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| Pastor Timothy O. A. Yerokun (Ph.D) |
By Boluwatife Oparinde
The Zonal Superintendent of Christ Apostolic Church Amazing Grace Zone, Pastor Timothy O. A. Yerokun (Ph.D) has stressed the need for discipleship for church workers at the 2023 Workers' Refresher Course of CAC Oke Ibukun, Araromi, Amazing Grace Zone, Ikorodu, Lagos State, held held last month.
Speaking on the theme "Discipleship: Essence of Every Worker" from the text, Numbers 11:10-17, 24-30, the cleric noted that, "the expectation of God is that all workers should be faithful, diligent and accomplisher of heavenly goals. Apparently, it is an unfortunate that most of the church workers today are running after selfish ambitions, abandoning Master (God’s) goals and the divine mandate is terribly suffering in the hand of sugar coated, self- centered and untutored workers."
The Zonal Superintendent who defined Christian discipleship "as the process by which disciples grow in the Lord Jesus Christ and are equipped by the indwelling Holy Spirit to overcome the pressures and trials of this present life and become more and more Christlike," also described that "A church worker is a helping hand to the church leader. A church worker is a person called to help share the leader’s burdens (responsibilities). A church worker is a person who can stand before the Lord’s presence. A church worker is a person who can be possessed (filled) and controlled by the Spirit, that is, he/she leads a yielded life."
"This process requires believers to respond to the Holy Spirit’s prompting to examine their thoughts, words, and actions and compare them with the Word of God. This requires that we be in the Word daily—studying it, praying over it, and obeying it. In addition, we should always be ready to give testimony of the reason for the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15) and to disciple others to walk in His way," he observed.
Being a Christian disciple, the cleric said, involves personal growth characterized by the following, "Putting Jesus first in all things (Mark 8:34–38); Following Jesus’ teachings (John 8:31–32); Bearing fruit (John 15:5–8); Loving other disciples (John 13:34–35); and Making disciples of others (Matthew 28:18–20)."
The clergyman lamented that, "In the church of today, we have large crowds of people who only come to seek the blessing from the Lord, but not to become genuine followers of the Lord whose blessing they are after. They see God as Father Christmas and many pastors are not ready to disciple anybody. Some are reformed, but not truly transformed, hence, there are large numbers of carnal ministers who are not disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, and many workers are working for the Lord they have not met. There are several believers who never believe in the Lord whom they profess, while others are serving the God not known to them."
"From Christ’s perspective, the need for discipleship is to produce those like Him through training, teaching, biblical mentoring, character tailoring using the missile of the Word and the thread of biblical teaching so that the church can be full of strong and mature people who will reproduce themselves for the church to thrive," he said.
Pastor Yerokun stating that some church workers fail because of lack of faith, lack of vision, lack of ethics, lack of self-care, lack of accountability, lack of flexibility, lack of humility and lack of communication, harped that church workers must, be bornagain; have intimacy with God; have a good grasp or understanding of Bible teachings; be full of the Spirit and wisdom; must possess Good character and reputation, purity, faithfulness, availability, teachability, and servant heart.
"Everyone should find his area of grace and labour there. Nobody should be idle in church; everybody should be an effective worker," he concluded.