Celebrating Pastor Oladele as the Newly Appointed President of CAC

Celebrating Pastor Oladele as the Newly Appointed President of CAC

By: Deji Yesufu

In the year 2008 the local church I used to attend here in the city of Ibadan invited this pastor to preach at its annual conference. When I learnt he was a Christ Apostolic Church pastor I was not very keen on listening to him; I have never been a fan of the CAC style of praying but I was a committed member of this church and I was expected to be in Church that Tuesday. Pastor Samuel Olusegun Oladele was the minister from CAC that graced our pulpit that evening. From the start of his sermon to the end, I was held spell-bound. I kept looking at the flyer to be sure that the organizers had not made a mistake; this could not be a CAC pastor, I said to myself. I was wrong; he was. Pastor Oladele is one of the few ministers in that denomination that gives centrality to the preaching of the word of God and not just endless prayer sessions. You can imagine my joy when I learnt that Pastor Oladele has today been appointed the overall head of CAC worldwide. Pastor Samuel Olusegun Oladele became the President of CAC effective from the 1^st of January, 2021. Here is a little bio of this great minister that I obtained from a member of the CAC:

 Pastor Oladele was born on Tuesday, the 30^th of August, 1955 at about 9:50am in the small village of Alagbagba in Odeda Local Government Area of Ogun State to Late Pa Gabriel and Madam Alice Oladele. He attended CAC Primary School, Alagbagba and at a very tender age of 14 entered into the ministry by training loally under the late Pastors J. B. Akande and J. O. Ogundiran respectively. He went to the CAC Bible Training College in Akure and graduated in 1974, having trained under the late Mrs. O.O.A Pearce and Pastor M. O. Faloye. Upon the completion of his studies, he was retained on the staff list of the CAC Bible Training College where he worked as a Tutor until 1977 when he left Nigeria for the United Kingdom where he attended The International Bible Training Institute in Burgess-Hill, West Sussex.

Pastor Oladele returned to Nigeria in 1980 to join CAC Theological Seminary as a tutor until 1983 when he left for the United States of America for further studies.  Pastor Oladele has pastored many CAC churches all around Nigeria. He was promoted to the position of Assistant General Superintendent in 1996 and he became Chairman in 2002. In 2004, Pastor Oladele was promoted to the position of General Superintendent elect. He would then be appointed President of the CAC denomination worldwide this year January. Pastor Oladele is married to Mrs. Susanna Kehinde Oladele (Nee Olawade). Their union is blessed with four sons.

I have never attended a Christ Apostolic Church service before but by a stroke of providence, I have continually encountered members of this denomination in my life and ministry. Because I became a Christian in Northern Nigeria, where the CAC has very little presence, I was initially not familiar with the church. But since relocating to Ibadan, I see CAC everywhere. In fact their church headquarters is just a little distance from my home. Recently the wife of a member of the little group I am working with was delivered of a baby boy by one of the maternity homes run by the CAC. The young man was not charged a dime; I never knew such humanitarian works still existed in Nigerian churches. I was thoroughly impressed.

As I concluded my seminary work, my thesis covered the close to 200 years Christianity has existed in Nigeria. The main textbook I used for my writing, Ayodeji Abodunde’s “Heritage of Faith: History of Christianity in Nigeria”, noted the long history of CAC in the Southern parts of Nigeria. How the church began through the influences of the Apostolic Church in the United States. The book recorded the ministry of the founding fathers. It recorded the revival under the ministry of Ayo Babalola and stated how the denomination spread through much of the southern parts of Nigeria. Christianity has thrived in Nigeria by the work, ministry and effort of churches like this Christ Apostolic Church. It is this church, today, that is being led by the brilliant Pastor Oladele.

When I began to go to Egbe, Kogi State, for my seminary training in 2016, every year I will branch in Ilorin to see my friend Femi Gbadeyan. Femi is a young man whose family has a long history with the CAC Church. He tells me he was born in one of those maternity homes in Ilorin. I told Femi that the only CAC pastor whose ministration I had sat under was Pastor Oladele. Femi told me that Pastor Oladele had led the Bible Study group of the church for close to thirty years. He said that this minister has sought to bring new life into the CAC denomination by encouraging its minister to focus on teaching the Bible. Incidentally, Paul the apostle agrees with Pastor Oladele. Paul, while writing to Timothy stated:

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passion, and will turn away from listening  to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” – 2 Timothy 4:1-5.

When Paul was writing this he had his eyes on his death; he would say later “…for I am already being poured out as a drink offering…” When a man is dying, he leaves the most important messages for those around him. When one of Christ’s leading Apostles was dying, he did not ask the churches to preach prosperity; he did not tell them that deliverance was the most important item in the life of the believer that will know breakthrough; he did not tell them five steps to success. Rather, he told his progeny to “preach the word”. He pleaded with Timothy to center his preaching and life on the word of God. The word of God today is the Bible and the success of people like Pastor Oladele has been that they have built their ministry around the word of God.

Like most churches in Nigeria today, the false gospel of prosperity, healing and the Word of Faith has crept unaware into the Christ Apostolic Churches too. Pastors have turned themselves into new kinds of witchdoctors – where the pastor is now the person to break the evil wind around people so that they can experience success in life. I am thankful that men like Pastor Oladele do not subscribe to this evil wind of theology blowing through many of our churches. I pray that God will use him to revive the CAC churches and that through ministries like these a new life of God may come upon the churches in Nigeria; such that this nation may know true righteousness that exalts a country.

I use this medium to congratulate and celebrate Pastor Oladele. I understand he still has many years to lead the CAC churches. I pray that God will use him as a battle axe in this congregation and lead God’s people to new heights in God. Amen.