The Story of Living Faith Church | Bishop David Oyedepo

1981 · Ilesha

The encounter

I was on a trip to Ilesha, now in Osun State of Nigeria, on May 1,1981, on the lookout for the welfare of a Christian friend who I had not heard from for a long time. I was concerned, not knowing if he needed any form of attention. This was how I came into my place of encounter.

I got to this brother’s house, and he was not around, but there was a note on his door announcing he had travelled. Something gracious came out of me: ‘All things work together to the advantage of them that love the Lord’. It was soothing; I felt no disappointment at all!

Then, the Holy Spirit said to me, ‘Look out for a quiet place; I want to talk to you’. This was a timely instruction because I had quite a lot of Christian friends in that town, and I could have had a lot of fun being with them that day. However, I obeyed the voice of the Holy Spirit and asked a passer-by if there was any hotel on the outskirts of the town where I could lodge, and that was how I met with destiny!

The quiet place I found was an International Hotel in Ilesha. It was a ‘great’ hotel, and I disliked the state of the building and the room in particular. But I knew in my heart that I had to be there. Behold, as I knelt down to give thanks in that ‘wonderful’ room, the encounter began, and this lasted for eighteen (18) hours. In that great vision, I saw a line-up of the afflicted and oppressed, broken, beaten, battered, the blind, the lame and the wretched. I saw all kinds of deformities, and I was greatly bewildered. I heard their wailing as they filed past me. Their groaning was so intense that I could almost feel their pain.

I could not help it, and while I began to cry and sob along with them, I asked, ‘Lord, what is this?’ I heard God say to me, ‘And from the beginning, it was not so’. I broke down the more in tears, and in the midst of all that, I kept asking, ‘But why Lord?’ I heard God say distinctly to me:

‘And from the beginning, it was not so, and now, the hour has come to liberate the world from all oppressions of the devil through the preaching of the Word of faith, and I am sending you to undertake this task’.

My sobbing became even more intense as I asked the Lord, ‘Lord, why me?’ I had always thought I would remain in the helps’ ministry, where I would be a blessing to the Kingdom through my giving and services. However, I rose from the eighteen-hour-long vision fully persuaded of God’s call upon my life into the ministry. This was how I received the Liberation Mandate.

18: hours of vision
1981: the Liberation Mandate

May 1981 – September 1983

Four vital issues, and the Power House

I spent the next few days trying to analyse the content of the vision, and to understand its import to know how to carry it out. So, I came to discover that the Liberation Mandate defined four vital issues:

The task

To liberate mankind from all oppressions of the devil.
The target

The world.
The tool

The preaching of the Word of Faith.
The time

Now – … and now, the hour has come.

Therefore, this church is clearly a Word of Faith ministry.

In the words of Apostle Paul, …immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood (Galatians 1:15-16). On 8th May 1981, I convened a meeting of some Christian friends to share this heavenly vision with them so as to ask them to join in prayers for the execution of this heavenly mandate. This meeting was held in one of the lecture rooms of the United Missionary Theological Chapel in Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria. We were about 18 in number, and this group metamorphosed into what came to be known as the Power House, made up of about 70 young men and women who formed a prayer and fasting chain. They served as a forum for vision sharing, monitoring and other spiritual engagements geared towards driving the vision.

We have a number of the Power House faithfuls who are still very much active in the church till date. Prominent among these is Faith A. Oyedepo, the first to ever hear the vision shared and who has been standing with me since then (we were in courtship then and preparing to get married). Another member of the Power House is David Abioye, a most consistent, faithful and profitable son in the gospel for over 30 years. Others who are ministers and leaders in the church today include Olatunji Adeyemi, Nathan and Charity Ichor, Olufemi Modupe and Isaac Oladapo.

