Two top bishops of the Living Faith Church, also known as Winners Chapel, are set to retire from the church after decades of membership and service.
Bishop David Abioye, first vice president of the church, and Bishop Thomas Aremu, are leaving one of Nigeria’s mega churches, in the next one week.
While Abioye, who heads the LFC National Headquarters located in Abuja, is 63 years old, Aremu, currently in one of its branches in Ibadan, Oyo State, is 67.
Their retirement is in line with the church’s operational manual known as The Mandate, which set the retirement age at 60, but later amended it to 58.
Section 10.12.5.12 of the 504-page document, which serves as the church’s constitution, says “Retirement from service for pastoral and non-pastoral shall be at the age of 60 years or 35 years of service (whichever is earlier) for all tenured staff of the Church.
“However, in accordance with scriptures, by reason of strength which means continuous relevance, growing impact, unflinching loyalty, exemplary ministry among others, Council may exercise discretion to qualify an applying retiree for tenure elongation provided such recommendations are ratified by the President.”
The Mandate also provides that only the President, Bishop David Oyedepo, will serve for life.
Presiding Bishop
Living Faith Church
Section 8:11 of The Mandate says, “Every Apostolic ministry like ours is a priestly Commission and because priesthood is for lifetime, the presidency in this Commission shall before be for a lifetime.
“The head of an apostolic ministry can be likened to the High Priest after the order of Christ, who is our eternal High Priest. The following examples in scriptures validates this:
“Moses (Number 27:12-20), Joshua (Joshua 24:29); Aaron (Number 33: 38-39, Duet 10:6); Elijah 2 King 2: 1-15), Elisha (2 King 13: 14-21); Paul (2 Tim 4: 6-8, Phil 1:9) and others.
“From the above, Priesthood in scriptures was clearly a lifetime phenomenon……”
Meanwhile, according to the line of events released by the church’s authorities to mark their exit from service, Abioye’s farewell ceremony will hold in the Durumi, Abuja branch of the church on Friday October 18, while Bishop Aremu’s valedictory service will hold at LFC, Basorun, Oyo State, on Tuesday October 15, 2024.
Bishop Abioye hails from Erin Ile in Oyun Local Government Area of Kwara State, North Central Nigeria. He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Ilorin and later lectured for a year at OpenCast Polytechnic, Auchi, Edo State, before going into ministry.
He met Bishop Oyedepo in 1979 two years after God delivered the Liberation Mandate to him (Oyedepo) in May 1981 and before it was officially commissioned in September 1983.
Abioye was one of the pioneering pastors of the ministry. He pastored one of the first five branches established in 1987.
He was consecrated bishop at the age of 32 in 1993 at the Garden of Faith, Barnawa, Kaduna, where LFC headquarters was located.
He is married to Mary Abioye and they have three children.
The national headquarters where he pastors has about 30,000 members.
On his part, Bishop Aremu, an accountant, was among the seven bishops consecrated in 1999 at Garden of Faith in Kaduna. He was 32 at the time. Before his retirement, he was the only one among the seven still in the church.
Remarkably, this is the first time the church will publicly celebrate the retirement of its pastors.