How Pastor Adeboye’s Ideologies Has Helped Transformed The Redeemed Christian Church Of God

One very significant evidence of a genuinely ordained ministry is always obvious in the areas of leadership succession. In the commemoration of the 80th birthday celebration of the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor EA Adeboye, Church Gist has shared on their platform the historical records of the well-revered cleric. According to Church Gist, The Redeemed Christian Church of God was established in the year 1952 by the late Pa Akindayomi. The present General Overseer of the ministry, Pastor EA Adeboye joined in the year 1973. He was ordained as a pastor in the ministry in the year 1977, having served the founder relentlessly as an interpreter. But, the major reason for most of his achievements in the Redeemed Christian Church of God was basically because he deviated from some of the doctrines of the ministry, as established by the founder, Pa Akindayomi, and employed some innovations that have positively driven the ministry forwards, over the years.

He became the General Overseer of the church on January 20, 1981, after the demise of the founder, Pa Akindayomi. Under Pastor Adeboye, the Redeemed Christian Church of God has advanced tremendously, more than the founding members could ever have imagined. Pastor Adeboye brought in a great and positive revolution to the Redeemed Christian Church. RCCG under Pa Akindayomi was renowned as “the Crying church”, as no drums, modernized classical or contemporary instruments and styles of worship were allowed. He introduced the use of musical instruments that were once prohibited in the ministry. This he was able to justify by directing people to the form of worship as obtainable in the Bible.

Also, From a few branches, he successfully established numerous branches in the country and abroad. Pastor EA Adeboye could be said to disobey the constituted authority by going against the norms and ancestral tenets of the ministry. However, they were to the positive development of RCCG. Jewellery was prohibited, and the biblical standard about women being silent during church activities. Without having anything done with spiritual services. Now, the women folks have been given a divine voice. We could now see several of them being ordained as pastors in RCCG. Back then, women were not ordained as leaders in the church.

According to Church Gist, The decision of the founder, Pa Akindayomi in passing the leadership of the ministry to the young, and “non-board member” in Pastor Adeboye was a controversial step that resulted in the eventual split of the church. The church split into three and the disgruntled founding members who felt cheated in one way or the other, broke from the church to form their respective churches. The ministry under the founder experienced tremendous adaptability and adherence to the strict order of holiness. This Pastor Adeboye did not change, but he moved in some ways by introducing some innovations that were not allowed in the ministry while the founder was alive.

(An Aerial view of portions of Redemption Camp)

(Mass choir of RCCG in one of their several programmes)

Then, Lecturer at the University of Lagos, Pastor EA Adeboye was a consecrated Christian leader with zeal and insatiable quest to be filled with the right directives and coordination for the new ministry that was placed under him. On this, he travelled to South Korea, to Pastor Yogi Cho of the Yoido Full Gospel Church, and Tulsa, in the United States of America, to Revered Kenneth Hagin of the Rhema Gospel Ministry. The significance of his visits to these two leaders in Christian Pentecostalism was evident in the later developments experienced in the Redeemed Christian Church of God in later years and to date. The home cell services ( after church fellowships) were coined from Yogi Cho’s ministry. This has further boosted Redeemed hold on membership and in-depth tutelage on the members.

His predecessor would not have allowed the later developments introduced by the young Adeboye. The introduction of the Model parishes in 1988, under the pastorate of the renowned Pastor Tunde Bakare, then a Lawyer, further boosted the modernization of the ministry. The Redeemed Christian Church of God moved from being referred to as archaic with classical ways of Christian worship, to an advanced and modernized church. Upon this, the classical ways were not abolished but, it resulted in the ministry being run simultaneously under three forms of doctrinal; the classical church doctrine, the Model, and the Unified doctrine. The unified doctrines combined both the classical and the model churches

The present state of the church, the robust experiences the spread all over the world would not have been possible be it the conservative doctrine employed by the founder, Pa Akindayomi were maintained by Pastor Adeboye. Being an elite, and an exposed erudite, he was about to get himself connected to the ways by which other believers all over the world worship God and run their various ministries, in line with the biblical standards. This he successfully actualized and made great turnaround greatness in the Redeemed Christian Church of God.

The disobedience of Pastor EA Adeboye was a positive one as it has not only helped gained so many souls into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, it has also established the presence of churches in communities that have not been reached by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This has eventually made the gospel of the Lord accessible to the one time unreached people.