Also, I had the understanding that it was the vision for the now and not for the future. So, I took immediate steps to see how to establish a weekly faith-based fellowship, and by the good hand of the Lord, we secured the ECWA Youth Centre facility in Ilorin for a weekly Friday fellowship. The inaugural fellowship known as Faith Liberation Hour was held on 24th May 1981. We also held a monthly weekend seminar every Friday and Saturday. Within a year, the Faith Liberation Hour had become a household name, particularly among youths and young adults in Ilorin, where we began. The Power House was in place from May 1981 until September 1983, when the church was officially commissioned.

18: at the first meeting, 8 May 1981
70: in the Power House

1981 – 1983

Not America, and the commissioning

My USA training plan stopped

After the Lord called me into ministry, I felt a genuine sense of inadequacy because I had no formal training in ministry. I thought the best way out was to get myself trained wherever the fire was burning, and America was the centre of revival at that time. I reasoned that since Paul the Apostle spent three years in Arabia (where I believe he contacted the heavyweight revelations he operated in), I would also need to be trained outside my native country to fulfil my calling in ministry.

Immediately, the United States of America came to my mind as a place to train for impactful ministry because all the giants of faith like Kenneth E. Hagin, Oral Roberts, T. L. Osborn and others were in America.

However, one night, I was on the mountain to pray and worship the Lord for the open doors and the way He was causing everything to work together towards the realisation of this vision. Suddenly, God said to me:

‘My son, the things that you seek do not come from abroad but from above. You are not going to America’.

As soon as I heard that, I stopped all arrangements. Today, there are no regrets whatsoever. God has proved Himself just and the justifier of them who believe in Him. He undertook my training by Himself, and that He did most successfully and with great impact. I have been in the school of the Holy Ghost since then to this present moment.

Instructed to be commissioned into ministry

In July 1983, I was in a deep fellowship with the Holy Spirit one beautiful evening, walking around our dining room, when God suddenly spoke, saying, ‘I will not have you go like others have gone. I will have hands laid on you so you can be filled with the Spirit of Wisdom’. Then I asked, ‘Lord, who will lay hands on me?’ And He said, ‘Send for My servant, Adeboye, and I will have him lay hands on you, and you shall be filled with the Spirit of wisdom’.

I had heard of Pastor E.A. Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God then, but we had never met, neither had I ever been to any of his meetings. But because whenever I hear from God, I don’t drag my feet. So, I went ahead and did as God said. I sent a message to him, telling him what God told me. He sent a reply, stating he was slated for another meeting on the same date I had given him. Therefore, I returned to God to report the development, and God told me he would come. Before my letter got to him, God had told him he would have to come for the commissioning as scheduled. That settled it! His message at the commissioning service was highly prophetic.

He took his message from Luke 19:28-40, speaking about the ass Jesus rode to Jerusalem. He made the following prophetic and profound statement: ‘This ministry will succeed, whether you support it or not… The glory will be so heavy, but don’t allow the glory blind your eyes to the Rider of the ass because when Jesus alighted from the ass, nobody knew where the ass went…’. Today, we are basking in the glory of the Lord with the understanding that it is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.

4 October 1981

My prophetic calling

My calling into the office of a prophet was confirmed by the Lord on 4th October 1981, while I was concluding a five-day time of waiting on Him.

The prophetic is not a religious vocation, and neither is it a spiritual profession; it is simply God putting His Word in the mouth of His anointed. God puts a word in season in the mouth of His anointed, and such word comes out of him without any input from such an individual. This is why anyone called into the office of a prophet must be on key spiritually so as not to corrupt or embellish the Word of the Lord.

You don’t train to become a prophet, and neither do you exercise yourself to become one. It is either given to you or not, and when one prophesies as commanded, God’s integrity is committed to confirming it.

For instance, on 26th April 1987, I prophetically declared that God said, ‘It is time to spread out’. That was the flag-off of our church planting endeavour, and by May of that same year, we had planted five churches in five different cities in the Northern part of Nigeria. They include Maiduguri, Bauchi, Azare, Mubi and Biu, and this was possible because God said so.

