The General Overseer of Freshland Missions, Rumuola, Port Harcourt, has added his voice to the vexation issue of both the Boko Haram in the Northern parts of Nigeria and the obnoxious assertion by a renowned man of God from a popular church in Nigeria that Masturbation is not a sin.
In an interview with the Executive Editor of The Newswriter newspaper, Pastor Mike Alelo bared his gentle voice to both issues insisting that first, regarding the Boko Haram issue, Christians, he said, are not known to follow the cause of violence in dealing with a stubborn case. He therefore opined that prayers and dialogue should be the approach. Secondly, Pastor Mike in an unmistaken statement stressed that masturbation is as sinful as a murder case and so should be seen as such.
Excerpts:
The Newswriter: Sir, for obvious reasons, let’s get to know you
General Overseer: My name is Mike Alelo, General Overseer of Freshland Missions.
The Newswriter: How long have you been in the ministry sir?
General Overseer: I got born again in 1979 in the secondary school and eventually started working as a Christian in the ministry. I started pasturing in the 80s.
The Newswriter: How far has your ministry-Freshland Ministry gone in terms of both popularity and reach-out in your own eyes?
General Overseer: We work as missionaries. I believe in rural evangelism, we travel to local areas preaching the gospel. Normally we would move into a village, look for a house, get a camp, do house to house evangelism. When we are through with that we do what we call census evangelism, moving from house to house with film shows in compounds and strategic locations and when we think that people have embraced the gospel in that village we move to another village. I did that for fifteen years before I moved into church planting. My church planting or Freshland Ministry came into being seven years ago. So this ministry is seven years old today.
The Newswriter: What do you think distinguishes your ministry from the rest?
General Overseer: I believe in total gospel, that is, the gospel of salvation as fundamental, and then I preach deliverance and prosperity. The gospel must be balanced. I do not believe in preaching only one aspect leaving the rest. When you do that you have not balanced the gospel as you have chosen one to the detriment of the other. We strictly do not overemphasize any aspect of the gospel as some churches do nowadays. All the parts are fundamental.
The Newswriter: Sir, the Christian Association of Nigeria (South-East branch) CAN, has just issued a warning to the Boko Hara insurgents burning churches in the northern parts of Nigeria that should they continued in this obnoxious act that Christians in the south would have no option than to meet such with a corresponding burning of mosques in the South. Is it your own view for Christians to fight violence with violence?
General Overseer: You see, I am strictly a man of God. I try not to mix the work of the ministry with politics. While I seem to view the Boko Haram issue with some political undertone, I, at the same time feel that CAN South Eastern Branch as a body knows what they are doing and may have issued that warning based on facts they have. They may not be mistaken. Mind you though, its just a warning.
The Newswriter: Again Sir, on the Boko Haram matter: some people have called on the Federal government not to treat the Boko Haram activities with kid gloves as what they are doing can lead to the disintegration of Nigeria. As Christians that are not sworn to violence, should the Boko Haram menace then be allowed to fester unchecked?
General Overseer: I think we have to approach the matter with some prayers and possibly dialogue and see how we can solve that. Because every problem caused by man will still be solved by man.
The Newswriter: Indirectly you are answering the first question as you are saying now that we should dialogue and pray?
General Overseer: As a Christian leader, I cannot encourage violence
The Newswriter: A renowned General Overseer in one of the very popular Pentecostal churches (name withheld) in Nigeria is reputed to have said recently that masturbation is not a sin. What is your take on that as God in the bible was known to have struck a man dead for daring to spill his semen on the floor during sexual intercourse with a particular woman?
General Overseer: Masturbation is a sin. If you masturbate God is not happy about that. It is a serious sin bordering on immorality. Masturbation in its totality is a sin. No sin is bigger than the other. All sinners will go to hell.
The Newswriter: The church nowadays probably as a result of poverty seems to have negated its original responsibility but only preach prosperity, in your own view how do you rate the church?
General Overseer: As a matter of fact, we are Nigerians and we have suffered poverty for a long time. Most times we go too far and into extreme in most of the things we do in Nigeria. Like the movie industry, now you discover that Nigerians have moved pretty far within a very short time. I think it has to do with the level of intelligence of Nigerians. We are very intelligent. Though too, many a time we are driven by what is nice and what is beautiful. The church also would have discovered that it is not only salvation and deliverance that is needed but prosperity as well due to the changing times. The total gospel, the people need to get rich, they need to be healthy, hunger should not be for Christians. If Christ has died that we may have life and have it abundantly then what will poverty, hunger and starvation be doing in our lives? You now see why the church needs to preach the principles of prosperity. However, in doing so, the other aspects of the gospel should not be sidelined. Prosperity gospel is good, I preach it.
The Newswriter: A lot of people talk of the old time religion being a lot more pure than what is obtainable these days. What distinguishes the religion of the old and what we have now?
General Overseer: What God wants to do is to affect all the sectors of the community. The education, the science, the medicine, engineering, every area. And as Christians venture into all these areas definitely there will be a change from what it used to be before. Right now God is helping the church. The church has been able to make discoveries. Those days when we used to say when you are poor you make heaven, when you are rich you do not make heaven are gone. Those mentalities do not help- the gospel. There has been a change of understanding by the church. The bible in some subtle ways says that through prosperity the gospel will expand. I think the church today even though there seem to be several people who are not born again but its better more people are getting to know Christ, eventually they will be trained by the church and they will understand and be born again. If we tie it to very few people and our own method of man and his ways we might not be doing the will of God old time, new time are all God’s time.
The Newswriter: Thank you, Sir. It has been wonderful talking with you
General Overseer: Thank you very much.
