UK-based Pastor of SPAC Nation, Tobi Adegboyega, sat with Chude Jideonwo, host of #WithChude and founder of Joy, Inc., to discuss controversies surrounding his lifestyle as a pastor and people’s perceptions of him.
Pastor Tobi Adegboyega’s name has been in the news for dining with popular stars like Tiwa Savage and Davido and recently for a BBC series on fraudulent activities and a viral choir video. In this episode of #WithChude, he shares his choices, what influenced them, and his perspective on his work.
Addressing the concern that his lifestyle might affect the reception of his message, he said, “I think the shiny attracts; the time it takes to attract may just be longer. I have been preaching here for 17 years and never knew anything about the ‘shine-shine’ world or Instagram until 2016. We were growing but not at this pace. The message has always been there, but do people care? People follow what they believe, their religion. Things have to be different to break in and pass a new message. What we believe is to attract first; when you attract, there will be controversies, and people will share their opinions, but eventually, the message gets clearer. My worry is, does the typical church care about souls? Because if no one is attracted to you, how will they hear the message?”
Pastor Adegboyega believes that there is more sincerity outside the church than in the church. He mentioned that the church is to reach the unconverted. He said, “Jesus said something very clearly, ‘Those who well do not need a physician’. You don’t go to the hospital when you are well. If we feel that we are supposed to reach other people our perspectives. It really bothers me that the church preaches to the converted; their Sunday services are to the converted. The people already believe what you are saying; they have been listening for ten to twenty years. Apart from that, I like them. I have spent all my years growing up in the church. But I think there is more sincerity outside of the four walls. What changes nations is people’s debate on sincere topics, not on frivolous things.”
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Reacting to the viral video of him spraying money on the popular musician, Davido, he said, “I love Davido, and I think I am still allowed to be human, right? These churches invite pastors and give them honorariums. Our honorarium is that when a person comes all the way, I don’t know where David was coming from at the time or in some other country. He heard that one of our pastors was having a wedding, so he decided to come. In our tradition, if you go to parties, people spray money. Maybe it’s the Yoruba culture, I don’t know if the Igbos or others do it but see, they spray money, so for me, it wasn’t meant for the video. At the same time, those who hide are cowards. I know pastors in Africa who have big cars, and they drive Toyota to church, and I say, ‘Why do you do that, this is deceit’. They will say, ‘you know people will talk’. Then you shouldn’t get in the car in the first place.”
“Some of us are who we are; if I have a penny, once the boys around me know, somehow it will get on the internet because everybody can see my life, this is where I live, it is not a secret almost everyone in the Nation family knows. I am comfortable with how I look and dress in my private space. If I am something else, I won’t like it, but I have also found out that it reaches other people,” he added.
