I Will Never Go To Church!

“Those born again people always say one thing and do another. On Sunday they will dance and dance in Church, but other days they will commit all kinds of atrocities and even cheat you if you have money dealings with them”
Have you ever felt like the person speaking above? Or have you had other disappointing encounters that have left a negative impression of Christians in your heart?
Whatever your answer and no matter what reservations you may have about Christians, it is dangerous to hold unto such generalizations. Firstly because no matter what wrongs you have observed, there still are those who are living upright lives and honestly following the teachings of the Bible. Secondly and most importantly, every religion – whether Buddhism or Hinduism or Islam or Confucianism all agree that every human has a soul and that soul has an individual and independent destiny and the day of reckoning will come some day. For the Moslems and Christians, that day of reckoning comes when the body dies and the soul goes to either heaven (paradise) or hell, according to the deeds of that person here on earth. For many other religions, that day of reckoning comes when the individual dies and is either promoted to higher or lower life forms during re-incarnation.
The import of the above is that no matter what bad example you see other people living, even if they are Bishops or Pastors, you will answer individually for your own deeds here on earth when that day of reckoning arrives for you. And the most frightening part is that YOU DO NOT KNOW THAT DAY OR MOMENT! You cannot say if your day of reckoning is today or ten years or 25 years from now. What is certain is that as soon as you die (whether by accident or by hired assassins or by witches or “after a brief illness”), you will answer for your life on earth, no matter what you believe in or who you worship, even if you worship Satan.
From the foregoing, you can see the need to pause and wonder if you have used the opportunities of your life in a manner that will please your creator (or whatever you believe controls the universe, because you must be loyal to something if you do not believe that God created the universe).
If you would like to share your concerns about this world, the wickedness in it and why good people suffer even when bad people have the best of life, there are many other people like you and you can be sure that God is still in charge and still watches over you. I encourage you to join this blog, which we have created as an outreach of Lakeside Evangel Fellowship, to discuss your concerns.
But for starters, if you already own a Bible, why not read Psalm 73, Psalm 92, Psalm 91, Proverbs1 and Proverbs 3. Take your time, even if it takes you a week to read through these passages. These passages of scripture will answer many of your questions and set the tone for us to share those concerns of yours. Yet, you are free to raise your questions here and the Holy Spirit will inspire answers to your questions and concerns.
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LAKESIDE EVANGEL FELLOWSHIP NETWORK:
One of the challenges for Nigerian Christians is that the country is found in the 10/40 window, where the most unchurched people on Earth live. Even more challenging is that despite the huge Christian population, Nigeria has been classified in many quarters as a Muslim country.
One of the reasons for this development is that Christian evangelism in the Moslem dominated Northern Nigeria has become weak, in terms of resources and field missionaries mobilized. Christians have also been discouraged, demoralised and intimmidated by recent trends in these communities.
TheLakeside Evangel Fellowship Community will create an environment through the Lakeside Evangel Fellowship Network, to support small churches, Missionaries, Evangelists, crusades and small group leaders in the network captive areas - which will initially be North Central Nigeria, and spread out to other parts of the North anf West Africa..
From our base in Kainji, Niger State in North Central Nigeria, the network will mobilize personnel and financial resources through volunteers and donations - to train, equip, finance and generally offer helps ministry to these small churches, groups and missionaries. In addition, we will operate and provide a refuge, a watering hole or “refueling depot” for Missionaries and Ministers of God engaged in “the frontlines”.
We are believing God that the Holy Spirit will touch and minister to many of you to support this ministry in this unique mandate through your time, skills, advice, prayers, financial and other material resources.
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EVANGEL FELLOWSHIP CREED:
Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olives shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:
Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds feet and he will make me to walk on mine high places.
HABAKKUK 3:17-19.



OUR VISION:
To expand the frontiers of the Gospel in our environment and develop a true Christian Community with membership from every corner of the globe, sharing personal experiences and the love of Christ through mentoring, communal worship and interaction; where every individual is sharpened to shine the light and impact his or her immediate environment for Christ.

OUR MISSION:
To carry out the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ with great vigour, using every tool available, including print, electronic and internet media; to guide and mentor old and new Christians through biblical teachings, so that they can manage life’s inevitable struggles towards positive outcomes; to recover lost youths for Christ, converting them to firebrands and terrors to the devil.


