Senior Pastor and founder of House on the Rock Church, Pastor Paul Adefarasin, handing a gift to one of the lucky recipients of the Annual Project Spread event
In order to make this year’s Christmas celebration an indelible one, House on the Rock Church last
The most celebrated festival of the world –Christmas, which is marked December 25 of every year across the world, is around the corner again. The annual festival is simply to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. And the spirit of Christmas is something one can almost feel or touch.
Apart from the celebration, Christmas season comes with a lot of goodies as gifts. It’s also gives people the opportunity to cherish peace and goodwill.
Following the tough economic condition presently, Nigeria is slated as one of the countries that would witness a dry Christmas. Though the main Christmas festivity is just few days away, the usual pomp and pageantry, human traffic and boost in sales, which often characterized such periods, cannot be felt in the atmosphere.
Traders have been complaining about poor sales and the annoying rate of foreign currency. And to make it worst, the petrol is scarce and some fuel stations have stopped selling at the government approved pump price of N87. In Lagos, a litre of fuel sells for N120 while in the South-east part of the country a litre of fuel sells for N200.
But there is ray hope for some families. The residents of Badore, Isolo, Mushin and Elegushi have started feeling the yuletide season after receiving weighty Christmas gifts items from Senior Pastor and founder of House on the Rock Church, Pastor Paul Adefarasin, at the Annual Project Spread event of the church that took place last Saturday.
The programme, which was established by the church to improve the quality of life of vulnerable young men and women, under privileged children, the physically challenged and widows in some selected communities, saw the recipients radiating with joy and happiness as they went home with many gift items such as bags of rice, vegetable oil, frozen chickens and many other items.
House On The Rock is a vibrant, multi-ethnic church, with over 7,000 worshippers and several daughter churches spread over Africa and Europe.
Adefarasin, apart from his clear message of hope, healing and empowerment, is known for several community initiatives. He is one of the most respected and sought-after ministers in Nigeria. His weekly television programme “Something Is About To Happen” is broadcast into millions of homes across Africa and Europe.
Speaking on the motivation for establishing the Annual Project Spread event, the organisers said: “Christmas is a special time, we celebrate the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ. It is also a time for sharing gifts because the coming of Jesus Christ into the world is the ultimate gift, which humanity received.
“It is only appropriate for us to extend gifts and indeed our love to those around us especially those who cannot afford to celebrate as elaborately as we can. This is why we are undertaking this initiative at a time like this.”
According to Adefarasin, who holds a professional Bachelors degree in Architecture from the University of Miami, the reason for embarking on the faith-based social responsibility is to contribute their quota to the development of the society. “Religious organisations, churches and mosques have to rise up to this wake-up call and do projects that would be useful for the society.
“We started this benevolent act two years ago as part of our faith-based social responsibility. We do it every year and we trust to continue to do it every year in different ways. This is only a small part of what we do in our faith-based organisation. Also, part of our aim is to equip 100 public secondary schools with the state of the art facilities.
“We have already equipped 50 Lagos State public schools with computer laboratories, air conditioners, generators and Microsoft programmes to empower the students and we intend to provide the facilities to the remaining 50 schools by the end of 2015, Adefarasin noted."
Adefarasin, who is widely regarded as a visionary leader and bridge-builder said: “Our objective is to empower the populace with education. By educating them, we are enlightening and empowering them to challenge the status quo. Those who have privilege must be careful to ensure that they extend privilege to others, not just by feeding but by empowerment especially through education.
“We believe that God, who is representing Himself in Christ Jesus, is a giving spirit and we must give what He has given us. As you are blessed, you must be a blessing to others. We must continue to do that so that we can build a stronger bond and a stronger Nigeria.
“Our mission is to position the unexpected and the unlikely for the prolific move of God in the 21st Century and beyond. We are committed to ministering to your destiny; to assist you through the word and covenant relationships to become all that God has called you to become and to do all that He has called you to do,” Adefarasin said.
Adefarasin’s ability to transcend race, tribe and creed with his unique approach to ministry has seen to the forging of many strategic relationships between the church and secular communities in Africa. He has a burning passion to see the rehabilitation of his generation, his nation and his continent.
There are 13 core values that drive House on the Rock ethics. First is prayer; second is worship; third is the Word (the Bible) while others are networking, excellence, user-friendliness, leadership, innovation, empowerment, social responsibility, embracing diversity and training.
The Rock Catheral, according to Adefarasin, “prides itself as being a centre for social justice. How does this description tie into what it does? This facility (the Rock Cathedral) is built on about 40,000 square feet, and the auditorium is less than 50 per cent of the project. In the building, we have capacity for 250 executive personnel; we have a 4-bed in-patient hospital, with capacity for diagnostics and consultancy.”
The hospital, he said, would become the hub for 46 mobile clinics by the time the vision is fully implemented and that’s one for each local government area of Lagos State for primary health care delivery.
“We have collaborated with Lagos State Government hospitals and other private hospitals for medical cases beyond our capacity. Every single doctor or paramedic or nurse or pharmacist in the church is potentially a part of our medical unit.
“There are 25 teaching spaces in the building to partly cater for five school systems we are developing a primary school, a secondary school, a Bible school, an institute of leadership and governance and an artisan school. This gives us the opportunity, amongst many others, to provide education to children with special needs.
“Artisans are a very important part of any economy. In the days I grew up, we had electricians; today, you have ‘rewires’. The artisan school will help us provide various technological opportunities to people who want to develop their talents in that area.
Adefarasin further said: “We are quite involved with Lagos State schools, and have provided upwards of 540 computers for about 16,000 students through our Lagos State Computer Lab Project. Several schools have benefited from this. The schools provide us with an empty classroom that we refurbish, provide with air conditioning, resurface the inside (floors and walls) and equip with computer systems.
“Our goal is to provide a minimum of 100 schools in Lagos State with this same facility. It is also the first deployment of the windows multi-point server in all of West Africa. In addition, we have an urban alternative service, which caters to over 700 area boys, drug addicts, prostitutes and ex-convicts whom we feed, provide with primary health care and expose to skill acquisition programmes, so they can go back into society, empowered to make a contribution.
“We even send some to university. We also run a very vibrant prison ministry, where, in the prisons, we feed, counsel, provide health care and train the inmates in different skills, so that when they are out of prison, they become viable partners in the local workforce. Of course, we pass them through our church system and integrate them back into society as people who enjoy the endorsement and the accreditation of the church leadership.”
This he said probably gives them a second opportunity of life. “You find a number of them who have languished in prisons are often not convicted. Others are unjustly incarcerated or often serve many more years than the proper length of their sentence, mainly because of a lack of legal aid and representation.
“So, one of the other things we do is provide free legal aid for hundreds of inmates in the Lagos area prisons. And this cut across the spectrum of House on the Rock churches across the country. That to us is a significant joy – that House on the Rock is able to positively affect communities.”
House on the Rock Church has been operating the Annual Project Spread programme for years. It aims to support, engage and empower socially and economically under privileged individuals and communities by improving their living environment.
House on the Rock is described by its members, as an agency for transforming the world by training and influencing the value system and culture of people using the principles taught in God’s Word. It is a national transformation centre, where we groom and train people to be part of the transformation process in our nation.
Some of the lucky recipients, who benefited from the benevolent act, commended the efforts of the church to make them happy and ensure that they enjoy the yuletide period peacefully with their family members.
If other churches can imbibe in this type of act, no doubt, the world would be a worthy place to live.
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