PASTOR Ituah Ighodalo, a chartered accountant, and an accomplished writer was born in Ibadan on April 6, 1961. He attended the King’s College, Lagos and the International School, University of Ibadan. He obtained a combined honours degree in Economics and Accounting in 1982 from the University of Hull, England.
He is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and of the Chartered Institute of Taxation. He is also a member of the Nigerian Institute of Management. He is the Editor-in-Chief of TIMELESS Newspaper, THE CHRISTIAN NEWS and TIMELESS BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY.
He also sits on the board of several charitable foundations and NGOs including the Courage Education Foundation, Eden’s Fields and Herotage Homes as well as a partner at SIAO (a firm of Chartered Accountants and Management Consultants).
He gave his life to Christ in 1993 and was ordained pastor in 1995. He has worked as associate pastor of Freedom Hall, (later renamed Hope Hall) as well as the City of David Parishes of RCCG and has been involved in international missions, helping to pioneer several Redeemed Christian Church of God parishes abroad. Seven years ago he left the RCCG in controversial circumstances to establish Trinity House, an interdenominational church with headquarters in Victoria Island, Lagos. He is married to former Miss Lux, Ibidun Ighodalo nee Ajayi. To mark the seventh anniversary of Trinity House, SAM EYOBOKA & OLAYINKA LATONA got the debonair pastor to speak on the challenges of the ministry and the state of the nation.
Excerpts…… PASTOR Ituah Ighodalo From RCCG Christ Church to Trinity House. How has the experience been seven years after? Even the rose has thorns.
The journey has been quite challenging in that everywhere you go, there is something or the other that you need to overcome but the good thing about working for God is that if God is with you, first of all, devil will attack you but God will make a way for you to overcome that demon. The journey has its ups and down but I thank God that at every area of serious, sincere legitimate need, God has been so faithful and we are grateful to Him. The first year after I left Christ Church, was a year at sea in that I did not know what to do with myself: I belonged to no parish but it was also a good opportunity for me to visit as many churches as I could. Every Sunday I would find myself in a different church.
The only challenge with that, of course, is that no sooner that I entered the church that somebody there recognized me and that prevented me from enjoying my service. After a while I was so particular with what I did and where I went and I began to pray to God to know what next: should I forget ministry and concentrate on my business and profession or just I do a few itinerant thing here and there.
For a season I did not hear anything from God and I interpreted that to mean God wanted me to have a season of rest. So I rested, in between I was slightly ill and did my medicals. Thank God that everything was okay. One bright day I just heard the voice ‘Trinity House’ and I began to ask God how will I go about this Trinity House because I did not have the resource to go into ministry.
I kept praying and God in a mysterious way just provided the resources. Initially I asked a few people for support but I did not get positive response from them, only one lady responded and it was just only a token but God made a way Himself and He provided all the resources that we needed to kick start and run for a month or two and favour started coming from every quarter.
I will never forget Jim Ovia who allowed us to use his venue free for two meetings and a few people brought equipment and my old people showed up and I knew indeed God was in this matter. It has been very refreshing and very joyful to work with God. We worked with God in RCCG but now you deal with God directly. You have to take full responsibility for everything that you do and it also requires of your extra care. All the people that surround you are your direct responsibility, you have to look over them, their life and affairs.
It is a very delicate work! Spiritual work is not something that you play with; it involves a lot of prayer, fasting, patience, listening to different kinds of people, some with agenda and some without. I now understand why Solomon prayed for wisdom. Everyday I pray for wisdom because I need wisdom to deal with all the kinds of things that come across me and God has been consistent in giving us wisdom.
Source:vanguard
