ADDRESS DELIVERED BY THE GENERAL SECRETARY OF CHRIST APOSTOLIC CHURCH, NIGERIA AND OVERSEAS, PASTOR DAVID UDOFIA, ON 18TH SEPTEMBER 2023, AT THE OPENING OF THE ANNUAL PASTORS’ CONFERENCE OF THE CHURCH HELD AT CAC OKE AWAMARIDI, ODO ONA, IBADAN, OYO STATE, NIGERIA.
All Chairmen of Coordinating Councils present,
All Districts’ Superintendents present,
All national Officers and Heads of Committees within the Mission present,
All Members of the Supreme Council,All Pastors present.
On behalf of all the leaders of this great Mission, it is with great pleasure and gratitude to God that I welcome you to the 2023 edition of the annual national Pastors’ Conference of the Church.
As you all know, the Pastors’ Conference is a very significant event, during which our Pastors take an important break away from the work of Ministry, for a week’s retreat.
Apart from providing the golden opportunity to refresh ourselves and to rekindle the fire needed for Ministry for another year, it is first and foremost a forum for us to show collective gratitude to God for our various progresses and successes in the past year, in our respective posts of calling.
After all, David said in Psalm 127 verse 1: “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.” God has been the faithful Builder of our life and Ministry, and the Watchman over our souls.
For these, we give Him all glory and adoration.The year 2023 in particular has been a very challenging one for most Nigerians.
Apart from being the year of national elections and a change in government in the country, the citizenry have also been subjected to difficult government policies that have impacted harshly on their standard of life. Churches, being located within the same societies, have also been affected by these developments.
It is therefore by nothing other than the grace of God that we are not consumed.
It has been His grace that has kept us going through the year, and the fact that we are gathered here is by nothing but the grace of God. Once again, we give Him all glory.
THE JOURNEY SO FAR When the Supreme Council office relocated to Sango in March 2021, about two and a half years ago, none of our adversaries gave us any chance of survival.
Our beginning was very small indeed, and we were despised by many. The forces against us were very daunting, and many in other factions thought that it was a matter of a little time before we fizzled out.
But we were undaunted. Despite our little size, we understood perfectly that we are the stone that the builders rejected, but that would soon become the head of the corner.
We understood perfectly that God has a plan to restore His Church, and that we are privileged to be His chosen vessels to pioneer the restoration.
We understood perfectly, just like we had it in Israel in the Scriptures, that we the Supreme Council settled at Sango, are the remnants in Christ Apostolic Church, a Church where many leaders have abandoned the foundations laid down by our founding fathers. ONE FOLD, ONE SHEPHERD The motto of Christ Apostolic Church was taken by our founding fathers from a prediction made by our Lord Jesus in the Book of John 10:16.
It refers to God’s plan for the Body of Christ as a whole to be united under Christ as one sheepfold, with Christ as the Shepherd over that sheepfold.
However, our founding fathers decided to adopt the Scripture as the motto for this Mission, because it accurately depicts their God-given vision for her. God told our founding fathers that it is only one mat that He has spread for Christ Apostolic Church, and that nobody should divide His Church. So it has been a widely acknowledged fact since the beginning of CAC, that God’s vision for the Church is that she will continue to manifest the Apostolic order of being and power, but in unity.
A careful study of the history of the Church will clearly attest to the fact that the early leaders sought strenuously to be faithful to that vision, by striving to preserve the unity of the Church, despite several assaults and efforts by Satan to divide her.
However, things fell apart in 1990 when a group of inordinately ambitious pastors executed what they described as a revolution, which triggered a terrible crisis, and eventually laid CAC wide open to various Satanic attacks that divided the Church.
Today, over 30 years after that first revolution, Christ Apostolic Church is shamelessly divided into three factions, with each faction running a parallel administration.
One faction, the GEC faction, has its headquarters located at Anlugbua, Orita Basorun, Ibadan. This is the faction whose early leaders triggered the first crisis in CAC three decades ago, in 1990.
Another faction is located at Irefin area of Ibadan. The place was actually our temporary head office in the Supreme Council for several years, until another crisis erupted in 2017.
The crisis was triggered by the General Superintendent of the Church at the time, when he and some other senior Pastors secretly compromised with the GEC faction and made a collective move to force the Supreme Council into a merger with the GEC, in a way that was not favorable to the Council and was not in the overall interest of the Church.
That move failed because it met with stiff opposition, and also because the pioneers could not lay their hands on the Church’s original Certificate of Incorporation (dated 1985) which the GEC wanted.
Eventually, the pioneers of the move forcibly retired the leaders of the Supreme Council at the time (not minding the fact that retirement on account of age was not provided for in the Church’s Constitution) and appointed themselves as the new leaders.
They have been keeping other pastors in check under them by promising to ensure the unity of CAC, a clearly deceitful promise, because their actions so far have shown clearly that they have no genuine desire for the unity of CAC on a foundation of truth.THE REMNANTS.
We that are gathered here are the faithful remnants of the original Supreme Council of Christ Apostolic Church. In 2017, we resisted the move by our former General Superintendent and the present leaders of the Irefin faction, to extinguish the Supreme Council and forcibly merge her members with the GEC.
