Founder of The Living Faith Church International aka Winners’ Chapel Bishop David Oyedepo has broken his silence on the recent sack of over 40 pastors by the church.
He was reacting to allegation by one of the affected Pastors, Peter Godwin, that they were sacked for not generating enough income.
Godwin, who was in one of the church’s branches in Ekiti State, had claimed: “I was told by the management that the church doesn’t operate at a loss.
“They also told me that the total income that is being generated from my station should be able to cater for my welfare and accommodation, so as a result of low income, I’m hereby dismissed.”
Nigerians reacted massively to the issue on social media with some stating it was within the rights of the church to hire and fire while others said the church was wrong to use income generation to evaluate pastors.
Speaking to the church on the matter, Oyedepo said the sacked pastors were “unfruitful and blatant failure.”
He said: “People are confused about our Ministry. I learnt some fellows said, “you know, they are not bringing income, that is why they asked them to go”.
“We asked you to go because you are unfruitful. Unfruitful! Blatant failure. Doing what there? We have no patience with failure here.
“When we employed 7,000 people at a time, social media was dead.
“We have more employees in this organisation than most of the states. No one is owed a dime salary and we don’t borrow, we don’t beg. Ask our bank whether we take overdraft.
“We are covenant bound, working in the light of God’s word, enjoying an open Heaven.”
He said the sack was not about money. According to him: “Money? Nonsense. We have never lacked it and yet we have never prayed for it.
“We are just simply obeying God and He is backing up what He is asking us to do. Awesome God.”