Some of the students
Jesus Desciples Bible College(aka Kingdom College), a non-denominational theological institution, is introducing a new mentality to gospel preaching among young and prospective pastors in Nigeria. Situated in Ozu Abam community in Arochukwu local government area of Abia State, the college was established to make preachers more self-reliant to be able to preach the gospel in truth the way the ancient apostles did without any economic or financial influence.
In view of this and also, moved by the plight of the many poor pastors who depended mostly on donations and offerings from church members for survival, with some of them devising dangerous manipulations to dupe non-suspecting worshipers for survival, the founder of the college, Pastor Emmanuel Ukoha, took the initiative to establish the college with a unique approach to training pastors. In the Kingdom College, they not only study theology but also learn practical and technical skills like farming, building and fabrication to become more self-reliant before graduating from the college.
One of the hostels constructed by students builders
A visit to Ozu Abam town where the college is located, shows a multiplicity of activities being embarked on by the students of the college. These activities vary from cultivation of all farm products to rearing of all kinds of domestic animals such as cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, poultry, among others in commercial quantities.
It is no surprise why palm oil, yam, garri, rice, beans, groundnuts, among other crops are sold quite cheap in the school’s shopping mall where the products are displayed for shopping.
In the building section, students are meant to acquire such skills as surveying, architecture, building technology, mason, block moulding, and such other skills as fabrication of various machines, painting and production of paints. There are also mechanic.
With such knowledge, all gigantic buildings in the college, including three four-storey building hostels, a seven-floor hotel and other magnificent edifices that grace the community were designed and constructed by the students without buying any materials except cement, rods, wire cables and roofing sheets.
Also, internal roads to both the main campus of the college and its large farms were equally constructed and asphalted by the students.
Apart from farming and animal husbandry, each student is expected to be so proficient in a number of skills before graduation and being deployed to place of work.
Founder of the college, Pastor Emmanuel Ukoha, who spoke with newsmen at the school, said the approach was meant to help preachers develop a well-rounded skill set that enables them to serve their communities in a more holistic way.
“It also helps them understand the value of hard work, self-sufficiency, and stewardship, which are important principles in both religious and secular contexts”, he said.
The project
Ukoha disclosed that the project started in the year 2000 with the name: Kingdom Age Ministry.
“Since then, our vision has been to preach the gospel the way the apostles did. The apostles preached the gospel with skills. They were fishermen. From what they got from fishing, they put into teaching and preached the gospel in truth. That is our number vision- to build a formidable gospel ministry, where every individual, particularly, the minister, are going to be self-made with skills acquisitions, then you preach the gospel.
“That was the reason why we started the gospel, then, we preached and after 12 years, we were able to invite people to enable us start. We launched it in Aba in 2012 and all the ministers, even though it’s gospel, you have one thing in mind- you must be technically sound with skills acquisitions.
“So, what happened is that we now entered into many aspects of skills from building to other technical activities people do everyday, including painting and construction. We also entered into what we call the gospel agronomy. We believe if you can’t be a good farmer, you can’t be a good pastor. We then go in to help to give us an industrial shape that can help anyone survive anywhere he goes, doing it like the apostles did.
“We believe that the Gospel has been preached, the power demonstrated and miracles seen. But there has never been an education system.
“Although, churches have their own Bible schools, but what their Bible schools teach is their own doctrines.
“So, for over the years, we built up to where we are, empowering youths with skills in agronomy, technology and buildings. It is meant for you to do it your own self. We call it the empowerment of the youths to sustain you in your calling.
“The ministry is that you can’t come in here if you don’t have the calling. Even if you come. Meanwhile, it’s open to the public. But you must be born again before you are eventually taken to continue your learning. So, everything we’re doing here is gospel based.
Palm oil mill
“We have moved far in training youths. One other thing is that after training the youths, we don’t send them to the world. But we bring you in as employee. We give you form, if you want to be employed in the ministry, fine. Then, we send you out for gospel evangelism.
“So, we have outlets everywhere in the country where we preach the gospel, but not church programme. We only maintain fellowship.
“So, what we’re doing is to take the youths, who would have been involved in many vices on the streets and convert them to have fear of God by bringing them to Christ so that they can be more useful to themselves and the society in general.
“Our culture here is that people don’t go and start seeking for employment. You employ yourself. What people are looking for in this world is service. The big man that owns everything still needs someone that will construct his furniture. The big man cannot do the furniture for himself. This is how the revelation of the course started.
“And when it started, thousands of youths saw it and joined. So, it has helped to remove the youths from the streets.
“The school is somehow new because of the angle we are flowing from. It’s academic in nature and spiritual on the other hand. Because of that, we have gospel agronomy in terms of farming and cultivation for you to make food and the eat and have life. Then, the gospel is also for you to have life. That’s why we marry them together to achieve our vision.
“So, for us here, for anyone to be able to do this work in truth, you have to know the art of farming. Right now, we can produce food of any kind in this college be it rice, beans, garri, akpu, yam, palm oil and vegetables of all sorts and quantity to feed ourselves and even sell to outsiders”.
