Life, Biography and Ministry Of Pastor E. A. Adeboye

Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye is a Nigerian and the General Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) Worldwide.
Pastor Adeboye has a PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Lagos, and worked as a lecturer in mathematics at the universities of Lagos and Ilorin. After joining the RCCG, he began working to translate the sermons of its then Pastor and founder, Rev. Josiah Olufemi Akindayomi, from Yoruba into English.
In 1981 Adeboye was appointed General Overseer the church, taking over from Papa Akindayomi, who had died the previous year. For three years he filled the role part-time, still lecturing at Ilorin, until giving up his university position to preach full-time.

The church, which was not well known before Adeboye took charge, now claims branches in over a hundred countries, including more than 14,000 in Nigeria. Adeboye has stated that his aim is to put a church within five minutes of every person on Earth.
In 2008, Newsweek magazine named Adeboye one of the fifty most powerful people in the world. He is married to Foluke Adeboye, also a pastor. The couple faced considerable financial challenges in their initial years together even though they were very much in love. He has four children, all of whom also became pastors later on. He is also a proud grandfather to several grandchildren.

Early Life And Career
Pastor E.A. Adeboye was born on 2nd March 1942 at Ifewara in the present day Osun State. His parents 9now of blessed memory) were indigenes of the town, which is about midway between Ilesha and Ondo towns.
He had a strict Christian upbring which was engineered by a church going culture, which was the prevalent style of Christianity of those days. This church-going attitude gave him an appreciation of God, but made no extraordinary or outstanding Christian out of him.
He under went primary and secondary education which were almost curtailed due to the problem of funds, barefooted and in tears. He recalls “for the first seventeen years of my life, I never had to wear shoes”.

However, as God would have it, he survived against all odds to graduate from the University in 1967, at the age of 25. Between 1967 and 1975 he had added two more degrees, an M.Sc in hydrodynamics and a Ph.D in Applied Mathematics, and lectured at the University of Lagos and university of Ilorin. Before his lectureship at these Universities, the G.O had taught mathematics at two secondary schools viz: Okeigbo Grammar School, Okeigbo near Ondo and the Lagos Anglican Girls Grammar School, Surulere – Lagos.
It would appear that his academic and professional career and achievement greatly prepared him for the office into which God was to call him later on.

How Pastor Adeboye Became Born Again
His childhood Christian background had made him to appreciate God in the ordinary sense. However, it was not strict enough to preclude him from being an active young man engaging in all the perks to which a young lecturer and an educated man was “entitled”, even though he was married.
Married in 1968 to his wife, Pastor (Mrs.) Foluke Adeboye, the young couple was faced with the problem of recurrent caesarian section by which the wife had delivered their first two babies. Medical science had diagnosed that in view of the formation of pelvic bones, having babies by natural means was impossible and such advised against having further children. A solution had to be found.

How his Christian background did not preclude him from trying out other areas outside of his Christian belief where solutions might be found. In any case, his Yoruba cultural background was not averse to syncretism. “Olorun ko ko aajo” his people are wont to say, that is “God (or belief in Him) is not opposed to native remedies”. The implication of which is that if prayers are not effective, the nature medicine-man is available.
As part of the solution-seeking odyssey, the young University teacher and his wife were invited to the Redeemed Christian Church of God by his uncle, Rev. Chris Fajemirokun.
Though led by unlettered men, the visibility of the power of God was not lost on the young couple. The church was then headed by Pastor Josiah Oluwafemi Akindayomi, the General Superintendent (GS), a man who did not have any formal education and spoke no English but his native Yoruba language. However, compared to his own educated mind, this man and the other men of God in the church were infinitely superior to him the knowledge and ways of god, and especially in their examination and exposition of the Bible.
The sermons of the GS and those of his lieutenants were quite incisive, thought-provoking and soul-stirring. Here were men who despite their educational handicap would not compromise God’s standard.
It was also here that he learnt that his way of life would lead him directly and unwaveringly in only one direction – HELL FIRE! He also learnt of the importance of looking up to Jesus as “the Author and Finisher of our faith” and the need “to cast all our cares upon Him”.
So, when on 29th of July 1973, the altar call was made in the church for those who wanted to surrender their lives to Jesus, forsake their sinful ways, and become born again, the young man, who was to become the General Overseer of the church rushed forward, and in a remorseful show of penitence, gave his life unto Jesus! Reflecting later on his conversion he said, “something overwhelmed me that mighty: that I was close to hell and I didn’t know it. I suddenly realized that it is possible to have all the Ph.d’s in the world and still be on the losing side. I know all the formula but I did not know the one eternal life”.

