Pastor Stephen Olayinka, Founder and Senior Pastor of United Kingdom, UK-based Watersprings Christian Centre, Lotun, speaks of his foray into the ministry, his challenges as a black pastor, the CONVID-19 pandemic and other issues.
How did you get into the Ministry?
I had my first degree in Banking and Finance. When God called me, I had to proceed to Ambrose University in Canada, where I had my Master’s of Art in Leadership and Ministry. After that, the Ministry started in 2013 and has been growing. I have served in different ministries before the church started.
How has the ministry been fairing since?
Very fine. Our core value is to transform life and there have been a lots of testimonies. People have been touched; peoples lives have been changed and the Lord put us in the UK, where people have travelled from across the world to come to. That’s what we are doing right now.
How is the transition from Banking and Finance into the Ministry?
Well, you really have no choice when God is calling you. You have no choice because I was actually doing well in the banking sector. I had to resign from before I travelled to Canada to attend Seminary.
Even when I finished Seminary, I wasn’t really sure. I had to come back to Nigeria after finishing my course in Canada. I came to Nigeria thinking I wanted to start a business. So I started oil and gas business and I was doing well. I had tankers and I was supplying many fuelling stations and making money.
However, it came to a point that God actually started fighting me. Everywhere I go, they will tell me you have to work for God. However, one thing that made the turning moment in my life was a day I drove my car along Ilupeju at Anthony, going to Gbagada. Along the road, armed robbers on motorcycles came close to me and, without asking anything, one of the guys just shot me at a very close range.
At that point, I thought I was dead. But eventually by the time I regained my conscious, I saw the bullet in the car and I saw that the bullet had been deflected just through my pocket and the bullet dropped in the car.
However, two days before that encounter, a prophet called me and said ‘this is going to be the last time I will be asking you to release yourself to the ministry’. So recovering from that experience changed my life. Even the Police at that scene followed me to church for thanksgiving.
I was actually going to Church to meet my pastor thenm Dr. Imosewa. As I got to his office, he said ‘God told me as you were coming in and He said He spared you because you are an instrument’. And that was the turning moment; at that point I had no choice but to go back to my calling and then I had to pray and asked God where He wanted me to lead.
He then said, my ministry will be in the UK. That time I was settled in Nigeria and doing well, so I had to move to UK. Fortunately, my wife lives in the UK. And that was how we started the business.
What has been your most challenging moment since you went into ministry?
Talking of challenging moments, there have been lots of challenging moment in my life, but there’s one particular one that happened.
I recall a particular good friend of mine who was dying and then I prayed to God bitterly and the Lord said “Stephen, his time has come and I am calling him home”. So I had to called his wife and I told her that God said he was calling him home; imagine how his wife will react to that. And few minutes later, he gave up the ghost.
That was one of the challenges because I love the man very well. The other challenging moment happened in 2019, which I will never forget. I saw it as an attack over my Ministry and this thing started in 2015, but didn’t materialised until 2019.
Every year, I come to Nigeria for a conference and then each time when am going back, I have three luggage weighing over 30kg of print items and stationery for the church. So when I got to the airport, I pulled my muscle. When I got home the following day, I went to the hospital to complain to my doctor and then my doctor gave me pain killer and then two days after that time, the thing went off and then I started my life again, and that was in 2015.
A month later, I was driving; I came out of the church in the evening, because then I was still doing IT consulting job to carter for my family, as the church was not paying salary. Each time I leave the office, I go to the church as that is my main calling. Immediately, I drove out of the church that very day, on a very narrow street, one guy was actually putting something in the car and he didn’t watch me coming. His attempt to open his car crushed my car, right from the bonnet up to the boot.
The car was insured, and we exchanged details. Then I went to the police station to make a report of the incident that resulted in pains I had on my neck and on my back. The police advised me to go to the hospital.
So I went to the hospital, and complained to my doctor, he attended to me and gave me some pain killer as well, but it wasn’t responding. So he actually recommended that based on the information I gave to him, to see a physiotherapy, which I did for about three months.
However, it came to a point where my physiotherapist wanted to inject me, then I suddenly realised that I was in the deliverance Ministry, why do I want to go to this whole faithless journey? So I asked him to stop. He said if I don’t want to take the injection, I should go for exercise and I started praying. Eventually God healed me.