Again, in March 1996, I declared that God said, ‘It is time to get the aircraft’. By September of that same year, the aircraft landed without any pressure on anyone and without any form of borrowing from any bank or individual.

As it is written: …How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him (Deuteronomy 18:21-22). Also, the Bible says: Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? (Lamentation 3:37).

Everything about this church has been divinely mapped out, and all we are doing is walking into them one phase after the other. The glory of the Lord the church enjoys today is simply the fulfilment of prophecies because we believe in the prophetic word. This is as stated in Luke 1:45: And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. Also, Solomon said in 1 Kings 8:15: And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, which spake with his mouth unto David my father, and hath with his hand fulfilled it, saying.

It is the hand of God that fulfils His agenda; no man has the capacity to fulfil a divine agenda, save the One who gave it.

5: churches planted in five northern cities, May 1987
Sept 1996: the aircraft landed

1983 – 1984 · Kaduna

How the Living Faith Church began

When the Mandate was delivered in 1981, I saw it mainly as an outreach ministry because at that time, church planting was not considered relevant. We were more concerned about believing God for revival in the existing churches. Also, when the Mandate was delivered, church was not particularly mentioned. Then, I thought it was going to be an outreach ministry. My stand was that there were enough churches already, so we did not really need another one.

However, one early morning, God showed me something from the Book of Luke: Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; It seemed good to me also… (Luke 1:1-3).

God was telling me, ‘There are many churches, yes, but I am giving you a portion of the Church Ministry’.

‘Also’ became the marching order for our church ministry. That is, ‘Others have written it, but you have a part of it to write’, and that part we are writing, which is fast becoming a global phenomenon. To God be the glory!

Living Faith Church, Kaduna, Nigeria

In my preparation for the inauguration of the church in Kaduna, I enquired of the Lord the name by which the church would be known, and the Lord said Living Faith Church. Therefore, at God’s command, on 11th December 1983, the Living Faith Church, Kaduna, was born at EE5, Ramat Close, Ungwan Rimi. It was our first planted church. The birth of this church followed a week-long citywide outreach tagged ‘Faith and Healing Revival Week’, which was held between 21st and 28th November 1983. Interestingly, this citywide outreach attracted the highest attendance of 63 people, out of which 23 people were part of the Ilorin fellowship. Meanwhile, at the same time, the fellowship in Ilorin recorded as many as 250 in attendance. Ironically, each time I returned to Ilorin, I only shared the remnant of what I taught in Kaduna.

As time went by, I began to sense a strong pull in my spirit towards Kaduna because I experienced a continuous outpouring of revelation each time I stood to minister at the Kaduna church, which was not the case in Ilorin. As such, my wife and I felt the need to pray to seek a clear direction from God on whether to proceed to Kaduna as the new base of the church or settle down in Ilorin. On that glorious morning, while we knelt down to pray, at a point, God said to me, ‘Stand up, take your Bible and open it’. While I was not looking for any scripture in particular, I opened my Bible, and Acts 22:10 leapt out at me: And I said, what shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do.

This scripture thundered at me, and immediately, I could interpret Kaduna as Damascus, where Christ and the Church would be persecuted; I saw Kaduna as a city of persecution. Immediately, I tapped my wife and said, ‘Get up; the Lord has spoken!’ I showed her the scripture the Lord had just given me, and that was the end of the prayer! That was how the base of the church moved from Ilorin to Kaduna. That happened in June 1984.

Hitherto, I had been sharing the days of the week between those two cities. It was my duty to be at Ilorin for the Friday fellowship, and then leave for Kaduna to be at the Sunday service.

11 Dec: 1983, the church is born
63: at the highest outreach attendance

1984 – 1989

Stagnation broken

I have always had zero tolerance for failure. In my view, there is no excuse under heaven for failure. The church started in December, and by March 1984, the average attendance was about 21; the church was not growing. So, I said, ‘No! No! No! The church cannot continue to grow like this. A full-time ministry? No!’

