How we escaped bullet shots in the course of our crusades – Ayorinde
Prophet Dr. Samson Ayorinde, General Overseer, World Evangelism Bible Church (WEBIC) is one preacher who has laid down his life for the cause of the gospel. The host of Anointing Night and Fire Crusade that attracts millions of participants reflects on the vision, the mandate and the impact of WEBIC in this interview with Christian Benefits. He shares how he and his crusade team escaped armed robbery attacks and several road accidents in the course of their crusade nationwide, and also how the clampdown on miracle broadcast on television stations few years ago by the Nigerian government caused a significant shift in his ministry. Excerpts.
WEBIC is a huge success globally today. Please, share with us how the success story began.
It all started in Zaria, Kaduna state in 1993 while I was waiting on the Lord on 40 days fasting and prayer and the Lord spoke to me to move the base of the ministry to Lagos. He gave us the name of the ministry and the picture of where to start. In 1994 we started the field work of the ministry. In 1995 we began the church with its official commissioning. Since then God has been faithful to us till now.
When you started about 30 years ago did you envisage the high level of growth that the church has attained globally today?
Yes! I told prophetess we would be traveling round the world preaching the gospel. I saw the vision of us holding crusade in stadium from as far back as 1986. I used to see myself in the stadium preaching to a huge crowd of people in crusade programmes.
Please, share with us some of the early challenges of the church, and how you survived those challenges to keep the church going successfully till now.
One early challenge was when some of the men that started with us suddenly left us. We also had challenges in the area of finance and how to combine the crusade work with the church work. In the course of our crusade many times we had been attacked by armed robbers. We have had several road accidents. For instance, on our way from Idiroko crusade through Atan, Ado-Odo-Otta to Sango-Ota we were shots by armed robbers. Our convoy was bullet-ridden with 16 gun shots by armed robbers. But God is faithful. We escaped the gun attacks. None of us was injured.
Share with us your services before WEBIC started about 30 years ago.
Before WEBIC started I served with Jesus Alive Evangelical Mission (JAEM) in Zaria, Kaduna state. I started some centres for the mission in Kaduna and Jos. Of course we went round holding crusades in Kaffancha and Koi among other places in Southern Kaduna where people are being killed today. I worked in those places. Then those places were not as violent as they are today. Most times I worked in the forests. When I resigned from JAEM, I worked as a freelance evangelist for two years until the Lord told me to move to Lagos. So, I left Zaria in 1993 and started WEBIC in 1995. As an evangelist in JAEM I was often transferred from one place to another. I planted many fellowship centres for JAEM. Fellowship is different from church. The only church I pioneered was burned during the Maitasene protest. The one in Kaduna was also burned. In those days when the Islamic fundamentalists struck they burned churches everywhere. About three JAEM churches were burned twice by the fundamentalists and we had to start all over again until I left the ministry.
What is the exact mandate of your commission by the Lord into the ministry?
The exact mandate of my commission by the Lord is world evangelization via crusade and the mass media of radio and television stations as well as the social media. We extensively use the mass media of radio and television to achieve this mandate. We organize our crusade in conjunction with the local chapters of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) of our host communities. We don’t use our crusade as an opportunity to start church. As a policy we don’t plant church in the places we organize crusade. We didn’t hold crusade in those places we have planted churches. If we plant churches in the areas we organize crusade it will affect the local churches in those areas. Therefore, we release and distribute the converts in our crusade to local churches in those areas instead of planting churches there.
What are the gifts God endowed you to achieve the above mandate?
Basically, they are gifts of evangelism, miracles, deliverance and healing, and the gift of word of knowledge and discerning of spirit. The prophetic is part of it too.
Tell us the vision, the mandate and the impact of your Anointing Night service
The sole purpose of that programme is soul winning for God to confirm his word through miracles that people can think and accept Christ. Again, it is to populate churches by circulating the souls we harvest in our crusades to the local churches of our host communities. We then return to the base to continue the church work. When the season for the Anointing Night service came, we hosted it at LTV, MITV and at the national stadium, Lagos. It was when we moved the programme to the national stadium that the Fire Crusade started. Subsequently, we started taking the Fire Crusade from place to place and state to state. And talking about the impact of the Fire Crusade, the harvest was ripe and the season was indeed good.
It appears the Anointing Night programme has been suspended, and why sir?
Originally Anointing Night is not an outside programme. For the Fire Crusade this is not the season for crusade. Taking the programme back to the church there are a lot of logistic problems like transportation, the nature of Lagos and the work more demanding on the church. At a stage we were doing crusade connected with the church. We were using crusade to start church programmes. It is very challenging using crusade crowd to start a church because not many of the crowd attended the programme to be established in the church. When you do crusade to build the church it’s like throwing a net in the sea and catchimg some elements inside the net. Inside the net you carry fish, crab, stone and debris but what you really need is the fish. The crab is edible but you do not really need it. The stone and debris are inedible, so you don’t need them. That is how crusade is. When you use those kinds of people (stone and debris) from a crusade to start a church it will have a poor impact on the church.
