Presiding Bishop of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM), Bishop Mike Okonkwo; his wife, Bishop Peace Okonkwo; Dr. Mensa Otabil of ICGC, Ghana; Bishop Tudor Bismark from Zimbabwe; Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo; Bishop Wale Ajayi; Pastor Flourish Peters from Logic Church, will all be speaking at the 35th Kingdom Life World Conference (KLWC), scheduled to hold from November 23 to 30 in Lagos.
Addressing journalists ahead of the event, the Chairman of the 35th KLWC Planning Committee, Pastor Ugochukwu Ezeagwula, described the event as TREM’s flagship annual convention, which brings together worshippers from over 200 branches worldwide.
“It brings together everybody from all around the world. It’s more like our festive season in the world of TREM. Beyond the internal community, we also welcome people from all across the city and beyond,” he said.
Apart from the speakers lined up for this year’s event, Ezeagwula noted that previous editions have had amazing speakers, whose ministrations have been very impactful. “We call it a life-changing conference. There are lots of testimonies that have come out of the conference,” he added.
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He described the impacts of the conference on different generations, reflecting how he attended the conference in his growing-up days as a youth. He said: “It’s very humbling that today, I take my mind back to my early days when I was in school. For some of us who were in school, as TREMites, we always looked forward to Kingdom Life because it’s our festive season. Every day after school, we would trek down here.
“It’s a conference that has stayed and impacted a lot of generations. TREM in itself is a trans-generational church, so successive generations have been impacted by the conference.”
Apart from the speakers and the flagship nature of the event, Ezeagwula noted that everybody who attends the event would have one thing to take home.
He said the event, over time, has evolved in such a way that other programmes are embedded into it.
One of such programmes is the Big League Summit, which he said tries to raise economically viable godly people. “The Big League Summit is the vision of the convener, Bishop Okonkwo, and as the name implies, we are trying to raise Apostles in the marketplace; people who are going to play in the Big League.
“This is because the more righteous people who are economically self-sustaining, the more the society is impacted. Money in the hands of a godly man will do much more good than money in the hands of ungodly people.
“It’s important that we raise this new breed of leaders in the marketplace. That’s where the idea of the Big League Summit came about. For some years now, it’s been a major feature of the KLWC,” he stated.
He also talked about an international music concert called the Zamar Concert as part of the event.” Over the years, the Zamar Concert has been a major feature of the Kingdom Life World Conference. It brings together an atmosphere of worship; an atmosphere of praise. We have leading artistes who have graced the stage of the Zamar Concert, like Pastor Nathaniel Bassey, Min. Dunsin Oyekan, Tim Godfrey, and Mercy Chinwo, among others
He also did not forget the business aspect of the programme that would attract close to 20,000 persons. He said, “For the business leg of it, we have the Gbagada Shopping Festival. When you have close to 20,000 people coming together, whether it’s for worship or anything, it’s also an avenue for commerce. There’s going to be an exchange of value beyond the worship, beyond the word. People are going to eat. Somebody would want to buy consumables.
“We are creating an ecosystem where value stays, and there is an exchange of value. It ties back to the marketplace mindset. We’ve always had a commercial center every year during the conference, but this year, we decided to scale it up and have something that will impact more around the community and that is the Gbagada Shopping Festival. The idea of the Gbagada Shopping Festival is to create a platform where people can buy and sell.”
Pastor Ezeagwula promised that the conference would be a life-enriching and life-transforming conference, assuring all that would attend God would visit all of them in an uncommon way.
Themed, ‘Uncommon,’ Ezeagwula said the background of the theme is drawn from the fact that it only takes an uncommon person to achieve uncommon things, just as it takes an uncommon atmosphere for uncommon miracles to happen.
“There’s a scriptural reference, a scriptural basis to it. 1 Peter 2:9 says, “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar nation.” It’s reinforcing the fact that you are not like every other person. You have a seal. You have an anointing. You have the grace upon your life. You will do uncommon things,” he quoted.
Speaking on some of the events lined up for the conference, he said: “On Friday is the graduation of our Bible school. The church has a Bible school. On Wednesday morning, during the Big League Summit, we graduate our skills participants. We have a skills initiative that holds during the summer, where we train people in different skills.
“Last year, we introduced digital skills in collaboration with MTN Foundation. We’ve trained thousands in digital skills and vocational skills like hair making, shoe making, and fashion design.
“We’ve trained over 10,000 people over the years. This year, about 1,000 will graduate on Wednesday during the Big League Summit, which is geared towards entrepreneurship.”
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