I called for a 3-day fasting and prayer with the staff only. We were all in prayer when I hit the explosive revelation on the mystery of church growth. The Lord said to me, ‘Get up!’ I stood up, and He said, ‘Come with Me’. I followed Him. I walked with Him towards the stream at the southern part of the church location (where we later put up the grass Cathedral). As we approached the end of that road, He said to me, ‘Turn back now’, and I did. Immediately, He opened my eyes to see a thick layer of darkness spread over the roof of the church building. It was not an illusion, and neither was I guessing; it was real! Then, God said to me, ‘That is the blindfolding weapon that the devil is using to misrepresent My work in this church’. Immediately, I came against it with the light of God in me, quoting the whole of John 1:1-5: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Then I said, ‘I challenge you powers of darkness with the light of God’, I thundered, ‘Jesus will build His Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’. I was challenging the forces of darkness from Matthew 16:18. Then, as I continued to speak in tongues, I saw the thick darkness roll away like one would roll up a carpet. After that, God spoke to me again, ‘When I came to the world, it took someone to tell another, “Come and See”’. He made me understand that people needed to know what He was doing in this church. ‘So, tell them to come and see’ (John 1:46), He instructed.

Thereafter, we embarked on a ‘Come and See’ outreach. We made Come and See tracts, on which we printed a diagram of the location of the church in the city. We also let the people know what Jesus was doing in our midst in testimonies and what to expect when they come. Then, we embarked on going out and distributing the tracts.

During this same encounter, God also said to me: ‘To see the Church grow and to keep it growing, keep sowing the seed and as the grass grows, the sheep will come for it. Keep the grass green, and the sheep will lie down there... He maketh me to lie down in green pastures …’ (Psalm 23:2). So, I asked, ‘What then is the seed?’ and God said, ‘The seed is the Word of God: ‘Now the parable is this: The seed is the Word of God’ (Luke 8:11). That is by engaging ‘Life applicable teachings and keeping it fresh, the sheep will lie down there’.

When God speaks, I am privileged to know it. This prompted the weekly seminars that lasted for 16 weeks – between March and July 1984.

Some of those seminar teachings were later published as books. These titles include The Law of Faith, Keys to Divine Protection, Keys to Answered Prayers and Keys to Divine Health. It was a real divine visitation. There was such a rain of the Word of God that people took notes as if they were in a classroom. They also began to invite others, and in no time, we had hit 90 in attendance. That same year, we counted 154 in attendance! That was how the story of our church growth began.

Pentecost Flames

Another eruption followed in 1987, which we called Pentecost Flames. It was an eruption of the supernatural in our midst, such that it became a normal occurrence in every service.

We had such testimonies as holes in the skull filled up, a withered arm stretched out – all kinds of miracles! It was an unusual wave, which I believe marked the beginning of the wave of the supernatural in our church, and the frequency has continued to intensify.

By the time I left for Lagos in 1989, the church attendance was between 3,000 and 3,500. To God be the glory!

21 → 154: attendance, March to the end of 1984
3,500: by 1989

1989 · Lagos

How Winners’ Chapel Lagos started

The ability to pick divine signals through rhema, visions and revelations has been the secret behind every step, move and decision that has led to the great accomplishment of the church.

God was blessing the church in Kaduna, and all the other churches planted were already growing and blossoming. Everything was going so well, but suddenly, in the early morning of 19th July 1989, the Spirit of the Lord spoke to me in clear terms:

‘Arise, get down to Lagos and raise Me a people’.

I tried to becloud this voice, but it kept coming again and again.

I had a deep and personal dislike for the city of Lagos; it would be my last choice of a place to live. Moreover, we were having the best of times in Kaduna; God was pouring out His Spirit, and signs and wonders were the order of the day. God was glorifying His name in the church in Kaduna, and my family and I had just moved into a new house — a very beautiful one. Humanly speaking, there would be no reason to think about relocating to Lagos. Yet, the voice of the Lord kept coming at almost five-minute intervals.

