The General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church, Doctor William Folohunso Kumuyi, has advised Christians against giving their offerings to the church but rather to give it to the poor and unemployed in their communities.
Kumuyi, who made the statement in a video that has gone viral, was heard telling his church congregation that Christians should not spend all their money on building churches but also help their poor neighbours who can’t afford basic life needs.
Kumuyi narrated how a preacher had instructed his members to give monies meant for offering to the poor and unemployed people around them.
Recall that a controversial OAP, Daddy Freeze, rebuked some Nigerian pastors over their ostentatious lifestyles while their members lived in abject poverty.
Freeze was quoted as saying, “When I started going against tithe, there’s no Nigerian pastor that didn’t respond.
“I just came and read the bible to them: Deuteronomy chapter 14, if you read from verse 22, it said, ‘Eat your tithe by yourself’. I read it.”
Kumuyi noted that it is good to build the church, but while building, Christians must remember their neighbours dying of hunger.
He said, “Look at all this offering we’re collecting. This church has silver and gold.
“I learned of a preacher somewhere who was having their church service. And he said, ‘Now we’re going to collect the offering. If you have N10,000, N20,000, or N50,000, raise your hand, and they will be faithful’.
“Then he stood up and said, ‘that N10,000, N20,000, and N50,000 go to the poor in your community. All the offering is not just church, there are poor, unemployed people around’.
“There are indigent people around. We will build ours, but while you’re building, your neighbours are dying.
“Your neighbour, who does not have anything, your sisters, and your brother have nothing to send their children to school. We built DLICC (Deeper Life International Conference Centre) with all the offerings we could build.
“And we can now be at ease and allow our members to die of hunger and to be destroyed because they have nothing and we have the money.
“And what if this church, like we used to do in the olden days, in the good old days, reserved some amount of money for charity? We allocate some amount of money for building DLICC, and the district church, and the people we’re building for are dying of hunger, malnutrition, and starvation.
“Let’s budget part of the money, millions of our currency to take care of the people.
“Which one comes first when your house is leaking, and your mother is dying? How will you spend it—mending the leaking room or taking care of your mother?
“We should give priority to members of our church, even those who are not members. We know them, and we can contact them.
“We should not spend all our money on the building of a church that will not be raptured when Christ comes, because Christ is coming,” he noted.
These sad incidents are coming on the heels of economic hardship facing the country, which has greatly impacted the cost of living and rising inflation figures in Nigeria