Pastor Jackson Senyonga, founder and president of Christian Life Ministries hosted the President of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni on 27th September, 2019 at Christian Life Church (CLC) located in Makerere – Kavule.
Among other things, Pr Senyonga made a pledge towards eradicating poverty among pastors regardless of their affiliation, and also called for the establishment of a special unit to investigate ‘false Churches’.
Here are the major highlights of his address to the President before an estimated 40,000 born-again Church leaders that attended the event.
RFBOs Policy 2019
Your Excellency, you and Mama Janet have continued to be supportive to the born-again people in Uganda. We are very encouraged. You recently made a comment that we are very excited about. You said that are going to look into the policy levelled against the born-again Christians, forcing every Pastor to first go to theological schools. I do appreciate you for that comment. While all pastors should be encouraged to go to school and be empowered, it should not be offensive that if you are not able, then God doesn’t like you, cannot call you or use you.
LDU Officers and CCTV Cameras
I commend you for recruiting and deploying Local Defence Unit (LDU) officers and the installation of the CCTV surveillance systems. Despite a few complaints from the public, especially on the performance of the LDU, they have done a wonderful job in reducing crime and aiding investigations respectively. This was witnessed in the arrest of the key prime suspects in the murder of (a one) Maria Nagirinya and her driver.
This country is on its way to transformation. But we need consistent partnership between government and Church.
Probe into ‘false churches’
There has been crime reported in the country, some of it, has been in the Churches. I want to refer you to a story that was run by media several months ago. A young lady, 17 years old, was abducted, kidnapped and killed. Her private parts were cut off and the breasts. The person who was last seen with her, was a so-called Pastor in Kayunga, and his church is a branch of a ministry organisation that is suspected to be a false prophet church.
When he was picked up by police, he confessed that he was working with a witch doctor on Salaama road. He was also arrested. The witch doctor confessed that some of his clients that send him to go kidnap, kill and destroy people’s lives are key Pastors in the country. Your Excellency that is on record. Serious crimes are being committed in the name of Church, in the name of worship. They are hiding under that knowing that police will never investigate.
I request that you have thorough investigations, because there has been so much manipulation, through police and the systems of the courts of law. So much compromise has been done. These people are doing whatever they want to do in broad day light.
Unless you order those investigations, the people that are losing their lives on a weekly basis among these churches will continue and your people will continue to suffer, and that does not reflect you my president.
I am ready to lead the Police and investigators to links of where they can find what they need. We know of mass graves in this country, and these Pastors are behind it. We know kidnaps, files have gone missing in police offices. Every single month somebody is murdered in this country, in the name of rituals or just to silence the victims. If you ever set up a probe, and provide a private number where people can call, you will find out these are mass crimes. You have fought crime in this country Your Excellency, and we want to thank you for that, but I want you to add that to your list, and the Church here that I represent, with millions of people under our influence, will greatly appreciate it.
Poverty Fight
Since January… I have gone to the 14 [regions] of this nation to talk to our leaders, to see our people at the grass-root. I have met pastors, and found out, yes the message is here, we can create wealth, but I have found out that 85 percent of pastors live in abject poverty. Today, we decided to say enough is enough. Your Excellency 65 percent of the homesteads in this country are still in subsistence economy. They only produce food for themselves, compared to only 32 percent that produce for money. This contradicts your known aspirations of increasing homestead earnings. You are credited for being a front runner championing prosperity for all Ugandans. Initiative various government programs like Operation wealth creation and others.
You just concluded your country-wide wealth creation tour. It has been geared towards poverty eradication. It is against this background that I have convened this retreat to support those efforts starting with us right here, right now.
We are going to change the mindsets of all Christians, empowering pastors to rise to their greatest levels. Your Excellency, your message has not fallen on dead ears. So today, we are initiating this campaign. If government can empower 100,000 people, empowering them to eradicate poverty and increase their livelihood, we believe that also our God can empower all the Pastors in Uganda. I have decided to stand up, and be counted, and start this campaign. Today we are beginning with Ush140 million towards this campaign. Each of the region is going to receive 10 million, not to eradicate poverty, but this is just for the research.
We believe that before we invest we need to investigate. We want to make visibility studies in very region. What is the best way of eradicating poverty among Pastors and leaders? If setting up factories across the country is the way to go, we will do it. If it is agro-processing or industrialization, we are going to do it. If SACCO is the way to go, we are going to find out from the research. we are not doing this for any other reason, but because of the vested love that God has given is for our people and our country. I believe one can give without love, but no one can love without giving. And sometimes people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. So, we care, and we love.
Any region that will come up with a vergible option, and it is scrutinized and it is good, funding will start right away. I am giving them 6 months to do the research, and then we go into another phase. I understand the money we have in our hands is not enough, but as a leader, I want to be an inspiration to all other leaders in Uganda, so that [they] can do the same. This is a three-level kind of initiative. First we eradicate poverty among Pastors, regardless of their church affiliations. You show me a born-again Church, I am going to support it; across all fraternities of born-again Christians. Two, we will eradicate poverty among their members.
The reason why some pastors have resorted into false teachings or scamming their people is because of poverty. What if all Pastors have an income?
Third, we will eradicate poverty in communities around those Churches. Your Excellency, this initiative will I believe contribute 10 percent to your effort for this country. We cannot do everything, but we can do something, and silence is not an option.
It’s not the first time we are investing, we have invested in media. By the Grace of God, we started the first Christian radio station in Uganda. And now, we are the largest media house in Uganda, other than government media houses. With radios and Television, we have 13 media houses in Uganda by the grace of God.
We have also invested in Education. We started Life Day boarding and primary school, and we also have Code High School. In just 2-3 years, we are pushing the numbers to 3000 children.
