interview with the youth president

‘We will use the Education unit as a platform for attracting funds for scholarships as a way of rewarding hard work and excellence.’ - Nkwocha

In order to encourage the youths of this church to get educated, the youth ministries has just rejuvenated the education unit. In this chat with our correspondents Nnamdi Bonny and Emeka Anyaogu, The Youth President said among other things that youth ministries intend to use the unit as a platform for attracting funds for scholarships as a way of rewarding hard work and excellence. Enjoy!

Praisefocus: One and a half years as youth leader; how has the experience been?
Youth President: It has been filled with challenges especially following the fact that I inherited a Youth ministry that had long been comatose. Youths had begun to show apathy as they did not see how any value was being added to their lives. The main challenge has been that of getting people to once again come back to our meetings.
Secondly we have identified poverty as the major problem among young people. Young people have many problems ranging from immorality, insubordination, gossip, etc. However, within our setting, poverty seems to be topping the chart.
Thus we have decided to face this headlong.

Praisefocus: how have you tried to solve the problem of low attendance in the youth ministry?
Youth president: when we came in we met the problem of low attendance in our meetings, and we tried to solve the problem by looking at content. We observed that people have not been coming because they are not really gaining anything as it were. We first of all distributed forms for people to fill their names and phone numbers to enable us build our data base and see how we can be able to reach out via text message, you will agree with me that we have been sending text messages though some people still don’t receive text message. But basically what we have done is try to create content that we feel is lacking. Nevertheless creating a very good content required a lot of money. If we want to have a very tight program every Thursday, it required a lot of fund. Our problem has been how to generate these funds.

Praisefocus: Every good leader has clear vision of what he intends to achieve; as the youth president, what is that vision you have for the pinnacle youths
Youth Presidents: My vision is clear and I have stated it in various ways and at various times. I desire to see a youth ministries department where young people have become financially independent following kingdom principles. Poverty is one curse that must be broken from our youths. And poverty has only one cure - Information. When people are rightly informed and this information is given to them consistently over a long period of time, the principle of auto suggestion comes into play and begins to drive them to produce results in line with what they have been hearing.

We believe that if the problem of finance is solved, people will relate better and weddings will be the outcome. When a young man is poor, he is timid. Many young people that appear humble are not necessarily humble; poverty has simply made them like that. A young man naturally feels intimidated by a beautiful and well-dressed lady if his bank account is red.

Praisefocus: How have you been able to impact this vision to the youth in the last one and a half years and what have been the results so far?
Youth President: You know that sometimes people who have problems need to be told several times that they have a problem before you can even attempt solving the problem. If someone does not understand that you are trying to help him, he might even resist you and consider your offer of help an intrusion.

So we have tried to point out to everyone that our problem as a movement is poverty; that a church as numerically vast as AG with about less than 5% financially-free and buoyant people is an anomaly. We have first shown that the great commission which Assemblies of God as a movement is passionate about will suffer serious setbacks (and it is already happening) if we do not create a middle class.

Even in advanced nations, the strength of their economies is the middle class. Every economy is driven and advanced by the small and medium scale enterprises. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, etc are not the reason America is wealthy. America is wealthy because of the millions of small and medium scale businesses owned by American natives and immigrants. All these businesses service these large corporations in one way or another and by so doing they have created enormous wealth for the owners and employees.

This is what we seek to achieve - to create that middle class for Assemblies of God starting from 111 Clegg Street. We have thus brought several teachings to our people using various resource persons. And we still plan to do more.

Praisefocus: You just established a new unit in the youth ministries, the education unit; what do you intend to achieve with this unit?
Youth President: Firstly, the Education unit has always been there. We have only rejuvenated it.

We believe in the power of education. The key to the prosperity of any nation is the education of her citizens. To show how important education is, the United Nations has stipulated that every nation must set aside 26% of her national budget to education. They are convinced that this is the minimum amount required to produce a literate and innovative citizenry.

Thus we seek to encourage our people to get educated. We will use the Education unit also as a platform for attracting funds for scholarships as a way of rewarding hard work and excellence.


Praisefocus: The theme of this year’s youth week is "becoming a change agent”; is this important call only for the youth week or is it in line with your vision for the youth?
Youth President: I am particularly excited about this year's Youth week theme because it serves to buttress all we have been saying all these months. If there is anything we need in our movement, AG, it is change. If there is anything this country needs, it is change. We need to change our ideas of what church is all about. The duty of the church is not just to get people saved and then leave them to wallow in abject poverty and at the mercy of the elements of creation.

The essence of the church is to return man to the place he lost in the Garden of Eden. God intended the man should dominate the earth. Man is supposed to reign here above diseases, poverty, etc.
Being Change Agents is what the gospel is about. It is about changing this world until it conforms to the kind of earth God has always had in mind for man. We must restore order to this earth.
Praisefocus: The teens church has just been created out of the youth ministries and you where enlisted among the workers, how will you manage both responsibilities and how will this development affect the youth church?

Youth President: The truth is that it is going to be quite challenging. However I have always had a natural love for the teenagers. I simply love them. Do not forget, I teach in the Teens’ Sunday school so I do not have any adaptation problem. The challenge will be in dealing with the personal issues of both the teenagers and the youths who demand and deserve my attention. However dealing with the teenagers in this new capacity is quite an excitin
g thing for me. It gives me the opportunity to make an indelible imprint in their lives. I and my team mates will definitely need God to help us do a good job.

I do not think it will affect the youth church negatively. What this means is that we can now trust the caliber of persons who will be fed into the Youth Ministry in the years to come. They will be people who have been thoroughly prepared to serve God at a higher level. I also implore the youths to see ways of mentoring these teenagers as they are in dire need of mentorship and guidance.

Praisefocus: lastly, how will you evaluate your leadership in the last one and half years?
Youth President: we have not done so well. One of our goals was to improve the number of our attendance to 500 but we have only about 200 people who attend out Thursday meetings. And financially we are looking at a youth ministry that will have people who are doing well for themselves financially and will at the same time enrich the purse of the youth ministry, though we know that it is not something that can be achieved overnight, we believe God in the next couple of years it going to manifest.PF