The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Adejare Adeboye, has suspended workers of the church who did not attend the National Workers Meeting held recently.The annual national workers’ meeting is a forum for all the workers of the church to meet with the leadership and it usually holds on Saturday before the Holy Ghost Service of every year.
The actual number of the workers affected in eight states within the South-West Region of the church could not be ascertained as at the time of this report, but it is believed those involved cannot be less than 1,000 of the workers.
The South-West Region of the church comprises Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Edo and Delta states.
Some of the senior pastors of the church our correspondent spoke to on the matter were unanimous in their response to the questions put across to them.
According to a senior pastor who pleaded not to be identified while speaking on why the church keeps on suspending the workers who are not being paid by the church and what if these workers had other pressing issues that made it absolutely difficult for them to attend the meeting? said: “This meeting comes up once a year and the day of the meeting is fixed. For instance if the Lord tarries in coming, every genuine and serious worker of the church knows when the meeting will hold in 2016 which is two years’ time.”
He added: “There was instruction from the office of Special Assistant to the General Overseer, passed through the pastors in charge of Provinces, through the pastors in charge of Areas down to the pastors in charge of Parishes that any worker who knows he/she would not attend the meeting should write to the General Overseer through their respective pastors in charge of Province.
“It is only indiscipline and lack of respect to the constituted authority that can make any worker fall victim of the suspension.
“It is true that the church may not be paying them since they are not full time workers of the church but what God pays them is more than what the General Overseer could have been paying them, after all, it’s not the General Overseer they are working for but God Almighty.”
One of the pastors said even ‘Daddy’, as the General Overseer is called, reminded those who came for the Holy Communion Service on Thursday, preceding May 2014 Holy Ghost Service that every pastor should ensure that his/her workers who have not taken permission should come for the meeting.
“That night, I sent text messages to all the pastors under me to ensure all their workers attend,” the pastor said.
We learnt that the meeting which usually held at the Redemption Camp of the church had been decentralised to make it easy for the workers to attend.
The church now holds workers’ meeting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, for all the workers in the Southern part of the country while that of the North holds in Jos, Plateau State.
The church started suspending absentee workers indefinitely since May 2003 to forestall indiscipline among its workforce.