I left for the office that morning, trying to get seriously busy to clear this ‘disturbing’ voice that was ‘troubling’ me. I called my secretary and asked for a number of files and started working on them, but the voice kept coming: ‘Arise, get down to Lagos and raise Me a people’.

I had to surrender at about 2:00 p.m. by dispatching a member of staff to proceed to Lagos. I asked him to go to the Agege area in Lagos, Nigeria, where I had never been to myself and instructed him to go to one of our members who had just relocated from Kaduna to Lagos on transfer. He was to inform him of his three-fold mission: to get a place for worship, apartments for staff and accommodation for me. To the glory of God, within two weeks, all the facilities required for takeoff as outlined above were secured, and all within the same environment! These include the church facility, a three-storey building to accommodate the church, Bible school, Children’s Hall, a block of flats for staff and a residence for me. While declaring the Lagos mandate to the church in Kaduna, I called it the Lagos Invasion Project drawn from the Mission statement itself: ‘Arise, get down to Lagos and raise Me a people’.

Also, in response to my questions on how to enter Lagos, the Lord gave me the name Winners’ Chapel, which validates the prophetic encounter I had on 4th October 1981 – ‘The Living faith is the acting faith, and the acting faith is the winning faith, and that is the conquerors’ faith… since we are heaven-bound Winners, then we are strict word actors. Word actors are triumphant conquerors’. That is why our church is known today as Living Faith Church Worldwide (a.k.a. Winners’ Chapel International).

I believe God personally invaded Lagos. The birth of the Lagos church was preceded by a four-day seminar, which culminated in the first Sunday service held on 24th September 1989, with about 300 people in attendance.

19 July: 1989, the word to go to Lagos
300: at the first service, 24 September 1989

1990 – 1999

Our church growth turning point

The change of the Kaduna church pastorate

In view of the enormous work on ground at Kaduna in the early days of the Lagos church, I was shuttling between Lagos and Kaduna; Lagos this Sunday, Kaduna next. I was always in Kaduna anytime I had any outreach up north.

On a particular day in May 1990, concluding a seminar in the city of Jos on Saturday night, I started racing down to minister at the Sunday service in the Kaduna church. Suddenly, I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘When you were the Pastor of the Kaduna church’. Immediately, I questioned, ‘Were?’ I did not have the patience to listen to what followed; I shouted, ‘Who then is the Pastor?’ And God said, ‘Send for my servant, David (Abioye), he shall be the shepherd of the flock’. While I ministered at the church that Sunday morning, in my characteristic manner, I shared with the congregation exactly what the Lord told me, and that was how the pastorate of the Kaduna church changed hands by divine order. From that very day, I ceased to see myself as the Pastor of that church. The good news is, there was no rethink or regret but testimonies of growth and expansion. Today, the Kaduna church is a beauty to behold.

The Breakthrough Night

The secret of the church growth explosion in Lagos is traceable to the Breakthrough Night. It was indeed a turning point in our church growth endeavours.

Meanwhile, we hosted the Breakthrough Seminars in hotels between 1990 and 1993, and it was an outreach programme. But a time came when there were no hotel facilities in Lagos that could accommodate the crowd that attended those seminars. In the last seminar we held in a hotel, the crowd was so much, and the space was so choked up that some individuals even fainted!

In December 1993, I was around the church premises and heard some people praying in an all-night meeting. Then, I called one of them to ask how many people were there. He said he did not know. I asked him to go and count, and he came back to tell me they were 22. I exclaimed, ‘In my lifetime! When I am not yet dead?’ Then I heard God say to me: ‘I have sent you with the Word of Faith, and that is what the people will gather to hear’. It was very simple and highly illuminating statement.

He went on to say: ‘That is the sickle I have placed in your hands. Now, convert the Breakthrough Seminars to a night of teaching sessions when everyone will be focused, where overflow can be accommodated, and men will not have to be under the heat of the sun. Take what you do at the Breakthrough Seminars and put it into three teachings for such nights’.

