Members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, worldwide celebrated the 80th birthday of their General Overseer, Pastor E.A. Adeboye on Wednesday, March 2, 2022.
At home, thousands gathered at the RCCG Holy Ghost Camp on the Lagos Ibadan Expressway for a marathon of 80 hours of praise to mark the event. It was, indeed an unusual tribute to the much-revered cleric.
Pastor Adeboye’s tenure as the successor to the founder of RCCG Pa. Josiah Fadayomi, has recorded many landmarks. His opening of the famous Redeemed Camp on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, opened the door to other ministries, who have also located their camps along the expressway, which is now home to the largest concentration of churches in the country.
However, his biggest contribution to the RCCG legacy and the Body of Christ, in particular, is his branch network system. He inherited 39 branches and the headquarters when he took over as the General Overseer, but has turned the local church into a global mega-church with the largest network of parishes across Nigeria, and branches in more than 170 countries.
In Nigeria, the season of church planting in RCCG is the Easter celebration, during what is called Let’s Go A Fishing. During this period, new parishes are established after a brief period of intense evangelism. But the clincher for church growth is Pastor Adeboye’s vision to locate a branch in virtually every street in each town. Now, the Pastor wants every family in the world to have at least one Redeemed member. The church’s strategy has brought RCCG close to the reach of Christians in every nook and cranny in Nigeria.
However, it was the Lekki’ 98 crusade at the Peninsula, with the theme: Divine Visitation, that raised the greatest awareness for the church, and its G.O. This was obviously the biggest crusade ever held in the city of Lagos, and its impact on the growth of the RCCG cannot be disputed.
Pastor Adeboye is clearly a very creative minister. His monthly Holy Ghost Night at the camp, as well as the hosting of the church’s annual convention, often records a surge in worshippers from across the denominational spectrum.
The pastor shows himself to be a spiritual genius with his division of the church into classic and model parishes. The classic is targeted at local, traditional worshippers, who are the church’s core membership base, while the model Parish was created to attract modern, sophisticated worshippers. The system has worked, as RCCG has been able to attract the educated, economically buoyant yuppies and yummies who have the financial clout to fund the church. The model parishes are led by the church’s elite ministers who also appeal to the elites of the society.
As the amiable, highly respected cleric clocks 80, BEATS salutes the great preacher for his fidelity to his commission and commitment to the first doctrine of Christ, which is to evangelize the kingdom of God.
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