HOW I STRUGGLED AS A PASTOR AFTER MY MEMBERS STOPPED PAYING TITHES - PASTOR ABEL DAMINA

 If there is one man of God that has suddenly become hugely popular and enjoying lots of admiration and accolades from the general public owing to his radical stance on many doctrines operating within many Pentecostal churches, that man is Dr. Abel Damina. He is the founder of Abel Damina Ministries International, which has under its umbrella a couple of other ministerial organisations. Before now, not many knew about Dr. Abel Damina. He suddenly jumped into the spotlight when he began calling out several clerics, questioning their beliefs and doctrines that he insists are either totally wrong or fraught with inconsistencies. To say the man has drawn the anger of many prominent men of God is saying the obvious. He has made life difficult for quite a handful of them as he persistently tore to shreds the doctrines they preached and believed in, and they, in turn, have drawn the battle line with him.

For instance, he has had a running battle with Pastor Paul Enenche, over claims that he ordained him (Paul Enenche). Abel Damina is also embroiled in several other battles with other top men of God. This is on account of the fact that he has made several controversial statements that displeased respected clerics such as Bishop Oyedepo, Pastor Adeboye, Bishop Ibiyeomi, Pastor and several others.

Many do not know that Pastor Abel Damina was not originally a man on the war path with his colleagues in the vineyard. He also preached prosperity and embraced every other belief that the others propagated. But, suddenly, after what he called a divine encounter, his perspective changed and he became a completely different man of God. He no longer embraced prosperity preaching and contested several other beliefs held by men of God such as tithing and others. And since his much-celebrated change from the prosperity spell, Damina has embraced yet another gospel that seems appealing and sometimes stirs controversies.

Born on August 29, 1960, in the northern part of Nigeria, he spent most of his early life with his parents

His name is prefixed with Dr., an indication that he is well-read.

Speaking on the genesis of his church, Damina said he received a vision for the ministry when God told him to feed the hungry sheep, and in 1992, he started his church, Power City International.

A year after he launched his church, he hosted what happened to be the first apex service in the Apex Cinema Hall, Akwa-Ibom. This helped in the growth of the ministry.

His style of teaching endeared many to him, but this was short-lived as many started seeing his teachings as heretics.

The first set of clerics to fault his style of teachings included the Presiding Bishop of the Living Faith Church, a.k.a Winners, Bishop David Oyedepo, and Apostle Joshua Selman Founder of Koinonia (Eternity Network International).

Reacting to Damina’s message on internal security, that once saved, forever saved, Oyedepo faulted the claim, saying that once saved is not always saved.

Also faulting Damina, Selman said: “Be careful of these flying doctrines around the world that what you do is immaterial as a Christian.”

In another message, Damina started off questioning the abode of God.

He is not also satisfied with Jesus’ claim of  “our father who art in heaven” and feels the believer must make it a duty to know where God lives. He believes that if God created the heavens and the earth he could not possibly live in the heavens that he created.

Then he goes on to tell his ever-egregious followers in another message that a loving God can’t kill.

It was interesting watching him quote scripture after scripture to buttress this point in some of his messages.

He believes that what happened in all the cases where God was alleged to have killed was that God withdrew his presence from those places.

So for him, the destruction of the First World, the killing of the firstborns of Egypt, and several other documented killings in the Old Testament were not with the knowledge of God. But it was preaching against paying of tithes that stirred the hornets nest. He rose firmly against pastors who collect tithes and insist it is not scriptural. A lot of prominent preachers openly disagreed with him and thus began a fierce battle amongst men of God that has become both scriptural and personal.

According to the cleric, never at any time has it ever been that God protected anybody because the person paid tithe, God blesses people because God is generous. “God blesses people because God is a loving father. God blesses people, He makes his sun shine on the good and the bad, and He makes his rain fall on the good and on the bad, that’s God.”

The man of God explained further. “The issue of tithing has been over-flogged and this is because of the way some men of God interpret the scriptures when it comes to tithe. Tithe was first mentioned in the Bible in the book of Genesis 14:19-20. In this passage, Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils of war to Melchizedek, the king of Salem and priest of God. This act is considered the first recorded instance of tithing in the Bible.

Nobody asked Abraham to give tithe and nobody gave him a law on tithing. It was just his way of showing appreciation to God.  He didn’t give the tithe for blessings; he only gave it as a show of appreciation for the victory he got at the war front and the blessings pronounced over him.

The likes of Pastor Adeboye, Bishop Oyedepo and others have argued and defended their own position on paying of tithe. It has been a heated battle. Many believe it was part of the pressure Damina put on Pastor Adeboye that compelled him to publicly apologise for his earlier preaching that a Christian that does not pay tithe will not make heaven because Damina had disagreed and argued vigorously that Adeboye was wrong. This very unexpected but weighty action taken by Pastor Adeboye appears to have vindicated Dr. Abel Damina who currently enjoys a lot of commendations for his outspokeness.

But many do not know that Pastor Abel Damina did not find things easy when he embraced his radical and controversial approach to the many doctrines upheld in Christendom by many Pentecostal pastors. He suffered huge financial set backs.  

In a video clip currently making the rounds on social media, Damina was heard saying that when he changed his style of teachings particularly on tithe, members stopped giving money to the church.

 The situation, according to him, led to the shutting down of the Kingdom Live Network Television, Christian satellite TV channel.

 He said the church was unable to power the generator during services, stressing that some church staff were laid off because of the financial constraints.

 Damina remarked that when he started his new style of the gospel, “All of you here, you started dropping change from Keke Napep. I’m not putting it on you but at the same time, I’m rebuking you.“

 “It means in the first place, you were not giving to God, you were rather giving to yourself because the reason why you were giving was for devourers not to come and not because you loved God.

 “Because if it was God you were giving to and you discovered thIat there is no problem that will happen, you will still be giving. But you were giving because of fear that if you don’t tithe, it will be tight for you.Because of that, you were religiously bringing tithe.”

 “You were never in love with the purpose of God. You were only in love with your selfishness and if you are still giving like that, I put it to you straight not behind you that you are a selfish person.

 “You have not understood the riches of God’s grace.”

 At a time, all the finances stopped and we were just having little money barely enough to buy half of the diesel to run our generator for services.

 “So we could not pay for Kingdom Live Network anymore, so even our staff salaries, we could not pay so we started thinking, should we drop all the staff but if we drop all the staff, ministry will not go on. So mama now started calculating because things were really going bad and really tough.

 “She now said we are not impressing anybody, let’s shutdown the TV station, if God makes money available in the future, we go back.

 So we shutdown the TV and we came to the office, mama said we should look around if there is any staff that we can do without, we can send them parking. So we started doing all of that. Things were really bad. We decided not to go on vacation”.