Reverend Michael Abiodun Oluwadipe, a Man after God’s Heart

Rising through the ushering department to becoming the Senior Pastor of Foursquare Gospel Church, Jebako, (A city on the Hill), Reverend Michael Oluwadipe, shared his visions of expanding the church through prayers and his plans to reach out to more vulnerable people in the society this year. Gilbert Ekugbe brings the excerpts

Introduction

By the special grace of God, my name is Reverend Michael Abiodun Oluwadipe, the Senior Pastor of Foursquare Gospel Church, Jebako. I came to know the Lord as early as 1976 and I have been in Foursquare all through and to the glory of God, that was where the Lord lifted me from being an usher to being a Pastor. I was posted out in 2000 to pioneer a church before I was brought back again into this fold in 2005 and since then, I have been in Jebako. To the glory of God in 2018, the church was shattered in other words, it was given a status to be on its own that is self-propagating, self-financing and self-governing, but to the Glory of God five years down lane, we have been on our own and the Lord has been helping us.

How have you fared over the years being a Pastor?

Honestly, it is something that I live for so much. When I became born again, my aunt that I was living with saw the grace of God upon me and told me that I am going to be a Pastor and advised me to start preparing, but I did not believe it until one man of God, Reverend, Adebayo Adebisi saw that grace upon me, he did not tell but just called one Sunday and said from today, you are joining the Pastorate. Honestly, I started with fear, but since then, my movement has been upward. There are lots of challenges, but each time there is a challenge, I have learnt to run back to God because I did not bring myself into this service, but God did and he has been helping me to overcome the storms of life so I give him all the praise.

You celebrated your birthday in December last year, what will be your birthday message to the youths and congregation alike?

Honestly, my message to the youths is that whatsoever their hands find to do, they must do it well, since God called me, I have never looked back. I have never seen any job too little for me to do, sometimes I sweep this office myself, sometimes I move around with a hoe in my hand to clear some weeds because I see this work as a work of God and I go all out for it to do it with the whole of my heart. For the youths I want to challenge them that the best place or the most fertile place you can serve is in the house of God, you should never be lazy in serving God. Everything is not about money, but give yourself, your totality, your energy, your best to God because he deserves the best from all of us and you can never miss your blessing serving God

What will be your advice to managers of Nigeria’s economy on the way forward in 2024?

My advice to them is that they should rule us taking cognisance of the fear of God, because most of our leaders go outside this country and they see how things are working, but we have used politics to destroy a lot of things, we have used sectionalism to destroy a lot of things, we have tend to leverage on religion to destroy so many things because there is no fear of God, because if there is fear of God the rich will not use their money against the poor. We have a serious problem of leadership in this country and I want to ask our leaders to lead in the fear of God because for everything you do there is always a reward. If you use your position well, God will be there to bless you in return, so let them use their position to be a blessing to the masses. A lot of people are in tears today, a lot of people go to bed hungry, but we have the resources in this land. It baffles me why our leaders cannot come together to use these resources to be of benefit to the masses.

What are some of the goodies installed for Jebako going into 2024?

By the special grace of God, I look forward to God to expand us. I want us to be more prayerful. I want us to exercise more faith because this God we serve is much more than enough. It bleeds my heart that people will come to God on a Sunday like this and during the week, you see them somewhere else looking for other powers, but for us here at Jebako, the city on a hill, our focus is on God, because he is much more than enough and let nobody try any other means except this God. He is more than enough for all of us, let us focus on him, he will carry us because his words say in Psalms 37 vs 19 “You shall not be ashamed in the evil time. In the time of famine, you will be satisfied” I look forward to God because he will satisfy us in Jebako, because last year, for the first time we reached out enmass to people particularly last Sunday. I am looking forward to doing that much more than we did last year in 2024 by the grace of God. We want to reach out to our community, we want to be of blessing to the people so that we too can be blessed.

What were some of the achievements recorded last year?

By the grace of God, we started so well in 2023 with hymn Sunday, praising God and it gladdens me that indeed we are also ending the year with gratitude in our hearts and to the glory of God, the teens church has been down for sometime, but this year we have been able to erect it. Last year also, we did medical outreach and was very successful where over 200 people came in from different religion to benefit from this exercise and the fact that we have been able to reach out in food, clothing and some other materials to the less privilege is a great achievement to me, because God in his words said “If you are able to reach out to these ones, you have done it to me” so we have been of blessing to our community, we have been of blessing to the sick, we have paid medical bills and we have also paid some school fees for some people and it gladdens my heart to see children who would have been thrown out of school going to school and succeeding. These are the few achievements we have recorded and I know by the grace of God in 2024, we are going to do much more and going global to the glory and honour of the name of the Lord. Praise the Lord