That was the turning point! Breakthrough Night became a place to go for everyone in the city. It was something they all looked forward to. That was in January 1994, and everyone at the Breakthrough Night eventually turned up on Sunday for the balance of the meal. I believe it was the vital sickle that turned everything around for us. It was usually one long night of three-teaching sessions, providing a rich spiritual nourishment for all in attendance.

1994The church grew from 3,000 to 10,000.
1995From 10,000 to 19,000.
1996It galloped to 29,000.
1997We moved up to 35,000.
1998We were counting up to 41,000.
1999When the number of services per Sunday had grown to five, we counted 50,000 on a particular Sunday. It was a divine eruption indeed.

By this time, people were sitting on rooftops and on the roads in the area. Every available space was good enough for the people to hear the Word of faith being preached with a demonstration of signs and wonders and diverse miracles. The church facility was under pressure, and we had no choice but to move to a new facility so as not to become a nuisance to the community.

Jan 1994: the first Breakthrough Night
50,000: on a Sunday in 1999

1995 – 1998 · Canaanland, Ota

Prophetic movement to Canaanland

Just 19 days to the time the Winners’ Complex, Capernaum, at 38, Raji Oba Street, Iyana Ipaja, Lagos, was to be dedicated (on 12th December 1995), God said to me in very clear terms, ‘I will yet relocate My Church to another Rehoboth – her place of enlargement’. Immediately, we dispatched emissaries to look for large acreage where we could accommodate the mammoth crowd the church had already commanded. That was how we got to our current location, which is about 30 kilometres away from our former place of worship. Initially, I got so upset while driving to check that location. I was reacting so sharply to how anybody would imagine a church could be located in such a faraway forest.

Severally, I asked the people with me in the car, ‘Do you think we are looking for land for farming?’ However, because we were moving in a convoy of vehicles, it was not easy for us to make a U-turn so as not to create a scene on the highway. So, I endured until we got there. I was so sure in my heart that this could not be the place we were looking for, but I was eventually proved wrong. As we got to the frontal part of the property, I told the people who came along with me that we should pray and thank God for the effort made thus far in searching for a suitable property. As we continued to give thanks, God said to me:

‘This is the place’.

At that point, I stopped the people and told them God just spoke to me, saying, ‘This is the place’. God’s favour was at work, and before we knew it, we had acquired 530 acres of property, fully fenced. By 8th May 1998, we had secured all the titles to the land, signed, sealed and delivered. On 29th August 1998, we held a ground-breaking service at Canaanland in preparation for the commencement of construction.

530: acres, fully fenced
29 Aug: 1998, ground-breaking

1998 – 1999

A prophetic bombshell

On 17th September 1998, at our Anniversary Thanksgiving Service, God said that 18th September 1999, we would dedicate our new 50,000-seat church building at Km 10, Idiroko Road, Ota. At the time, the designs were still on the drawing board, and here we were announcing that the ‘experimental’ project would be dedicated within a year! As God would have it, Faith Tabernacle, a 50,000-seat auditorium, a masterpiece to His glory, was dedicated on 18th September 1999. The whole design is simply the wisdom of God on display. It was a fulfilment of prophecy!

We had to shut down the church in Lagos, and within five weeks of our relocation to Canaanland, members found their way there. We had no buses then. I told the people, ‘If anyone asks you why you are going so far, tell them it is because of how far God is taking you’. Now, see how far we have all come!

On 10th April 1982, God had said, ‘At the base of this church, a sanctuary shall be built to contain 50,000 people’. Today, Faith Tabernacle has become that prophetic base and the Headquarters of the Living Faith Church Worldwide Inc. a.k.a. Winners’ Chapel International.

17 Sept: 1998, the announcement
18 Sept: 1999, the dedication
50,000: seats

1999 · Shiloh

The advent of Shiloh

Shiloh is the annual convocation of the Winners’ family worldwide. The first was held in September 1999. It was at that event the Faith Tabernacle was dedicated. Since then, we have had several others; it now holds in the second week of December of every year. Shiloh is a one-week programme that features marathon Word Sessions, Businessmen Summit, Youth Rally, Ministers’ Conference and Specialised Classes.

