The Redeemed Christian Church of God

Qually

Hi, im interested to see if anyone has any experiences of the above 'Church' in Ireland?
Their mission statement is the following :

* To make heaven
* To take as many people as possible
* To have a member of RCCG in every family of all nations
* To make holiness our lifestyle
* To plant churches throughout the world

If any experiences, please share them.

PDN

I've preached in a number of their congregations here in Ireland and know a number of their leaders.

The Redeemed Christian Church of God is a Nigerian denomination with over 5 million members worldwide. They are, I understand, the third largest denomination in the Irish Republic after the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland.

Their beliefs are pretty standard what you would expect from an Evangelical Pentecostal group.

They have a very proactive policy of starting as many new churches as possible which, while facilitating rapid growth, has occasionally caused problems when poorly trained leaders find themselves running churches and consequently say and do some dumb or extreme things.

Their annual Holy Ghost Convention each December in Nigeria is attended by 3.5 million people and is reputed to be the largest regular Christian gathering in the world (although I personally suspect that the Black Nazarene Feast in the Phillipines is a bit bigger). I visited the site once (not while the event was in session) on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway and their main auditorium has a capacity of approx 1 million people.

alex73

Working in Africa I had dealings with them. They are ok to a point. However when I got to know the leaders of the sect I found them to be extremely rich. Nigeria is a country of contrasts and when a pastor of a Church has his own private jet.... Make of it what you want, but if he REALLY were a man of God what is he doing with a private jet (not a church jet, it was registered in his name)

They are similar to a lot of Christian Sects in America. Praise the lord... (please make the Cheque out to.).

But so we are clear it was not just the leaders of this sect that had money, Others do so aswell.

Teetah

Qually wrote: »

Hi, im interested to see if anyone has any experiences of the above 'Church' in Ireland?
Their mission statement is the following :

* To make heaven
* To take as many people as possible
* To have a member of RCCG in every family of all nations
* To make holiness our lifestyle
* To plant churches throughout the world

If any experiences, please share them.

I've recently had some dealings with members of this 'church'. Qually, I was just wondering if these dealings were similar and if you asked this question on this site for the same reasons that I'm asking?!

Also, did you find out what you were looking for?

prinz

I was in a taxi one night around Christmas last year after a few pints and the taximan and I got chatting.. firstly about Christmas FM which he had on the radio, then Christmas and so on... and it turned out he was Nigerian and Redeemed Christian Church of God member. I mentioned I had seen some stuff on RTE about it, and noticed there had been posters up for it in my local shopping centre and that and he invited me to join him going to a service. He even offered to come to my place to pick me up and drive me there (IIRC he mentioned Blanchardstown was the place he was going, but could be wrong). Anyway so I thought he was just being Irish and throwing out an off the cuff offer to make smallchat and said something like 'will you have the meter running while we're inside' as a joke but he was completely serious.. said he'd pick me up take me there, take me home... and he knew where I lived because we were sitting outside it. Tbh it threw me a little bit. Unfortunately I was heading abroad for the Christmas and didn't get to join him afterwards. He seemed awfully downbeat he hadn't recruited me :pac: Total gent though, he got a big tip instead.

user098

Intresting

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/magazine/12churches-t.html?_r=1&hp

santing

For a sample of their belief visit http://rccg.camp7.org/newthing
It might be "pretty standard" for a Pentecostal group, but i find it disturbing.

Qually

Teetah wrote: »

I've recently had some dealings with members of this 'church'. Qually, I was just wondering if these dealings were similar and if you asked this question on this site for the same reasons that I'm asking?!

Also, did you find out what you were looking for?

Apologies on the delay replying. I asked the question as i wanted to find out people s thinking on this "church". I had dealiings with this church and they were signed into an agreement drawn up by solicitors. Despite this, they broke the agreement and we got only very little of the rent that was agreed. The bit we got was hard got too and we had to pull the plug.

Complete chancers in my view.

HamletOrHecuba

santing wrote: »

For a sample of their belief visit http://rccg.camp7.org/newthing
It might be "pretty standard" for a Pentecostal group, but i find it disturbing.

What exactly do you find disturbing?

Conor30

prinz wrote: »

I was in a taxi one night around Christmas last year after a few pints and the taximan and I got chatting.. firstly about Christmas FM which he had on the radio, then Christmas and so on... and it turned out he was Nigerian and Redeemed Christian Church of God member. I mentioned I had seen some stuff on RTE about it, and noticed there had been posters up for it in my local shopping centre and that and he invited me to join him going to a service. He even offered to come to my place to pick me up and drive me there (IIRC he mentioned Blanchardstown was the place he was going, but could be wrong). Anyway so I thought he was just being Irish and throwing out an off the cuff offer to make smallchat and said something like 'will you have the meter running while we're inside' as a joke but he was completely serious.. said he'd pick me up take me there, take me home... and he knew where I lived because we were sitting outside it. Tbh it threw me a little bit. Unfortunately I was heading abroad for the Christmas and didn't get to join him afterwards. He seemed awfully downbeat he hadn't recruited me :pac: Total gent though, he got a big tip instead.

Unfortunately or fortunately?!

TylerIE

Qually wrote: »

Apologies on the delay replying. I asked the question as i wanted to find out people s thinking on this "church". I had dealiings with this church and they were signed into an agreement drawn up by solicitors. Despite this, they broke the agreement and we got only very little of the rent that was agreed. The bit we got was hard got too and we had to pull the plug.

Complete chancers in my view.

I had a broadly similar experience with them a few years ago. Not rent but for services provided - which were being heavily funded for the Church by a third party in the first place. I only lost about e500, and what little I got of them was also hard got. At the time I took it as a lesson in being firm. They also tried to pull a stunt of claiming that I should support God's work but that didnt work with me. They also collected money from the parishioners that was far in excess of the contribution required for them based on the third party subsidy, and held onto this.

Im aware of similar problems for others since, although more serious.

Notwithstanding that the group did look after their members quite well - although the members were expected to tithe generously. One member reported being in hospital for a period and the pastor rostored people to drop off/collect her children from school, do shopping etc during this period and while she was recovering.

They also had some 'pool' cars - cars belonging to the church which members had access to.

The group I had dealings with will evangelise everybody they can - and I even had a taxi driver member try to convert me one day.

santing

HamletOrHecuba wrote: »

What exactly do you find disturbing?

In essence that the preacher is acting as an oracle of God. He has repeatedly "new" revelations that in the end have nothing to do with Christianity.

Greaney

I think there is a brand of 'Pentecostalism' that's emerging known as 'Prosperity Gospel' or "Health and Wealth teaching'. Although it's all over the world, I think culturally the States and Nigeria have a larger amount of churches like this. Redeemed seems to embrace this teaching, alas. Prosperity Gospel churches can have a bad rep. regarding financial transactions and so forth.

We have that denomination in our small town. On a personal note, I find them lovely, on a theological note, I think they're ropey and I wouldn't go. Some of my mates (from Nigeria) attended for a while but when they got a car they began to attend my church (12 miles away in the city) which is a traditional, orthodox, evangelical (Presbyterian) Church because they wanted proper teaching.

Some Old school Pentecostal friends (Retired Pastor& Wife) who live locally actually had to speak to the Pastor to correct his teaching regarding telling a member of their congregation to stop taking her medicine. To recommend relying solely on supernatural healing is not normal in traditional Pentecostal churches but it is in Health and wealth ones.

Unfortunately, many Christians have to face the embarrassing behavior of many who Claim to walk in Faith. 'You know a tree by it's fruit's, not by it's roots'.

I'm sorry you got duped in rent, but I'm becoming less and less surprised as I hear more stories