ARCHBISHOP ADEYEMI:This standing committee meeting is a great blessing to this province, and I would have said God does not make mistakes, it’s true that the Primate told me on the 21^st of September at my presentation of our hosting and he put in a jocularly way “unless you did not get the revelation” and I told him I got the revelation because about a couple of months before then I just saw that the Primate was here, the choir was processing and I told one of my friends “this diocese is going to play host to something either consecration or something. Even much before then, this Cathedral has expanded not by my own power or ability, since 2012 we had dedicated a 3000 square meter capacity Cathedral which was done by the Primate but when it came to preparation with just four months notice, it was clear that a type of space I would loved to have does not exist in one place but by coincidence in the Bishop’s court, the two buildings that were dedicated this morning Church Of Ascension with a capacity of about 600 and the diocesan secretariat was built within one year but the finishing touches became quite a fix of a challenge that’s where the women would be meeting.

The logistics for hosting with a different turn of event made a pioneering work of this kind of hosting a fix, unlike Port Harcourt where you have many rooms in one hotel we had our 59 hotels that we certified and we floated the website so that people can choose what they want and pay in advance, we interviewed the food vendors we wanted to ensure that nobody will have food poisoning either by default or whatever. So those issues were preparatory efforts not to talk of praying and praying through. And when I look around, I see that the coming of the Church of Nigeria to this place is a great blessing to us. You could see different buildings all over the place.

We have spent over N5 million on painting and the other logistics still made preparation quite a challenge. But what I‘ve found is this, if you put everything in God’s hands, difficulties becomes testimonies of achievements. I couldn’t wait to say if anybody is hosting, just let him come and ask me what the burden is.

The challenge we have is this, are people registering on time? All this late hour registration make preparations turbulent, if the dioceses will kindly oblige to register on time. Registration is free. Because you pay for accommodation, you pay for your meals. And when you register on time, the aspect of security becomes easier. We will have the captioned photographs. I had to take the website operator to Bishop’s retreat to fine-tune registration.

But those who react at first instance, they are not more than 25%. The rush hours too, make it a little bit of a difficulty.

The transportation aspect is one area that makes it a bit of some problems. But I believe all will be well in the name of Jesus.

ON POVERTY OF RICHES . . . The Laodicea Church was a Church that had no commendation from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Let’s take it in a short perspective, Paul, who was evangelical in south East Asia visited about eighteen cities. Paul had labored, had done first, second and third missionary journeys. And about sixty years after Paul had been martyred, the owner of the Church chose just seven of them to tell His own people what His reaction was. Then, let’s come back to Laodicea. Laodicea literarily means judgment of the people.

These are the people of God who succumbed to what people say. It’s not always true to say that the voice of the people is the voice of God. Yet God is not always a democrat saying where He goes is what people are saying. We are talking about people who from Revelation 3:17 have three ‘I^s’ – I am rich. In other words, he’s saying that I am today; I have prospered. He said I was, I am and I need nothing. I yesterday, I today and I in the future. That is the way to talk about a self opinionated person. Our God was telling them that they are living in a fool’s paradise, you are in the world. Let us talk about the rich fool too, he was saying I, I too, soul eat, soul drink, soul have for tomorrow, and God is saying in Exodus chapter twenty, the ten commandments that you have no other gods except me, the symbol of Christianity is removed, crossed. When the thinking is introverted, the door has been shut to God; He was talking from the outside, “I’m knocking at the door”, so when you are talking about the POVERTY OF RICHES, what a paradox, they were spiritually poor and I could tell you there is nothing called crash-landing. Backsliding is a process let me give you an example, there are twenty four in a day, this Laodicea church they are like the parable of the sower, and they are like the ones that fell among the thorns, they are aware of the care of this world they squeeze out and they are unproductive, when you are rich, you need time to service your wealth.

These are people who have no time for quite time, bible study, they have no time for morning worship, evensong, they don’t even have time for home fellowship, talking about revival, vigils. We are not talking about millionaires, they are busy somewhere else. So when insight is lost, priorities becomes lopsided, I could tell you like Jesus told his disciples “is your heart harden?” when insight is lost decision becomes ungodly, let me give a little story, there was a psychiatrist, who wanted to see if his patients were getting better, so he drew a gate on a wall and told them “escape through this gate because there was an emergency” and the mad people started struggling for the handle drawn on the wall and one was by the driver side looking at them, and the doctor said “what’s happening”, and he said “I could see that they are mad, they ate struggling for the door but they didn’t know that the key us un my pocket”. So there is no difference between six and a half a dozen.

When the world has gotten to the church it become so worldly, if possible we would even monetize God, the spirituality is all about the time we have for God, our Lord Jesus Christ taught us in the Lord’s prayer our father give us…..thy kingdom come. In Laodicea it’s not God’s kingdom that they want to come, this is a city that had five factors of wealth, (1) Many banks, (2) Embroidery industry, (3) they had University Medical Schools, (4) they even produce a mineral from which they produce eye and ear ointment and (5) what could have being their problem they did not have water, they now use six mile stone conduit to put water in the city, so their weakness now become their strength. So they were so proud, so conceited as I begin to see in our contemporary world, go and find out, most churches about 100 years and over, are being put in to spiritual dustbins of values. When we stop having the first love, when we stop making God first, we slumped in as the Laodicea. Today 99.5% of Turkey is Islam, which is the historical remnant of the ancient church and our environment today need to take a cue and learn from the way He sees us, because we are spirit, soul and body and when we are only mindful of physical things, our lenses become fogged and we cannot see the way God is seeing