AN INTERVIEW WITH MR OLUFEMI ASA – THE HOM (HOUSE CELL FELLOWSHIP) OF THE CHURCH
Que: Sir, what’s your name and what do you do in the church?
Ans: My name is Olufemi Asa. I’m the Head of Ministry (HOM) for the house cell. The house cell system is a satellite fellowship centre where our members congregate and we just share the word of God because during services people cannot really ask questions. There are a lot of posers that comes to them, but at the house cell level where we gather together such issues are brought up and we try to balance it and discuss about it and also give real life scenarios; so, that’s what we do in the house cell so we can grow membership and maturity from that level.
Que: How many House Cell centres does you Ministry have?
Ans: Currently, we have twenty house cell centres all over Ibadan and they are grouped into five zones. We have the Bodija/UI zone, Iwo Road/Ashi zone, Eleyele/Ijokodo zone, Ring road zone and Idi-Ishin zone. View House cell directory here
Que: What is IGNITE all about?
Ans: IGNITE is a concept we developed at the house cell level. It talks about love for God, passion for God. That is all the IGNITE concept is about. We want believers to have that unwavering passion for God. Like I said, when people come to church they just listen to the word and it depends on how a lot of people handle the word in them; it’s as if it might not really distillate but at the house cell level the word of God really distillate and ignite their passion for God. They desire to know God the more so that’s all about the concept to ignite the passion for God; wanting to know God the more.
Que: What inspired the theme – IGNITE?
Ans: You know we are going to UCH? Before we concluded on the theme IGNITE, we had two or three themes for the outreach but we eventually choose IGNITE because we believe that doctors and other people in the medical profession are very dogmatic and they think in certain way and is difficult for you to break them and to try to change their perception because of their training. So many of them carry out surgical operations, prescribe drugs and the patient gets well they believe that God factor is either faintly there or it’s not even in existence at all, that’s why we choose that theme ignite so as to ignite their passion for God so that they too can see God as the factor in healing anybody that becomes healed through them.
Que: Why did you choose the university teaching hospital (UCH) as the venue of this event of all other places in Ibadan?
Ans: We actually choose UCH because we want to reach out to doctors and the medical profession. We’ve looked at the church over a long period of time and we see that a lot of doctors and nurses come to church previously from that axis but when we looked at the statistics over the last 2-3 years we were not seeing more of doctors and nurses coming into church and that gave us a concern that’s why we said let us go and do a programme inside UCH that will ignite passion for God.
Que: How often does the house cell ministry conduct outreach programmes?
Ans: Sincerely, this is the first that the house cell ministry will single handedly want to do a programme on their own. What we have been doing previously was to partner with other ministries. What we do is that we summit our outreach proposals to the outreach ministry so they factor it into their own program but this year we decided we want to pick our programmes, we want to own our programmes, we want to drive our programmes ourselves and that is why it is reflecting in the house cell planner as a programme. Previously, it would have been in the outreach ministry, I can give you an example: last year we did a successful outreach at Ajibade Sobande that was our suggestion; it was driven by the house cell. The Oke-Itinu outreach last year was part of what the house cell also suggested to the outreach ministry but this year we said as house cell pastors we too want to win souls and that’s why we looked at which area should we go to? We planned this outreach as early as January this year.
Que: The event is featuring a guest artiste, a comedian and a dance drama group. Why are we bringing all these into an evangelistic outreach?
Ans: Thank you very much. The reach of the gospel these days is looking at your audience and try to give them a programme that will act as a crowd pull and that is just the strategy. People love music these days, some few years ago music was a thing for just a few people but now you can see that people listen to music with their iPhones and some other electronic gadgets. People saved and unsaved tend to attend programmes once they hear that a big gospel musician is coming into town and I believe that is like a confluence to reach the unreached because there are some people that are actually not saved but they love music, they can appreciate good music and once they know that a gospel musician is coming they also want to be there. For the comedian also, it’s another channel let me say marketing you understand; it’s a crowd pull and that’s why we are majoring on this two media to get our target audience to actually attend that programme. They are not the focus actually the focus is our Lord Jesus Christ and we believe those that will come will actually meet Jesus and their passion for Christ will be ignited in that programme.
Que: What should we expect in this programme?
Ans: We expect great and wonderful things; we expect souls to be won for Christ. We expect people that are drawn back to recommit their lives to Christ. I’ve tried to explain the mindset of the medical profession people and we believe that at the end of the day we will be able to show them the God factor in their profession. We expect that we’ll have a great turn out; we expect that we’ll have a lot of people rededicating and recommitting themselves to God.
Que: How do you intend to follow up the new converts in the event?
Ans: Immediately after the outreach, we’re planning to start a fellowship in UCH which will be anchored by the house cell currently in UCH so that’s how we intend to keep the converts because we are very mindful that amongst those who will come will definitely have a church they attend. So, we are going to use the house cell time in the evening to organize a fellowship for all the converts and there we can develop them, grow them and ensure they are matured in Christ.
Que: When do we look forward to your next outreach?
Ans: Yes, we have another event for the second half of the year and that’s in September. We are going to hold that one at the School of Nursing at Eleyele in Ibadan. So, that’s where we will be going next in September.
