Nigerian Church Wastes Resources, Not Doing Enough – Rev. Vitalis Onah

Rev. Vitalis Onah is the Senior Pastor of the New Covenant Catholic Church, (a.k.a Freedom City) in Gbagada, Lagos. He opened up to Providence News on his ministry, the issue concerning the general church, and the coming annual Moment of Change (MOC) programme. Excerpt: 

Briefly describe your ministerial journey and experience: 

It’s been awesome, we give God praise. His grace has been sufficient. Because what he promised us is His grace. And it’s been enough, He’s been helping us. 

The ministry is certainly always challenging. We are still young in the ministry, and even though we’ve put in a few periods, we’ve had experiences beyond the school. All the same, ministry is always challenging. But His grace is what we rely on, and sufficiently helps us. That’s why we are still in the ministry. His grace still keeps us. However, there are challenges here and there. 

Tell us about your ministry and how God has helped you.

God called me into the ministry 20 years ago and spoke to me, He said, He was sending me to raise people who are set free, delivered, healed, and lifted.

This is why our focus is on DHL, what we call, deliverance, healing, and lifting. And, in one word, transformation, we get people transformed. 

I have a background in the Roman Catholic Church and was born and grew up in the Roman Catholic Church.

My dad said he willed me to God, because he’s the only child of his parents, and he wanted to be a reverend father, being a Roman Catholic. He said his parents never allowed that because he’s the only son. So, when I was in SS1, he called me, sat me down, and told me, he promised God that if God would give him a male child, that male child would be a reverend father. And then I happened to be his first son, and he told me, he had willed me to God, and I should prepare to be a reverend father. I said, Papa, I am not sure, and the fear of my dad is the beginning of wisdom. He’s 83 this year and a non-narcissist. You don’t look at him and tell him, no. he’ll have his ways. But, that very day, I don’t know where the courage came from, I just said to him, Papa, please, I don’t want to be a reverend father.

Growing up as a Roman Catholic, I discovered I was not fulfilled. I was a mass server, teaching catechisms. At some point, the secretary of the Legion of Mary, and president of the block rosary. I did all I could in the church.

I moved to Lagos in 2000 and knew I was not being fulfilled with all of the things I was doing in the Catholic church. I knew that if this is all Christianity is all about, then I was on the backslide. I was already getting fed up with the whole thing, and that was how I began to say, Lord, help me, because I almost stopped attending church.

Many problems and challenges came up. One day, I met some people sharing tracts in my street. They are from Foursquare Gospel Church, I collected the tract and kept it.

One day, the tract caught my attention and I have kept it. I took the tract, looked at it, and found the church was close to my house. On a Sunday in January, I went to the church, and for the first time, I entered a Pentecostal church and worshiped with them. After the service, Rev. Aaron, who ministered, called me to his office, and I explained my life story. He prayed with me, led me to Christ, and encouraged me to attend the church regularly, I said, okay.

I went consecutively for that one month and stopped. Because he had my business address, he came to my shop, and asked, Vitalis, why are we not seeing you again? I told him, I’m going back to my church. Because I wasn’t used to a Pentecostal setting, I went back to Roman Catholicism, and he said, it’s ok, and he preached and talked to me. Once in a while, he visits my shop. But then, with the word of salvation I received, something began to happen inside me.

I later came across a Catholic brother on television, who had left the Catholic Church and was running an independent ministry. 

I started attending his ministry and served as a worker. Three months after I joined them, they became a full-blown church, then, I became the church youth leader and started working with him, as his P. A and today, the rest is history.

In 2004, I was still there when I had an encounter with God, and I told my pastor what God was telling me, after some time, he released me, and that began the journey of how we got to where we are by the grace of God. 

Our vision, mission, and focus are; to get people delivered, healed, and liberated. Our primary target is the Roman Catholic Church, to get them born again. 95% of the church members here are from the Roman Catholic Church and were born again here.

When I meet a Roman Catholic person, I know how to bring them to the platform where they will understand me, and I’ll take them to Christ where I want them to be. 

How would you rate the present state of Christianity compared to your time? 

A few years ago, when someone like me was born again, people had a zeal for God. When someone is born again, the major thing in his heart is, how do I serve God? How do I contribute my quota to the advancement of the kingdom? How do I please God? What can I do? People are more selfless then than now. People are tending to be more selfish and self-centered now.

Now you have young people who don’t want to get involved in the ministry work but want to blow (laughter). That’s why, if we want to get it right, we are to engage families and parents. The value you put in children to a larger extent will determine their focus as they grow.

As a church, if we don’t focus on having good rules, and work hard to encourage parents to cultivate good values in these children, it will be telling on them in the time to come. It will be terrible because we have the Gen Z’s who don’t understand Christianity as we do.

There is a way to communicate with them and they will understand. But then, the difference between now and then is wide. We are supposed to bring the gospel to their platform so they can understand. And, one of the ways to get today’s people involved in things of God is to ensure they have the right to teach them moral values. 

What is the missing link between the old and present generation of Christians? 

I grew up watching my dad’s black-and-white television. We only had access to NTA in the east and the state radio broadcasting station. We had limited distractions, but today, they have many distractions. The solution should be how we can help them maximize the use of the information available to them, to intentionally lead them to profitability, using the present channels of distractions, like the internet, social media, and phones that are already available to them. We can trust God to help channel them towards using them for the gospel.

Like in my days, you must be in the church, go to work, and do home chores. But today, someone can work virtually, you can be somewhere else and still be actively involved in other things. If we don’t take the gospel to their platform, they will be lost completely to the demands and the pressures of today. 