Honorary Award
To date, all over the world Enoch Adeboye has been conferred with several honorary degrees and national merit awards in appreciation of his contributions to humanity. In the 2009 Newsweek Elite Edition (January 5, 2009), he was listed as one of the Fifty Most Influential People In The World (No. 49 to be exact). For example the following are note-worthy:
1999 – Received honorary citizenship and key of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
2000 – Dedicated the first chapel in the Nigerian Presidential Villa, Abuja, Nigeria.
2005 – Received honorary citizenship and key of Dallas, Texas, USA.
2005 – Received honorary citizenship and key of Baltimore, Maryland, United States.
2008 – Awarded a National Honor (Order of the Federal Republic of Nigeria) by the Nigerian President
2009 – Led the Pre-Summit Prayers at the 64th General Assembly of the United Nations, Headquarters, New York.
2009 – Named one of ‘The World’s Fifty Most Powerful People’ by Newsweek Magazine (USA).
2009 – Awarded honorary doctorate degree – University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria
2009 – Awarded honorary doctorate degree – University of Nigeria, Nsukka
2010 – Awarded a National Sports Honor (Spiritual Pillar of Nigerian Sports)
Though the above achievements are phenomenal, Enoch Adeboye never fails to give glory to the Lord, claiming that there are greater things ahead that the Lord will yet do.

To date, Enoch Adeboye’s profile includes:
• Strategic casting of the worldwide vision of The Redeemed Christian Church of God
• General Overseer Worldwide with ultimate responsibility for over 12,000 churches in over 120 nations.
• Author / Writer of the popular, globally-distributed daily devotional manual – Open Heavens.
• Host / Convener / Preacher at the quarterly Festival of Life (indoor revival meeting) in London, UK and various cities in the US with an average attendance of over fifty (UK) and seven thousand (US)
• Host / Convener / Preacher at the Annual RCCG Conventions in Nigeria, UK and the US with an average attendance of over two million (Nigeria), twenty thousand (UK) and seven thousand (US)
• Author of over forty books published all over the world.

Building A Unique Prayer Mountain in Africa

Ifewara, a sleepy town in Osun State came alive recently when the General Overseer Worldwide of The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye and some elders of the church gathered to open the 1st and one of its kind prayer mountains ever in the history of the church. It is the practice for Orthodox Churches to have prayer ground on isolated mountain. Now, Redeemed Church has joined the league of Pentecostal churches that has prayer mountains. It was gathered that Pastor EA Adeboye had birthed the idea 30 years ago with his wife Pastor Foluke Adeboye in faraway South Korea. Pastor Enoch Adeboye’s hometown is Ifewara and that is exactly where the mountain is situated. He named the mountain, Mount Carmel and it is totally different from the mountains we see around.

It boasts of social facilities such as prayer huts; it has chalets, toilets, dormitories, halls of various sizes and place of worship for crusades. It also has restaurants, book shops and small mini marts for everyday needs. Pastor Foluke Adeboye was in charge of the opening ceremony where she welcomed all guests. She was also in charge of the construction. She revealed that although the plot of land had been bought by them years ago for the prayer mountain, the land had been lying fallow until about seven years ago when her husband moved for its development. When the construction was about to start, an architect volunteered her services to design the facility, and, with the support of engineers and other workers, the forested hill slope later turned  into a beauty to behold. According to Mrs Adeboye, “We have been inspired to build a prayer mountain by what we saw in South Korea in 1985. We went for a David Yonggi Cho prayer conference there, and one afternoon, they took the delegates to their prayer mountain, which we admired so much.

“But then, we said: “God, this is South Korea; we travelled almost a whole day to get here. How can we have something like this in Nigeria?” “So since 1985, we had it in our minds that one day, there would be a prayer mountain of a similar status in Nigeria.”Also explaining the name of the prayer mountain, she said: “We named this Mount Carmel after the Mount Carmel where Prophet Elijah defeated the work of the devil.
We also remembered the Mount of Transfiguration.”Corroborating his wife’s account, Pastor Adeboye, said: “When we returned from South Korea in 1985, we decided by the Grace of God that there would be a Prayer Mountain in Nigeria that people from all over the world would come to pray. ”They consulted and later bought the land but the challenges of developing it delayed the project: He recalled: “The challenges were much, but what I had discussed with God about the prayer mountain remained burning in my heart. The way I had planned it, the place should have been built many years ago. But in the face of enormous challenges, we resorted to building a place called “Halleluyah House” at Redemption camp. “Yet the passion for the prayer mountain was still burning in my heart. I believed that by the time I was 60 years old, we would have built it, but it was not possible. When I was getting to 70 years old, I remembered that every year after 70 years of a man on earth is extra time.”
“To ensure that the dream would not die, and efforts that had been made would not be fruitless, I called my wife and gave her the responsibility to build this prayer mountain,” Adeboye further revealed.