Shiloh also came as a prophetic mandate when God was giving me the master plan for the 530-acre Canaanland. He called the ground where Faith Tabernacle sits ‘Shiloh’, taken from Joshua 18:1-3: And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there. And the land was subdued before them. And there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes, which had not yet received their inheritance. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go to possess the land, which the LORD God of your fathers hath given you?

It is to be a place for the annual gathering of the Winners’ family from all over the world. It is a place where everyone’s pending inheritance would be delivered to him or her. So, it came with the master plan; it was on God’s agenda to gather us annually for a Word feast.

Shiloh is like the epitome of the Liberation Mandate for each year.

At that event, God also gets us set to launch us into the following year. Since 1999, Shiloh has proved to be what God said it would be. It is not just a church programme; it is a prophetic gathering ordained to deliver everyone’s inheritance to him or her.

1992 – 1997

The apostolic phase unveiled

In the early hours of 29th June 1992, I had a divine visitation as God unveiled the next phase of the ministry, saying:

It is time for change! Prepare yourself for the imminent change of the phase I have talked about over the years. It is the era of signs and wonders! It is a new dimension of a higher order!

Begin to declare a total war against the kingdom of darkness, proclaim liberty, emphasise power and step into the realm of anointing. Usher in this new era with Me!

It is time to administer the forces of the Spirit that will enable the saints take up their inheritance in Christ. I am launching you into the apostolic phase of your ministry for pacesetting. Therefore, walk before Me and be thou perfect, and I will perform every word of Mine in your direction.

I open up the gates of nations to you today (Psalm 110:1-6, 66:3; Acts 3:20-21; Isaiah 2:1-3; Micah 4:1-3).

Furthermore, to validate this apostolic status, among others, on 12th December 1995, the Spirit of the Lord said to me: ‘I have chosen this place as my end-time Jerusalem from where the gospel shall sound to the regions beyond’ (1 Thessalonians 1:8). What more, on 6th July 1997, God said: ‘Don’t you toy with this pulpit – it is serving a generation; it is a factor for a worldwide awakening!’ And finally, He said: ‘Walk with Me, my son, as I raise a new generation of saints by your hands’.

29 June: 1992, the apostolic phase
12 Dec: 1995, the end-time Jerusalem
6 July: 1997, a worldwide awakening

From the onset

It has been an era of signs and wonders indeed

The signs and wonders aspect of the church has been growing in phases. It has been an essential part of this church from the onset. We have recorded all kinds of miracles – all kinds of great things happening in the lives of people. Just as God said to Moses, Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 3: 10). Remember also, …the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders (Deuteronomy 26:8). These scriptures establish the fact that true liberation can only be established by the supernatural intervention of God.

Since inception, this church has been growing in signs and wonders as we continue to grow in the Word of Faith. We have had people healed of cancer, HIV/AIDS, kidney failure, heart disease and mental disorders. We have had all kinds of divine visitations, including a woman giving birth after 42 years of barrenness and many raised from the dead. They are all His supernatural manifestations, confirming the Liberation Mandate.

In conclusion, you will discover that we have not followed cunningly devised fables in our pursuit as a church but have subscribed totally to divine direction as unveiled from time to time. Today, by the grace of God, the Living Faith Church Worldwide Inc. a.k.a. Winners’ Chapel International has become a global phenomenon with over 5,000 vibrant local churches across the length and breadth of Nigeria alone and about 600 churches planted on the other five major continents of the earth. Our International Headquarters, the Faith Tabernacle, by His grace, was once reputed to be the largest church auditorium in the world. By His grace, we have also made a significant impact in the educational sector with the establishment of two universities: Covenant University, Canaanland, Ota and Landmark University, Omu Aran, a town in the South West of Nigeria, many secondary schools and a large number of nursery and primary schools spread across some countries of Africa.