Entebbe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The National Fellowship of Born-Again Pentecostal Churches in Uganda (NFBPCU) has commissioned Pastor Godfrey Mulonde as the Entebbe Division overseer to take charge of the fellowship’s affiliate churches in Entebbe, Katabi, and Bussi Island.
Mulonde took an oath, promising to “respect, maintain and defend the constitution, the rights privileges and liberties of the Division” and “defend the Word of God and lead the people with truth and justice, not loading it over to God’s heritage ….”
Mulonde, 58, and pastor of Sacha International Ministries at Kakindu along Bwerenga Road also undertook to “observe the fundamental provisions, laws and regulations as duly enacted from time to time by the Annual General Assembly of the Fellowship.”
The short but carefully choreographed ceremony at Watooto Church grounds in Entebbe was presided over by Bp Dr Africano Magyezi who represented Bp Fr Moses Odongo, the Fellowship’s top minister. He was assisted by Pastor Usher Kalema, national chairman of the overseers’ council. It was attended by Pastors from different affiliate churches country-wide and guests beyond Uganda.
Bp Magyezi announced the qualities of an overseer before calling on the chairperson of the Fellowship’s electoral commission to present the person elected to oversee the polity. The qualities include “faithfulness to wife, temporal, self-control, respect, hospitable, with the capacity to teach and not a drunkard and lover of money among others. He must also be a grounded Christian and not a new convert.”
When Mulonde was presented to the elders and the congregation, he was subjected by Bp Magyezi to several commitments including to “faithfully exercise yourself in the same Holy Scriptures and call upon God by Prayer …. so that you may be able by them to teach and exhort with wholesome doctrine, and to withstand and convince gainsayers.”
He also undertook “with faithful diligence to abandon and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God’s Word …” including those that barred people from marrying.
The elders and bishops then prayed for Mulonde, his wife Daphene, and later their seven children all of who he is to do church ministry. Pastor Kalema anointed him and his wife with oil before the men and women of God prayed for the new leaders.
Mulonde was then given ceremonial garments with which he was robed before being presented to the congregation in a new capacity.
Bp Magyezi said the robes had been gazetted for the Fellowship and warned her leaders to avoid “putting on Church of Uganda robes” because this could invite legal challenges for them.
Mulonde expressed gratitude to God for choosing him to lead his people. He said he had initially shunned Church leadership but was persuaded by Pastor Musoke and Bishop Hudson Suubi Itembe.
Bishop Hudson Itembe Suubi, the central Region Overseer called on Mulonde to always put his faith in God. He said he was himself disowned from the witchcraft family he was born in when he got saved in 1988 but today his father refers to him as his heir. He urged Mulonde to be hardworking and not a beggar.
According to the Fellowship’s constitution, at the top is a Council of Elders, downwards followed by regional, provincial, district, sub-county, and parish level overseers elected from the different churches.
The overseer leads an executive with departments of discipleship and church planning, Music, child ministry, education, resource mobilization, construction, and doctrine among others.
The commissioning of overseers at different levels strengthens the Pentecostal movement, giving it a clear leadership in doctrine, visibility, and influence.
According to the constitution, the leaders hold office for five years. Birthed in the early 1990s, the NFBPCU continually propagates and campaigns for space to elevate the membership’s visibility and recognition to attain privileges accorded mainstream religious denominations – the Catholics, the Anglican Church of Uganda, and the Muslims.
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