Need for government to adopt similar approach
We entered into farming not because we want to be farmers. It’s part of our course so that the youths can be equipped.
If the government will reinvest in these youths, you will see that you are not wasting your money. If it is done sincerely with this kind of programme, you will find out that most of the problems in this country will be gone for good.
But, the government is always spending hundreds of billions in making sure that the youths are empowered. For me, it’s like planting crops without clearing the grass. It can’t germinate. The characters are like the grass that has not been cleared. It will choke up any money invested.
But, when a child is taught or like grass, is cleared to have fear of God, plant anything in it, it will germinate and bear good fruits.
That’s the vision. So, the vision now is to use the gospel to command the child to have the fear of God, then give him anything, he will make it. That’s why several people bought the wisdom.
What we’re doing is like an advanced born again. But, we remove a lot of burdens from the government. This crowd we have here, if you send them out without giving them any skill, they will become a burden to the government and the society.
But now, they’re all employed people because they have skills
The kind of education we have here in Nigeria cannot realise the nation’s industrial quest. The education we have here in the country is a borrowed one, mostly theoretical. It has expired. Our graduates have certificates, looking for jobs.
But, inside the Jesus Desciples Bible College, we brought it down to become a substance. it is only about practical form of education. By substance, it means tilling the land and getting revelations that gold is here in Nigeria, not in heaven. Everything we’re looking for is here. It is only mankind that will discover it. But he must be prepared to suffer to get what he wants.
So, that’s how the school system runs.
So, for over the years, we have used it to train engineers and people that are living on their own. There’s no kind of building we can’t raise for you if you want. Even tiling of houses and tarring of roads, we do it as part of our courses here.
In this my office here, this POP ceiling that you are seeing, it’s just cartons that we used to design it and make it as beautiful as it is. So, it’s something that we can replicate anywhere.
For us here, we’re using what we have to get what we want. That’s how we started our school bus.
We don’t train you to go and open church. No. We train you to maintain gospel evangelism, using your skills to feed yourself. That’s why you must evangelise to the people through service.
That’s been out vision and it has helped us so much to this level to maintain the youths.
Through this programme, we have helped the government to maintain peace.
We have invested everything we have in this village. We try to pursue peace with all men.
That doesn’t mean you won’t have some people who will still call you bad names because they do not understand what you are doing.
Period of training before graduation
Basically, it’s three years that students have to stay before graduating. We have one year intensive class. We have another one year of practical course and another year of the final defense of the courses you have studied here. The process of going for industrial training is to exposed the areas where you are still lacking and they will write us so we will be able to correct it and make you a complete man.
So for, we have had five sets of graduates since 2012. We’re already embarking on the sixth graduation. But the candidates are on Industrial Training.
We have been graduating men and among them so far, we employed 1825 graduates to be working in the ministry across the country.
It is equally from the IT that we weed out those who are not really called. They leave from there because the work is hard. But those who are called return back and remain.
We also have our mechanism with which we weed out people from the school. When they come in thousands, we introduced various tests. Once you complain and murmur, you are out so that we reduce the number to manageable lot.
Admission process
The process starts from you applying to come. You have to agree to our ways and sign an undertaking to be of good conduct.
You have to be at least 25 years of age before being admitted here. Anybody below the age of 25 is not qualified. What that means is that at 25, you ought to have settled with your parents to show you know what you are doing as a full grown adult.
Even at that, you have to bring an attestation letter from your parents, indicating that they’re in support of your coming here. We also call your parents to confirm that the information you gave us about yourself and about them is correct.
Anyone above 50 can be accepted but we ask you to be in your home and attend the one closest to you in your city.
Our certificate is the Ministerial Gift of the Gospel, showing you are fully qualified to now go and preach.
If you graduate and want to be retained here as a worker, you apply to us, we reabsorb you. Through that means, we have 1825 people working with us here and they’re fully paid.
We also refer them to employees who need their services. We have such people who come around to look for those to employ. We do this to ensure that they don’t go to the world to look for employment
It’s good to note that before you graduate from your department, you must make desciples to teach another person to enable you qualify. That is the way the knowledge is passed on.
But, you are free to leave anytime you don’t want to continue again. This is especially if we have given you the responsibility to be in a particular place or city and you decide to leave. No problem because you are not in bondage. The only thing is that you should not leave with our property.
Even if you want to go and start your own, you are free.
Combining gospel with skills
We believe that for you to be interested in the gospel and maintain all that it teaches, you have to have an alternative course to gospel. People are born again, which should be by faith but the work of faith they are not doing it.
In the early Christian days, the work of faith was the suffering of the soul in maintenance of righteousness to preach the gospel. In the course if preaching the gospel, people would hate and persecute you. That is called suffering of fate.
If you endure, you shall be saved. From there the heart of many will be exposed. Some would now go back while others would continue. But those days have gone. In the present day church, nobody talks about it. I also know that.
