Pastor Tunde Bakare, founder of the Latter Rain Assembly, now known as the Citadel Global Community Church, says the church will not be opened “until the coast is clear”.
The cleric said this while speaking at the second edition of the virtual 3Gz — Guys, Girls and God — session of the CGCC Legacy Youth Fellowship, adding that “government cannot shut the church, it can only shut a building,” stating that the church is marching on.
According to the pastor, he was in a virtual meeting with Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor of Lagos and his team, where it was predicted that August would likely record lots of coronavirus cases in Lagos and Nigeria.
Pastor Bakare noted that the church is not about tithe and offerings but about edifying the people and fixing the challenges of the world.
He stressed that he is in no hurry to reopen a building when services can be done virtually and more people can be reached with the “word of truth”.
He cited Genesis Chapter 8, saying “Noah was on lockdown for 150 days”, after which he sent out a raven to check if the water on the earth had receded.
Bakare added that “Noah was not trying to prove his anointing by coming out to swim in the flood” before the water had dried up, stating that Noah waited another 40 days after the 150 days before setting out.
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The cleric stated also that those who want to be the raven sent out to check the water can go out and check, but he is not ready to put the life of his people at risk to prove anything.
Bakare also cited an example of a choir in the United States which gathered for rehearsals and recorded transmission of the novel coronavirus disease among over 40 of its members and recorded some deaths after that meeting.
On when the church will reopen, he said with the projections by the government on when the disease would subside, he was looking at September or the end of the year.
“We are not opening till the coast is clear,” he said.