As at that point, living in the UK, I have an insurance on my car and when things like that happened it is not your fault, definitely you have to report to the insurance company where you make a claim. So through an insurance lawyer, I made a claim.
The car accident made me resigned from my IT job due to the pains I was feeling and the therapy I was undergoing. Unfortunately for me the doctor that attended to me forgot to put it on his record that he was treating me as a result of the accident.
So in 2017, the insurance company requested for my medical details and then I gave them the permission to go to the NHS so that they can obtained the details as I have nothing to hide. However, by the time they pulled out my records, that was when I realised that the doctor forgot to put in his narration that he was treating me because of the accident and even sent me for physiotherapy.
So knowing insurance company so well, as they are also looking for a fault, in order not to pay, they picked that up and thought I was making a false claim. As it looked like they were treating me for the muscle injury I had when I returned from Nigeria in previous month and that it escalated into something else.
And when they realised that I am a pastor, they blew the case saying I was making a false claim. Knowing my reputation was at stake, I had to tell them to stop the claim. So the insurance company stopped the claim. But even though they stopped the claim, they wouldn’t let me be.
I stopped the claims without collecting a dime from them. They took me to magistrate court in Newton UK, and the case was dismissed about three times. Still, they won’tl et me be.
At some point, they took me again to the High Court in London that was in 2019, where they claimed the sum of 31,000 pounds from me. This was a case I did not collect a dime from them. It was a whole lot of struggle because it looks like they wanted to spoil my image. And as a pastor over there, people just don’t want to know the truth, the moment they paint a pastor as fraudulent, they take it for it.
One thing I like about Nigerian journalists is that they will always like to present the two sides of a story for balance and I believed that is why I am happy to share this with you because there has never been any forum for me to share this information. As at some point, the case went in their favour and then some few month later they put it on the internet that I made a fraudulent claim. But nobody knows the truth of the case; of which, it was the doctor that forgot to put the information in records.
I actually wrote the doctor and they apologised, but claimed that they cannot change their records at that point. They asked me to go and check the physiotherapy records. There I realised that they actually put it on their records, that they were treating me for the accident. This was in 2019, when the case had ready been ruled in their favour.
They wanted to put me in jail. But the judge looking at the case actually told me that he had seen my records and saw I was a community leader, and never had any problem.
And at some point, my lawyer had to agree with them, when they promised to remove the case from the court, but deceived us to plead guilty in return. But it was a trick. It was after my lawyer made me signed guilty that they now proceeded. The judge told me since I pleaded guilty, she had no choice but to put the lowest sentence ever because she knew I didn’t do what I was accused of.
However, it could have ruined my image if not for the mercy of God. But I thank God I am still in the ministry today. I am still strong and am still changing lives according to the demand of God.
Why didn’t you seek redress after you discovered the records that proved your innocence?
You know, despite the hospital sending an apology, and directing me to the physiotherapy, they refused to come public as they were protecting their image. Because if they do so, it can actually make them pay a lot of money.
And as a pastor, I was concerned about my reputation. I didn’t proceed with the NHS but unfortunately in court at that point there was nothing anybody could do as my lawyer had already pleaded guilty, just heeding to the trust of the insurance lawyer.
How has life been afterwards?
Well, after then nothing has changed about me. I have put that all behind me and I am still in the ministry doing well.
Do you view that incident as influenced by racism?
Well, to be honest with you, I do not like talking about racism. But if you ask me, had it happened to a white-skinned pastor, it would have been a different case. But the focus is on black pastors. I wouldn’t want to dwell on that.
A lot has been said about the COVID-19 pandemic, especially by popular men of God. What is your take on it?
Coronavirus is all over the world, but what I would say is, if you look at the world, people have shifted from the way of God. People have shifted their attention away from God. God is not happy with us.
I believed that God wants to show us that He’s still God. Remember what happened to the Egyptians when God was sending some form of plagues to destroy them when they did not want the Israelites to leave the Egypt?
This is just a sign that God of the old is still the God of present. God just wanted us to know that He’s still in control and that if he wants to wipe off this whole world, it won’t cost him anything. But when I prayed, I realised that this pandemic will go very soon.
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