DEMOGRAPHIC TARGETS:
LEF will strive through God’s grace and favour, to cater to the needs of every age, every race and all and sundry, male and female – but there is a special focus in our ministry to the needs of persons in the 13-40 years age bracket. This group may be divided into the teenage group who grapple daily with complex events and challenges of growing up in a rapidly changing world; and the 20-40 year olds group, who constitute the bulk of every nation’s workforce. These two groups are most vulnerable to derailment from achieving their destinies on Earth, owing to poor handling of the storms of life. For those of us in Africa, many in this group often find it difficult to find their feet in life due to the additional burden of demonic operations in their lives arising from ancestral idol worship. Most importantly, many people from pagan backgrounds and those who have already been influenced by other religions will be our primary target. Special activities to support all the groups will include:


LAKESIDE EVANGEL FELLOWSHIP YOUTH OUTREACH:
This outreach will provide an interactive platform for young persons to understand Christian living, integrity and how faith, perseverance and the love of God can overcome difficult circumstances.
We will however firmly draw the line between sin and righteousness as prescribed by the Bible as against the new fads on relativism ravaging Christendom in the West. But we will help young persons who join our Christian Community to see that Jesus is an experience – the ultimate experience of unconditional love and forgiveness.
We also want our teens to come to Christ and experience how a relationship with Jesus brings transformation in their lives. Today’s teens are more exposed to complex technologies than their predecessors, but the offensive and negative impact of new media have put them at great risk of derailing before they reach maturity. This exposure places more responsibility and challenge on the Church of Christ to teach teens the right way to go, presented to them in their own language.
The Lakeside Evangel Fellowship Youth Outreach also intends to maintain a strong presence at university and polytechnic campuses in Nigeria - and later elsewhere in Africa. The outreaches so established will work with local churches and communities to help define social opportunities and character-molding for students, thereby meeting the needs of an important segment of the demographic target of the ministry.



EVANGEL FELLOWSHIP (PERSONAL LEADERSHIP) ACADEMY
One of the key activities and institutional structures that will evolve with this ministry is the Evangel Fellowship Academy, which will use a classroom and learning environment to provide Bible based teachings and structured educational programmes for personal character development, leadership training, Christian discipleship training, career guidance, professional development, entrepreneurship development, sports and recreation.
The above academy will be open to persons of every age and gender, but will be especially beneficial to young people. We believe firmly that every child of God must reap from the abundance of the Earth to support his being in order to live life here to the full and have a complete personality.
Therefore, preparing each member of our Christian Community to maneuver through the challenges of this world and to master his or her environment for economic and personal benefit is as important as preparing them for heaven.
E-MENTORING
At the full blossom of Lakeside Evangel Fellowship, a vital component will be the website to be shared by the worldwide Lakeside Evangel Fellowship Community. In line with our vision, LEF will combine the characteristics of a local church headquartered in Kainji, Niger State, and a web based “virtual church”, with members scattered around the world.
There are several tens of millions of people for whom the internet has become the most effective evangelism outreach and contact with the word of God. Many of such people have come to know God through internet based ministries and there are still many more yet to be reached. We will play our part in reaching the unreached of every race and colour through this unique medium. We will also provide through the World Wide Web, spiritual resources for all members of our Community wherever they may live on the face of the Earth.
The virtual church environment will also provide the platform for e-mentoring – a programme in which we will, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, carefully match mature Christians who have succeeded in life (especially those who have retired from successful careers), to young people who need guidance and mentoring in their Christian living and choice of careers. Great care will be taken in this programme to make it beneficial and fulfilling for the mentor and the mentored and to avoid abuse of the programme by lazy persons with parasitic tendencies.

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY OUTREACH:
The Christian marriage has been the focus of satanic onslaughts right from the Garden of Eden. Apart from the devil’s desire to disrupt Gods plans of multiplying the human race through the marriage institution, the challenge of living for life with someone from another background (and sometimes another culture) may be Herculean and it is incumbent on our Christian Community to develop support systems and safety nets to manage conflicts and other challenges of maintaining these relationships according to Biblical teachings.

And because anybody who is having difficulties in marriage is like living in hell right here on Earth, he or she will not function properly in God’s other assignments, including achieving their destinies.
That is why the Marriage and Family Outreach will organize forums and teachings to help each couple deal with daily challenges in their marriages, while being equipped to identify early warning signs of trouble. The outreach will in particular develop programmes to keep healthy marriages even healthier as well as repair hurting marriages.