 widows. Someone explained that most of the widows to be so empowered are not members of the Christos church. When I wondered why, he laughed, saying that at Christos they have very few widows as they rarely lose church members through untimely deaths because it is a prophetic church and the “Lord reveals to redeem”. He said that sometimes, though some members could fail to obey prophetic instructions, and they only have themselves to blame if anything untoward happened to them.
Over the years, the conference has brought many Bishops, at the same time, to Christos. This year, for instance, Bishop Angel Nunez is coming in from Baltimore, USA, while several respected Bishops from Nigeria will be in attendance. Over the years, other Bishops from Ghana, Kenya, Cameroon, the United Kingdom and other far-flung countries have attended the conference.
