…How it started

The sent man of this commission (Samuel Olayinka) was pastoring a local Church which has so many encumbrances from the family of the founder. He kept on labouring hard to grow the ministry against all odds, being fully persuaded of his assignment, and totally unintentional to ever found a Church on his own. But the inordinate interference and nuisance continued until it finally became so alarming beyond reason.

The majority of the entire congregation never wanted to loose or leave their Pastor for any reason, but at the same time, they were fed up of the Church environment. So they resolved to move out of the premises to another place they were desperately searching for. But their Pastor was reluctant of this move. The resources to actualize this aspiration were even scarce, couple with the fact that the Pastor also was unwilling to move with them, it was like an insurmountable task. But they wouldn’t stop believing ‘God’s time will come’.

In the heat of all these, a three-day quarterly prayer and fasting programme of the Church was held, precisely holding from 27th – 29th of September, 2012. Falling within this prayer mountain was a last Friday of the month vigil, which was held on the 28th/29th, and the vigil ended at 4:30am. Pastor Samuel prayed again till 5am and slept.

Behold, a window of revelation was opened. He saw himself planning a birthday occasion for a very great man he knew very well but couldn’t figure out his appearance. He was chairman of the birthday planning committee over another five faceless men in that revelation, who conspicuously were angels. He was holding a meeting with the five men on how they will go about the party, but he only observed that all these committee members were only awaiting his instructions to carry out towards the occasion, but they were not suggesting anything.

What was very knotty and complicated in this spiritual scenario was that there was a particular food the celebrant demanded to eat at the party, but even a six-month time period would not be enough to improvise the food.

So there was a kind of distress in the scenario. So he (Pastor Sam) was trying to consider postponing the party to allow time for the provision of this royal meal. Suddenly, a fiery looking, tall, all white in apparel man appeared from behind the chairman of the meeting, focusing only on him and warning sternly that “it will have consequence on you if I do not meet the food I choose to eat in my Birthday Party tomorrow”. He repeated this three times, with suggestive looks of displeasure.

When I (Pastor Sam), turned to see who was talking to me, His eyes was dreadful, like a flaming fire, dressed in white apparel, and his hair was as white as wool. Then I saw the five angels bow down, promising to help me make sure the D-day wouldn’t fail, and the food provided. Almost dead inside out and trembling so greatly, I joined them bow. The angels promised again that they will make sure it stands as the great man (God) wanted it.

At the next prayer gathering of God’s people in the three-days prayer mountain at 12noon, I shared the revelation, obviously overtaken by the Holy Spirit, and citing the scripture on how God had called Abraham to go to another country which has its foundation and whose builder is God (Gen. 12: 1-3; Heb. 11:8-10). Meanwhile, I explained the revelation I had to mean that God wants deep praise and worship from us the following day, which was Sunday service, opining that that’s the food God wanted. Earlier, I told my wife the same interpretation, but she disagreed with me.

As if it was pre-planned, as I spoke, the entire congregation collapsed into worship, weeping, shouting and rolling on the floor, all to my surprise, sincerely not knowing what’s happening. They sure knew what the revelation meant than I. At the rising of the congregation from their worship, without one telling the other, they all started moving straight to an empty piece of land at the back of my house, which can at best be regarded as a refuse dumb, because certain craftsmen were operating their handwork there. They all left me there still preaching, not excluding one soul. From that moment through the entire night of 29th September, no one slept. They were all busy packing, clearing and cleaning the site for our first service the following morning at 7am on the 30th September, 2012. That dramatically marked the birth of the Church.

Now I know what it meant when angels say they will assist and make sure tomorrow’s birthday party holds without fail and the food ready. Psalm 110:3 says: “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power,…………” (KJV)

You know what? Some little wonder! At the two services of the first day, during the praise and worship sessions, drizzles of rain showered, as sign of the presence of the ‘Birthday Celebrant’.

HOW COME THE NAME, ‘WATCHTOWER’

Consequent upon the start of the Church in a new location, I was unprepared, and thus was only flowing with the wind of the changes. As such, in order not to hijack the work of the Holy Spirit with human knowledge, the Church continued without a name. But people continued to address the Church by the former name, knowing I coined the name from a traditional vernacular name the Church was bearing into English, when I attained leadership in the Church.

About two years into the life of the new Church, I (Samuel Olayinka) had a revelation. I saw a prodigious mountain, on top of which was hoisted a very big banner. On the banner was written in big letters “MIZPEH”. There was crowd of joyful worshippers at the base of the mountain with irate enthusiasm, full of so much glory. There were some known faces of Church members there, while vast majority were unknown.

When I checked, MIZPEH means WATCHTOWER. We applied for government registration with other two suggested alternatives, only WATCHTOWER was available for us.