Has the church done enough to fill this gap? 

Looking at it, not everyone is focusing on addressing the needs of the Master. Those who are not focusing on addressing the needs of their Master can be classified as those who are not doing much to help the present situation. Because, Jesus came for only one thing, not for two things. He came for the lost, and the primary purpose of every church is to save the lost.

All other things we are doing as activities should be geared towards helping us to achieve the primary purpose of Christianity, to save the lost. Jesus said, all power in heaven and on earth has been given to me, and He gave us the power and charged us to go and make disciples. That’s the assignment.

Go out there, get them in, disciple them, grow them, and make them disciples. The primary assignment of the church is to save the lost and equip them with the right knowledge so they can become disciples to do the same assignment, save the lost.

When the church focuses on this, it concentrates much on teaching the truth and building people. The focus will no longer be on how much we have in the account, or how many people we have, but on how many souls we have saved and prepared for the kingdom’s purpose. The church is trying its best, but, we can do more. 

The best we can do is to focus on the Master’s task. The more we focus on the Master’s task, the more it drives us towards trying to utilize this same medium that the devil is using to distract the present generation, we can use that same medium to draw their attention.

Do you think the church has impacted the society enough?

Yes and no, the church has impacted, but not enough. When we talk about the church, there are challenges. Everyone who converges, and is classified as a church. But the point is, are we all called the church? The answer is no. 

A church is the body of Christ, if their center focus is not on Christ, they cannot be regarded as a church. You are a church because you are first and foremost, preparing people for the kingdom, your concern, and your interest is the kingdom. Then, you are impacting society because you are trying to get their attention so you can witness them.

If you go out there to do charity work and not use the opportunity to talk about Christ, you waste those resources. The church shouldn’t just be philanthropists, because of societal pressure. Most churches have left what God called them to do, taking loans to do what they are not called to do, to help people, create palliatives, and do other things. 

There’s nothing wrong with all of that, but that’s not the church’s primary focus, it’s one of those things; giving palliatives, doing community services, and helping people. We have a foundation that supports students to go to school, it is to get their attention to know Christ.

If all a church is doing is giving palliatives to people, and helping them with money, I don’t think that church is doing ministry, it’s philanthropy, and God is not interested in that, except it is geared towards helping them with the knowledge of Christ.

In most things we do in the church, other people and religions, are doing similar things. If we don’t define our mission, vision, and focus well as Christians, a time will come when we will not know the difference between Christianity and other religions. We pray, they pray, we fast, they fast, we do miracles, they do miracles. Our focus must be right on bringing people to the knowledge of Christ.

The difference between Christianity and other religions is Christ, nothing else.

If we don’t focus on Christ, soon people will not know the differences, they will think, we are serving the same God, and we are not serving the same God. If the God you serve is not the God of Christ, we are not serving the same God.

Tell us about your coming programme?

One of our major annual Mid-year programme, begins on Wednesday. it’s been as old as this commission and the same vision God gave us when we began. 

The first few months of one year of the ministry, I used to go for what we call family deliverance. I believe people’s problems are foundational to where they are coming from, but the Lord helped me early. I didn’t do it for a year before the Lord said to me, this assignment you are embarking on, did you ask me how to go about it? I sent you for deliverance, healing, and working of miracles. But you have not asked Me how it is to be done. By the time you have 1 million people, I hope you still visit their homes.

That was how I went to God in prayers and He gave the idea of what we call a Moment of Change (MOC), and every July in the year is set for a Moment of Change. This year’s theme is, “RESCUED”.

The programme starts on Wednesday 24 to Sunday 28, July 2024. Wednesday evening is the opening, while Thursday and Friday, will have morning and evening sessions. Saturday and Sunday will be a combined meeting at 8.30 am, and Saturday and Sunday grand finale. 

This avenue and period are used to speak on and squarely deal with issues about family deliverance, healing, liftings, and generational blessings. By the Spirit of God, I came to realize that a child of God, a believer in Christ, who is born again, and understands who he is in Christ is not made to be under any curse again, because Jesus had paid for our freedom. What kept, and suffered people is a pattern.

What is the pattern? Following what your parents followed, doing what they did, and believing what they believe, is a pattern. Your father married two wives, you married two wives, it’s a pattern your father had.

The pattern is the basic thing people suffer from. Because what they are complaining about as a curse or evil covenant does not have spirits enforcing it and you can’t say something is a curse without a spirit enforcing it.

So when you follow those patterns, you suffer what they suffer. It’s not a curse, it’s a pattern. Whenever we meet in July, we teach people how to pray deliverance prayers and focus on turning generational curses into generational blessings.

The solution is to change your mindset and reset your goal. As a man thinks, so he is. If you think you are poor, you’ll be in danger. If you feel you are bound, you’ll be bound, and if you think you are broke, you are broke. It’s all about a reset of the mind.

It is to reset and refocus people to understand that, in that same family you think there is a curse, there are one or two people that are doing well. Something is not right, and we need to help you.

I have an anointing that breaks yokes, but if the demons in your mind do not cage your mindset, thinking about still being held by curses, then, something is not right somewhere, there’s a lack of understanding, and you are already entangled in the way you don’t know. 

If you cannot change your mindset, no amount of deliverance and healing prayers will change you, even if the likes of Kumuyi, Adeboye, Oyedepo, etc lay hands on you, it won’t change until change starts from your mindset.

The antidote to a curse is a blessing, while a curse is an empowerment to failure, a blessing is empowerment to succeed.