We relocated from Irefin to Agbowo and sojourned there for a while before moving to the Coca Cola area, Sango, with the aims of continuing with CAC on her original foundations, as handed down by our founding fathers.
And also to protect the governing body of the Church, the Supreme Council, from being extinguished in an unholy compromise with the GEC.
That was why, apart from the position of the General Secretary who was appointed to run our Secretariat, our leaders here agreed very early to suspend temporarily the appointments of other principal officers, so as not to be distracted from our mission of restoration of the Church to her foundation.CAC – PRESENT AND FUTUREWithout a doubt, the present state of Christ Apostolic Church is a disgrace.
All genuine attempts to reconcile warring groups from the beginning of the crisis have failed, simply because of the insincerity of the group leaders. Most of these leaders attended peace meetings with the main concern of how to perpetuate themselves in their respective positions, rather than sacrificially seeking genuine resolution of the crisis.In the past three decades, a number of modern Pentecostal Missions have overtaken CAC in spiritual exploits, while CAC only boasts of past glory.
Worse still, different strange doctrines and administrative practices have been introduced into the Church by these factional leaders, practices that have gradually eroded the deep respect that people once had for CAC.
An example is the increasing emphasis on money. These factional leaders now organize grandiose project launchings where they invite moneybags whose salvation is questionable, simply because of their wealth.
It is now no longer strange for a Pastor to turn revival or prayer meetings into fundraisers, and the higher the donation, the more the prayers and blessings bestowed by the Pastor on the donor!Also, it has always been the practice in CAC for refresher courses for pastors to be organized at District level.
But now, Irefin leaders travel from District to District to personally conduct such courses! Disgusting stories abound of the extent to which Church leaders in CAC now go, all for pecuniary benefits. No wonder that the late Apostle Joseph Ayo Babalola once predicted that CAC had “sown a garment of disgrace”, but that he would not be around to join them in wearing it!Transfer of pastors, creation of Districts, and appointment of pastors into positions in CAC had always been based on merit and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
But it is now no longer a secret that a lone assembly can purchase the status of a District, if it can afford it. A Pastor can refuse to be transferred and remain at a station for up to 20 or 30 years with no consequences, if he has a god-father at the top.
And many appointments of Pastors are no longer based on merit but can be bought. Perhaps the worst assault on the Church was the fraudulent procurement of another Certificate of Incorporation for her by the GEC in 1991, in 1995 and as recently as 2021.
We would remember that the 1990 revolutionists made attempts to seize the original Certificate of the Church (dated 1985) several times, but their move was checkmated by God.
Thus the Holy Spirit Himself preserved the instrument needed by the pioneers of the revolution to complete their assault on the Church in 1990. Since that time till now, the GEC (who are the beneficiaries of the 1990 revolution) have made several attempts to either seize the Certificate or render it worthless, or by obtaining another Certificate from the Corporate Affairs Commission.
But despite all their efforts, like the budding rod of Aaron, the Certificate of Incorporation of the Church (of 1985) remains indestructible and the only legal link of Christ Apostolic Church with her foundation.
It is presently in our custody, and we reiterate our vow to protect it and use it as a major link between our past and our future.
WELCOME Before I end the Address, let me seize this opportunity, in this august gathering of servants of God, to welcome our brother and father in the Lord, Pastor A.A. Ayodele, the Chairman of Ekiti DCC no.1, and all other respected Pastors that came with him.
Without any doubt, we are happy to have him here with us physically, but I must say that we are not surprised. As a son, he was with the late Baba Adegoroye and fully in support with him, when the latter resisted the evil revolution that divided our Church. Also when we were together at Irefin, Pastor Ayodele never hid his opposition to the evil forces when they began the move to sell the Church to the GEC.
It is therefore no surprise that like Lot, he was vexed with the deceits and excesses of the Irefin leaders. This is why we are glad to have him with us today to continue the fight together, for the enthronement of righteousness in Christ Apostolic Church.
I also acknowledge our other fathers in the Lord, like Pastor Adedeji from Port Harcourt and Pastor Adeife Boanerge Ayokunnu. CLARION CALL, I want to use this moment to extend a hand of fellowship to all our other brethren who are in other factions of the Church, whether in Irefin or in the GEC, those who are for the truth and who genuinely desire the restoration of the Church to her original foundations.
We look forward to receiving you and marching together in this end-time army. God has told us very clearly that the Eagles of Christ Apostolic Church will continue to gather where the carcass, that is the 1985 Certificate, is located.
As the Lord of Hosts lives, this Remnant of the Lord will continue to increase while all other factions will diminish. Very soon, in our time and with our contributions, a glorious, new CAC will emerge. The latter glory of Christ Apostolic Church will greatly surpass the former. And when that happens, none of us here will be missing.
In Jesus’ precious Name, Amen.SO ON THIS NOTE AND ON BEHALF OF THE SUPREME COUNCIL, I HEREBY DECLARE OPEN THE PASTORS’ CONFERENCE OF CHRIST APOSTOLIC CHURCH 2023, IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. AMEN.
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