The Living Faith Church Worldwide popularly called Winners Chapel, has terminated the employment of at least 40 pastors over the alleged inability of the clerics to complete their task including expanding the membership base of the church they lead.
As gathered, some of the pastors were said to have assumed leadership of their former parish with about 1,000 members, and later the membership base begun to decline under their watch, with some church branches left with less than 500 members.
The Guild gathered that the development did not go down well with church leadership led by Pastor David Oyedepo, the General Overseer of Winners Chapel, and approved that they were relieved of their duties.
One of the affected pastors, Peter Godwin, who claimed that the leadership terminated his appointment for not generating enough money from members in his branch, disclosed that he was employed on the 28th of August, 2020.
Godwin, in a trending video, claimed that he was invited with about 40 of his colleagues by the head of pastors for the church in the state where he was deployed on July 1, 2021, and were all sacked over low income from their branches.
The cleric was deployed to Benue State for evangelism by the church leadership, a state that was, although, in the middle belt region, meanwhile was not a Muslim-dominated region of Nigeria.
The letter signed by Adebisi Aboluwade, the executive secretary for the church, Adebisi Aboluwade, reads: “Consequent upon the recent performance review which revealed that your church growth index falls below expectation. Please be informed that your service as the pastor in charge is no longer required in this commission with immediate effect. You are to vacate your official accommodation and hand over all properties including the official ID card to the area pastor before departure”.
He added that the performance index was not limited to clerics alone, adding anyone that who is earning his monthly salary from the church must be ready to meet the task that is attached to his office.
When our correspondent asked further that he mentioned his name, the member, who performs a key role in the religion house with thousands of members, stressed that no one would speak on the issue authoritatively
According to him, no one is authorised to speak on the issue at this time and you will have to wait until Daddy G.O (General Overseer) mount the pulpit and speak on it; until then, no one will utter any work on it.
