MAKING MY “ANGLICANESS” A PUBLIC AFFAIR

A Pentecostal Bishop wrote in the Newspaper that the Anglican Church is a dead Church; I saw it and I got sad. I came across another Pentecostal Bishop who was addressing a fellow Pentecostal Bishop but a former Anglican in a manner that sounds like “you are not biblically sound because you were an Anglican”. I have withheld their name to mind my business.

People who know me so well will attest to the fact that I am not a denominational man; I am not a defender of denomination neither am I more concerned about people’s denomination than people’s faith in God’s word.

I am one of those persons some call a “sell-out” because I am unapologetic of my stand in the scriptures. I started this way so that you understand I am not being just an Anglican but a Christian. I love the Pentecostal churches and have ministered at some of their gatherings lots of times.

My acceptance of other denominations was so evident while I was a chapter president of a ministry in the Anglican Church. Our fellowships in Amazing Grace Church, Obosi had more Pentecostals and Roman Catholics than Anglicans and we retained them with God’s word.

In our fellowship, we focused on Jesus and not a denomination, the membership of Pentecostals in our fellowship grew to an alarming rate that some church members became very uncomfortable with us.

It has been a painful thing to me when I see that many Pentecostals don’t see Anglicans the way we (at least some of us) sees them. That is why Pentecostals will stand up to talk nonsense about Anglican, some present Anglican as a hub of refurbished Judaism, some see us as ignorant people and they climb their pulpits to say such to their members who like multi-level marketers carry on such message of hate against the Anglican Church into the streets.

That is why I have decided to make my “Anglicaness” more public and tell the world that I learned God’s word as an Anglican and in the Anglican Communion.

I admit, I have often faced a certain degree of backlashes from some Anglicans because of what I believe but I have received the same kind of backlashes from so many Pentecostals.

I am a New Testament preacher; I preach nothing but the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I did not go to any Pentecostal or Anglican Bible school, I am not yet a theologian and I don’t even want to take “theology” more serious than my Bible.

I have often confronted Anglicans who negatively discuss Pentecostals, I will not always hesitate to confront Pentecostals who talk mess of the Anglican Church when I see them.

This is why we seem so vulnerable and weak… Not because we lack power but because we are so disunited to fight together. Boko Haram and other Islamic terrorists, for instance, are not fighting against Anglican, Pentecostal or Roman Catholic. They are fighting against Christianity.

What are Christians doing? They are busily faulting their sister Churches than preaching Jesus to the lost! I am more concerned about preaching and teaching the gospel than parading affiliation to any denomination.

I have made my “Anglicaness” open again so that people who think Anglicans are modern Moses will know that “the man, Jesus” is also in Anglican. I once had Archbishop Justin Welby, Rev. Nicky Gumbel and his associate team of ministers as role models.

Hope that tells you the level of my Anglican madness? I am a Christian, a very unapologetic believer in Jesus plus nothing, I am glad I passed through the Anglican Communion in my discovery that it is Jesus alone that matters not denomination.