Whispers of Discord

He started the church by the divine
instruction of the Holy Spirit
He was a young government official
posted to a farm settlement
as an agric extension officer at the
time
The morning devotion he held at
home every morning with his wife
and children became a house
fellowship when one of their
neighbour’s lost a child in the middle
of the night and was carrying the
child off to be buried early in the
morning
As soon as the dead baby was carried
through the passageway where his
sitting room was located, the dead
baby stirred in the sack
That miracle brought neighbours in
his immediate location thronging to
his house every morning
Soon, the fellowship became a church
Several strange cases were brought
to him by people seeking supernatural
help, the power of the Holy Spirit was
present with him to heal and deliver
The ministry grew very quickly
They held monthly crusades where
all sorts of supernatural testimonies
were recorded
At a point, they realized they needed
to start interpreting his sermons so
that all the nations and languages of
the world can benefit from it
The Holy Spirit had
drawn many believers who were
educated to him
Some of them had volunteered to
support the ministry by teaching Sunday
school and/or hosting house fellowship
meetings
He spoke with some of them and they
began to interprete his messages on
the altar
Due to his level of education
the first set of people he attracted were
illiterates and semi-literate people,
the educated ones came after that
initial wave
But visibility is a factor in growth and
development
His chief interpreter rose in prominence
within a short time to the envy of many
who wanted a place
in the limelight but had nothing to offer
in order to get there
He told his interpreter to be humble and
to try as much as possible to keep a
respectable distance from him whenever
they were not ministering
He did this to preserve his interpreter
He knew that until Christ is fully
formed in people, they manifest all
forms of fruits of the flesh that had
nothing to do with the Holy Spirit
Insecurity and ignorance are common
breeding grounds for envy and jealousy
He had heard some rumors being
peddled about the ministry that the
educated ones were trying to
muzzle out the non-literate ones
His wife confided in him that she heard it
She warned him to handle it with wisdom
He called a meeting
He explained to the founding members
that they would never be relegated or
treated with disdain at the expense of
the educated ones
It was after
the meeting that he told his interpreter
to give him some room
The rumors went away but just for a bit
When he was invited to minister in the UK
and USA, he had to go with his interpreter
He was literate but he was not that educated
He struggled very hard with his command
of the English language
His interpreter was indispensable
Everybody knew this but the predetermined
illiterate mind is like that of a reptile
It lacked the prerequisite brainpower to
think in layers
It is unidirectional and untrainable
Like a lizard, all it works with are the basic
instincts for food, sensing danger, and sex
The rumors came back with a vengeance
when the invitation came three years in a
row and he stuck with the same interpreter
Many of the non-literate older ones had
convinced their educated children to join
the church and enroll as part
of the church’s workforce
They expected a form of rotation
They expected him to pick their children
as his interpreter for his trips
They were doing this just so that they
can have loyal eyes overseeing his affairs
instead of a complete stranger
The main agitators were members of
his family who felt they had a right to
the first fruits of the ministry
He didn’t do this and he noticed there
was unrest all over
He asked his wife what the issue was
and his wife told him what she had
been tacitly told to relay to him
He was shocked
He had a good bond with his
interpreter
They had worked together for so long
that his interpreter could practically
complete his statements whenever
they ministered together
He didn’t want a newbie that he had to
coach and correct and get to adapt
to working with him especially one
sent only as a political tool
He called for another meeting and
announced to all the elders that he
would be forwarding their names for
ordination so that their place in the
ministry can be secured
Elders constitute the governing
council of a ministry and are even
placed above the founder in the
hierarchy of the church
He felt this should settle the agitation
of the people
The Bible recorded that when the
apostles chose deacons they were
able to deal with the unrest in the
early church
The investiture was done
His interpreter was not even ordained
as a deacon at the ceremony so
that the elders can have their day
under the sun
By this time ministry had thrived and
had also begun to spawn branches
within and outside the country
The need to start some English speaking
branches arose and he encouraged
his interpreter to lead the charge in
this regard
Within a year, his interpreter and his
team had planted ten English speaking
branches with his interpreter as the
head of that unit
Nobody could object when the ordination
of his interpreter and some others were
announced the following year as pastors
As a form of compromise, he also started
working with other interpreters for
Sunday services, regional crusades, and
national events
They were all scrambling to catch up
with the pace of the ministry’s growth
One morning, another prominent minister
of the gospel within the country came
to visit him
The man of God told him about a
revelation he had before paying him
a visit
The man of God said “I was in Benin
one day when some elders of the
church came to meet me. They came
to report the youth pastor
They said he must be using some
diabolic things because whenever he
prays for the youth under his care,
they will fall under the anointing and
begin to manifest in a strange way
We are a pentecostal church, we
work with the Holy Spirit to establish
God’s vineyard upon the earth.
The Holy Spirit always equips his
people for the work at hand himself.
I have taught them this but they
chose not see the truth
They would rather believe the young
minister was diabolical than see that
he was full of the Holy Spirit
This young man had been with me
for years, I call him jokingly call him
“Aboki” because of the way he looked
God has shown me he has a great
future but the wagging tongues
latched on to him with a vengeance
In order to preserve him from their
clutches, I suspended him from the
youth church and told him to move
back to the headquarters where I
will be seeing him every Sunday
Of course, he was hurt because of
the injustice of it all
but i’ll rather preserve his life than
expose him to the wolves
The Holy Spirit told me to tell you
this story
He said you will know how to make
use of it.
The words of the Man of God hit him
hard, he thought he had resolved the
unrest in his ranks but the Holy Spirit
apparently knew something he didn’t
Two days after the man of God left,
he got another invitation to minister
abroad
He decided to take three different
interpreters to appease the people
He left the main interpreter at home
to run the ministry’s secretariat in
his absence
Being a chartered accountant, his
interpreter felt it would be best to do
an audit of the ministry’s finances
and get their books in order
He invited an audit firm
The elders heard it and felt he was
doing the audit in the absence of the
founder of the ministry in order to
investigate and cut off
means of livelihood within the church
Most of them do one business or the
other with the church ranging from
supplying diesel, building materials,
and electronics to supplying stationaries,
provisions, food etc
They had placed spies all over the
ministry to give them information
so that they can protect themselves
against the plot of the enemy
They couldn’t see any other explanation
for his action but their destruction
The following Sunday, two assassins
visited the interpreter after the Sunday
service and murdered him in front of
his wife and children
The founder of the ministry rushed
home upon hearing the news but the
deed had already been done
The Holy Spirit had warned him but
he acted as he saw fit rather than
ask for divine direction
Nobody was arrested or convicted
for the murder
The church had to moved on

The End