There was also when the church was thick and what was reigning them was crusade and revival. All those ones have equally gone too. Everybody now is in the church not with worthiness. This makes the church looks like nobody.
In our system, we now introduced gospel agronomy. If you want to do the gospel, you must be converted to this new way of the gospel by having something doing.
The agronomy is an alternative course. If you were born weak, but you can talk, once you enter here, we send you to the farm. By the time you finish tilling the land, you have to change your weakness by force and begin to help yourself. We want you on your own to start defending the gospel you are calling.
Challenges
Our major challenge here is accommodation. We are building our hostels according to the pace of the income we generate. Any money we get every term, we invest it into buying iron rods.
Also, whatever thing we get from our farms, we reinvest it into the buildings so that we can get accommodation. That’s the major challenge we have.
Other infrastructures like roads, we have been able to also construct and asphalt them ourselves. We also maintain the roads to be in a manageable state. We buy the bitumen and everything there is to be bought and try to do the roads ourselves. And that has enabled us to cut costs.
Another challenge is that if unbelievers. In everything you do, you must have enemies. They do not have the understanding of what we’re doing and that leads to them saying anything they like without verification. They will be laughing with you but their heart is evil against you. But we don’t mind them. We continue moving forward.
People want you to come and explain everything about our success here before they could believe. But, we don’t have time to talk because we’re always ready. Why we agreed to speak to you journalists is because we believe we have been able to achieve something. But, we’re still digging.
Open to everybody
Yes, the college is open to everybody. I remember sometime ago, during the time of YouWin programme of the federal government, we were able to attract N6.8 million which we used to buy a machine for fabrication. We made it open for the villagers to come and learn. And many of them participated and today they’re using the knowledge and skill to help themselves.
Also, even painting and tiling, the villagers are learning them. They’re free to come and learn. So, anybody anywhere that wants to learn any skill here is allowed.
But the reason we said you must be born again, is that that will put you in good shape to learn. You have to be disciplined to be able to cope here. We don’t entertain murmuring here. For instance, we have not eaten anything food today and it doesn’t concern us. But when you murmur and complain, you leave. That’s the only thing chasing many people away. But, it’s open to everybody.
We have been helpful. If government will be able to recognize us and give us people to train, we will train them.
Overall target
I want a society where every youth is free to operate because of availability of resources to each of of them. I can bring what I have and you bring what you have and we make a change even with or without money.
We want to start with the youths. When the youths in Christ is free from financial problems, he can take care of himself and is satisfied with what he has. As a mustard seed, he grows to become whatever he wants to be in the world. But, you will be in Christ. That’s what the Lord told me that whatever thing I want to be in the world, I would be in him plus life. That’s why I stopped making moves to travel abroad.
Now everybody is suffering. Without dollar we cannot exist. What is dollar for?
Through agriculture, the palm oil made the old Eastern Region stand out as they made huge fortune out of it.
In fact, Nigeria became number one in the whole world for palm oil, groundnuts and Cocoa. Those were never from heaven but from revelation and vision. It was men who brought the vision. They passed on without transferring that vision. This is why we in the Jesus Desciples Bible College do everything to transfer vision to younger generations.
This is what the white people are doing to the effect that such corporations as Toyota, Quartz and others owned by individual families are still existing and doing great because of transferred vision. But, there has never been any programme, project or business started by a Nigerian or African that has lasted beyond the first generation of owners. When the vision bearers go, the business goes.
You become a president today, your children are not employed. The day you leave office, your children remain unemployed. It’s wrong.
We in the Jesus Desciples Bible College want to change that situation and introduce something good, which is that you will be self-made and stand on your own not because of your father so that you can defend yourself anytime any day.
Advice to government on the rising poverty, unemployment and poor economy
For me, Nigeria remains an industrial nation. Like I said, government has been trying in their own way. They have good visions and plans. But they do not do things the right way. They are only theorising about governance.
For instance, go to the University of Agriculture, Umudike in Abia State here, you can’t find rice or garri. All they do is theory.
Why don’t you as a lecturer or teacher and students have their own farms?
If the government wants the country to be what it should be, let them make farming more imperative and attractive. Government should incorporate farming into the nation’s school system from the cradle to the university level. What is in our school system is computer and other Western education courses.
Nigeria’s gold is in the land. Everything we need to grow is in the land. With that, we have something to exchange in the international market. If we can go back and produce garri in quantity to feed our own population, it can still attract foreign exchange.
A situation where presidents go to farming after retirement, doesn’t make so much sense. He should have introduced the farming while in office and encouraged the population to go into it.
Relationship with host community
So far so good. We’ve had a cordial relationship with the community. Economically, we have positively influenced the development of this community that most people here have now have gone fully into farming and making money out of it.
We introduced the sale of timber here and almost everybody in this village is now selling timber and they’re making huge income from it.
When we introduced this farming system, it is because we came into this village that value of land now appreciated so much.
Also, once in awhile, we offer the youths of the community the opportunity to join us in training