Some years ago the Nigerian government clampdown on miracle broadcast by religious organizations on the televisions in the country. That was at the peak of your miracle broadcast on televisions. How did that clampdown affect you?
The clamp down forced us to shift our crusade outside the country to other nations. We moved the work outside the country when the government wouldn’t allow us to broadcast miracles. We were first forced out of the national stadium before the broadcast clampdown. It was after the government chased us out of the national stadium that we started taking the Fire Crusade to different places across the country. When the government banned our miracle broadcast outright, we moved the work to other countries. So, it was Nigeria’s loss and other countries’ gain.
Your lovely wife, Prophetess Mercy Ayorinde, plays a significant role in your life and ministry. How will you describe her impact in your life and ministry?
To the glory of God, she is doing the work very well. She is very zealous about the work. She is mummy to the core. She is very consistent in prayer and very caring. She is very supportive in the ministry. She is full of zeal. She has always been there all these years. I pray the Lord gives her a very long life with sound health.
You both are always out together doing the work. How do you combine the ministry work with the home responsibility without one affecting the other?
It is a challenge too but we are able to sustain the home front, especially now that we are getting “younger” (laughter). We are more at home now. We have more time for the home now. Some of our children are now outside Nigeria. We have time for those at home. Things are getting balanced and the work is progressing.
Please share with us some of the sacrifices you made to take the work this far
It takes the grace of God to wait on Him in intensive fasting and prayer. We shed the flesh to be able to feed the spirit. That is a very strong area of the ministry.Then the sacrifice of unavailable most times for the children and other things at home. There were several times of complaints by the children that they want to see daddy and mummy more at home. I bless God for prophetess. She is very communicative. She is more of a talker than me. Lack of communication is a major challenge both in the home and on the ministry. But God is faithful. Another sacrifice is doing counseling all day and praying all night. This seriously affects my sleeping pattern. It is one area I want the youth and younger ministers of God to watch. My intensive prayer and fasting for several days or months affect my sleeping pattern. For you to be able to work effectively in miracle ministry there must be a constant life of prayer and fasting of at least six hours per day regularly. I did that for several years. I doubt if there is anyone who operates in miracle ministry without making such a sacrifice. So, it’s quite demanding. The pressure is connected with our consistent crusade.
Looking back in retrospect are you fulfilled with WEBIC at about 30 years?
If we say we are fulfilled it means we are telling God to stop the work. There will always be the hunger to do more. We are forgetting the past in order to reach out to more souls for Christ. What have we done yet? We still have more grounds to cover. May God endow us with more grace and strength to do more in Jesus name.
When you started WEBIC about 30 years ago come November 2025, who are the people you looked up to as your mentors or role models in ministry?
I normally do my 40 days prayer and fasting at the Redemption Camp. I study and follow Baba E.A Adeboye’s footsteps and attend the Holy Ghost service. I follow Reinhard Bonnke crusade pattern. I followed T.L Osborn ministry pattern. I follow Morris Cerrulo evangelism pattern. These are the people I look at in ministry work. In addition, we appreciate and celebrate our other fathers in the faith; Bishop David Oyedepo, Rev. (Dr.) Moses Omodanisi and Rev. D.B Akinyemi among others. For WEBIC at about 30 years we appreciate all the people that started with us for their support and contributions. We don’t want to mention names because we may offend those we forget to mention their names. We are grateful to everyone. God will bountifully reward them all. We appreciate and celebrate them all.
What are your expectations as WEBIC clocks 30 this year November 2025?
Our expectation is that we want the church work to be more established in all the assemblies. We want the construction works at the headquarters church completed in Jesus name. We want our foreign mission work to increase. We are trusting God to further establish our broadcast media ministry. These are some of the projections that we have in terms of establishing and starting a kind of campground for combined services that can bring the members in all our branches together.
What is the spread of World Evangelism Bible Church worldwide?
WEBIC has spread across Nigeria to some other West African countries. We have a branch in South Africa. We have a branch in the U.K. We are trying to establish the branch in Canada. In Nigeria we have branches in Lagos, Abuja, Ilorin and Port Harcourt. We have 32 branches in Lagos and 3 branches in Abuja.
Have you at any time considered quitting the ministry?
There are always times of discouragement that one feels like quitting, and there is always also that inner voice telling one to go ahead. Right from the beginning I was very reluctant to go into ministry but that inner voice was insisting I must. Moses complained he was a stammerer God still pushed him to do the work. There is always the grace of God that sustains us at the moments of discouragement.
Finally, let’s have a look at the upbringing of Prophet Dr. Samson Ayorinde.
I came from a very humble upbringing where we were not even sure where the next meal would come from until God graciously blessed his work in our hands. There were lots of prophecies about my birth that I was an unusual child who has a specific assignment on earth. I was raised in a Christian home where regular prayer and fasting is a life pattern. And that defines my person today as a man of intensive prayer and fasting lifestyle. My father was a staunch follower of Apostle Joseph Ayodele Babalola. My mother was a very committed member of the ECWA.
