LET'S TALK ABOUT HYMN - Min. Amos Olusoji Oladele

1.Dad

Can we meet you?

Resp:My name is Amos Olusoji Oladele.I am a pastor, a marriage coach, a Bible teacher and a church planter.

2.Dad, this year mark how many years as a Pastor?

Resp: I started pastoring in 1991. So, this year marks 30 years as a pastor.

Though I was officially ordained and licensed in 1997.

3.Can you tell us some of the challenges you've faced. That is constant in the past 30yrs?

Resp:This is like telling a true General in the Army, how many battles have you fought.My line of work and challenges are inseparable.

I face challenges everyday.If challenges do not look for me, I look for challenges.When people have challenges, the first person they think about is pastor.

As a pastor, many a times the challenges of people one has to attend to makes one forget about personal challenges.

The greatest challenger is the enemy roaring about like a lion seeking whom to devour.

4.How do you now overcome them without affecting your emotions?

Resp:It is terrible attempting to do God's work with emotion.It won't work.

For example,

Sometimes last year, I was dancing so seriously on Sunday morning full of joy.O, I danced that Sunday!By 5am on Monday, I received the news of the passing of a beloved daughter.

By my assignment, one has to swing between different moods within a short time.

One moment, someone is sharing a big testimony, the next, you have to break the news of someone's death to the family.That's the reason every trained pastor knows that we empathise; we don't sympathize.

5.As a Pastor, what is the power behind Hymn singing and how do we tap into the power?

Resp:Before I go to this, let me tell you that I was a singer, a song writer and at a time a choir master.

I joined the choir in Baptist in 1983.

Hymns we our key focus in those days.Hymns are the drivers that drives true worship in the church.Hymns are inspirational compositions by spiritual men who through the Holy Spirit saw into the heart of God.The Power of these hymns is their spirituality.

Don't forget,Most of them were originally written as poems and later turned into music.There is a huge story behind most of these hymns. They were mostly from the deep spiritual experience of the writers.

I have a book titled "The stories behind great hymns" by James McClelland. Each of these hymns carry the spirt of the events and experiences of the writer and their deep fellowship with God.

Apart from the Bible, these hymns are the best gift to the church from the Holy Spirit. You will discover that there is a hymn for every occasion and for every personal situation.

If a man truly has the Spirit of God in him/her, you cannot sing a hymn and not feel the presence of God.

6.Sir, it means in the spiritual realm, Hymn is recognized.?

Resp:In Mat 26:30, Jesus sang hymn with the Apostles the night He was arrested.Paul commanded us to speak to ourselves in hymns and spiritual songs in Eph 5:19.He further admonished us to admonish ourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

There is a big place for this hymns in the realm of the spirit.By the way majority of Psalms were songs and hymns sung till date among Jews.

Let me tell you, Like the writers of the books of the Bible, it takes a man with deep spiritual walk to write a hymn that will minister life from generation to generation. Anybody can compose songs that will arouse emotions. Only a spiritual man can write a song that will minister life.

7.Dad, Why do we now have some pastors abandoning Hymn singing?

Resp:

✍️Those Churches don't value singing Hymns.

✍️They don't have Hymn books

✍️And those who are singing, they are SINGING routine Hymns, like 3hymns for the whole of the year.

8.What is the problem sir and what do you have for them?

Resp:First of, I am not one of them. We sing hymns in all our Sunday worship services. I love to start my ministrations with hymns if time so permits.Many pentecostal pastors of today are discarding hymns because:

1. Ignorance.

You cannot values a thing you are ignorant about.

2. Lack of depth

Many pastors of today are just emotional; they are not spiritual. In most church services today, all you see is emotional excitements with no depth of spirituality.

3. Wrong focus

Once the focus is wrong, the actions cannot be right.

Most pastors of today want crowd, money, fame, and position. They do not have a focus of raising disciples who can stand on their own for christ.

For those who are called to partner with Christ in the building of His church

1. Discover the power of this hymns yourself.

2. Use the power you have personally discovered to help the church grow depth.

Another problem is the choirmaster and worship leaders.When I joined the choir in 1983, the first thing we were taught was rudiment of music and how to sight-read music notations. We sang a lot of classical hymns to full parts in those days. You cannot be in the choir in those days without belonging to a part - soprano treble, alto, tenor and bass.Most of those who sing in churches today are musical illiterates and mere noise makers.In fact many churches don't have choir in the sense of the word. They just sing.

Once the true spiritual hymns and songs died in the church and we have replaced them with emotional rantings, true worship disappeared.True hymns and spiritual songs prepare the way for spiritual delivery from the pulpit.Shallow songs, shallow worship, shallow ministrations and shallow believers.

9.Sir, what is the way out?

Resp:Let us pray for general revival of the church. Let us pray that God will heal our pulpits

Those of you in music ministry should organise programs to minister life to yourselves

What we have today is concerts.

In most of them,the same songs over and over.

Let us do less of dancing in worship and do more of meditative singing.

10.Sir, why do we have a sleeping church and sleeping believers?Does that means Holy Spirit isn't working again or what's the problem sir?

Resp:The beginning of the present trouble is the introduction of the focus on prosperity.Please don't misquote me.Prosperity is part of the covenant inheritance of all believers.But the Master said,

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Matthew 6:33 NKJV.The focus of the church should be THE KINGDOM OF GOD

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF God.

Today, people see God's work as a career - a good way of making money.

In 1993 when God told me I would serve him fully, it took a whole year of weeping and crying for me to yield.Today, people who are strangers to God start churches and they do whatever they like there.Our duty is to keep educating the people as we have opportunities.We should keep praying.

However, we must not forget that all these things are signs of the imminence of the rapture.Let all of us live with eternity in view.

Ile nto lo o!

11.Sir, we are into reviving Hymns singing campaign, what do you have to say to this?

Resp:Organise choir leaders and teach them the hymns and how to read music notations. Teach them how to read classic.

12.Maybe, you have one or two things to tell us sir before we bring this to an end.

Resp:All believers in Christ Jesus must understand:

1. Entertainment is not worship.

2. There is nothing called "ijo Jesu".

3. Emotional outbursts is not a proof of spirituality.

4. Disciple making is the heart and soul of the gospel.

5. If the word of God is the heart of our singing, more of God will be in our worship.