WF Kumuyi- Founder Of Deeper Life Bible Church

Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi was born in 1941 in Nigeria’s Western Region, Erin Ijesa, Osun State. His family knew the Bible was very important as God’s word, and they would get up early in the morning to sing songs, read the Bible, and pray. But it wasn’t until young W.F. Kumuyi moved away to go to high school in a different part of the area that he really learned who Jesus Christ was and how much of a difference He could make in the lives of people who let Him be their lord.

Pastor W.F. Kumuyi’s life story

Pastor Kumuyi was introduced to the Apostolic Faith Church when he was teaching math at the high school he had gone to. He heard the Good News and believed what God said about righteous living, moderation, the coming punishment, and being saved from sin. Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi was reborn on April 5, 1964, when he was 23 years old.

Pastor Kumuyi often read books by authors like John Wesley, Charles Finney, and Charles Spurgeon. He joined the Scripture Union (SU), and his spiritual life got better. Pastor William Kumuyi’s formal schooling began in his home town. He then went to Mayflower School in Ikenne, which is near Ijebu-ode, where he got his high school diploma in 1961. After teaching for a short time at his old mater, Pastor Kumuyi got into Nigeria’s best college, the University of Ibadan, to study mathematics. He graduated with a first-class degree in 1967.

Pastor Kumuyi went back to teaching math at Mayflower School in Ikenne. He did this for a while before going to the University of Lagos in Lagos, Nigeria, to take a postgraduate study in education. Pastor Kumuyi got a job as a tutor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Lagos in 1973. This was after he finished his postgraduate studies.

The Deeper Christian Life Ministry and its church, the Deeper Life Bible Church, have more than a million followers in more than sixty countries around the world. In August 1973, a group of 15 people met to study the Bible in Pastor William Kumuyi’s office at the University of Lagos (Flat 2). During his postgraduate years at the University of Lagos, people who knew Pastor Kumuyi as a member of the Scripture Union (SU) came up to him (even at odd hours) to ask him questions about the Bible and Christian life. Soon, Pastor Kumuyi decided that it would be better for them to study the Bible as a group on Monday nights in his room instead of spending so much time with each person separately.

Soon, the Bible Study group grew too big for the flat, so they moved outside and took over the front of the house. The Bible Study Group got bigger as more people joined, and in 1976, they had to leave the university grounds to find a better place to meet. At the time, the group was not affiliated with any particular church, and people came from different churches to study with Pastor Kumuyi, who was called Lecturer Kumuyi at the time. Soon again, more than 1,500 people joined the Bible Study Group. The Bible Study Group changed into the Deeper Life Bible Church in 1983 because of its rapid growth and the need to urge Christians to live the deeper Christian life that the Bible calls for. Even after the Church was formed, the leaders of the Bible Study Group kept the Deeper Christian Life Ministry as a bigger organization that allowed them to minister to people outside of the Deeper Life Bible Church.

W.F. Kumuyi started a Bible study group in 1973 with 15 college students who had asked him to teach them about the Bible. At the time, he was teaching math at The University of Lagos. By the beginning of the 1980s, that small group had grown to a few thousand people, and Deeper Life Bible Church was officially set up.

By 1988, there were 50,000 people in the congregation. Today, there are 120,000 people, which makes it the third biggest Christian church in the world. Dr. Johan Combrinck says that the Deeper Life Bible Church has 120,000 people every Sunday and has planted 500 churches in Lagos, 5,000 churches in the rest of Nigeria (with an independent estimate of more than 800,000 members in Nigeria alone), and 3,000 churches elsewhere (with missionaries in 40 African countries as the movement’s missionary contribution).

In his book Deeper Life, journalist Alan Isaacson does a helpful study of this amazing ministry. He talked to a lot of church members who told him how Christ has miraculously changed lives in reaction to prayer and the preaching of the Gospel. In Pastor Kumuyi’s own words: “God has used miracles in the growth of Deeper Life Bible Church so that everyone will come to Him” (John 3:26). We take life as a Christian and being holy very seriously.”

Isaacson says that the background of Deeper Life is a lot about W.F. Kumuyi’s own life. He is smart, humble, and has a lot of talent. He is a committed Christian and earns the name “the man of God,” which his followers have given him. Kumuyi has been reading and learning the Bible since he was a young man. He knows the Bible inside and out, but it has been hard for him to understand and use them. People come to him for help or just to listen because he talks about his struggles and how much he loves the Bible. His message is clear, simple, and deep when he speaks. People who don’t have much money and can barely read sit next to university teachers, and they are all fascinated by how the Bible suddenly makes sense to them.

The Deeper Christian Life Ministry has grown in the same way that Pastor Kumuyi’s Christian life did because he took the Bible so seriously. He “preached Deeper Life into existence” by giving sermons that were interesting and easy to understand, but always challenged him personally. He always gave a wide range of cross-references that, when read in context, supported, clarified, or added to his main ideas. His lectures were also sensitive to African culture, but he was also very clear about the ways in which African culture was not in line with God’s will. While emphasizing that most African societies are good when they are at their best, he was careful to point out the parts of local culture that were not Christian and even bad. In this way, he cared not only about his own holiness but also about the wholeness and harmony of the community as a whole, where truth, honesty, and fairness should be the most important things.

Pastor Kumuyi is a man who loves God very much. He isn’t very tall, and he doesn’t seem to be bigger than life. He doesn’t take over, and he hasn’t built up power for himself. He walks slowly, is calm, and has a warm smile and a twinkle in his eyes. He wears simple clothes, eats simple food, and is very humble. As the Deeper Christian Life Ministry grew, most people liked the status symbols and trappings that members were happy to give. But he calls his following brothers and sisters and works with them as if they were his coworkers.

In 1941, W.F. Kumuyi was born into an Anglican family. From Professor to Preacher!

He went to the University of Ibadan and got a first-class degree in math. He then went back to Mayflower School to teach. After five years, he went to the University of Lagos to get a Postgraduate Certificate in Education. In 1973, he became a lecturer there, and that same year, he started a small Deeper Life Bible Study group.

W. F. Kumuyi, in his role as General Superintendent, said, “Our focus should be on the real side of going out. Let the Lord find us working for him if he comes. Now, I try to talk about evangelism every time I speak. I told all of the Lagos District Coordinators and Zonal Leaders that they should only spend half of their time on their members and the other half on preaching. There will always be problems in the church, so don’t spend all your time on them.

Isaacson says at the end of his book, “And, of course, Deeper Life are self-governing. Kumuyi is the founder and General Superintendent, and he carries a lot of weight just pastoring the Gbagada (Lagos) church, let alone the (now) thousands of other groups in Nigeria and the rest of the world. He is one of God’s people for this age and a great leader. Kumuyi has been given a lot by God, but he is good at sharing what he has been given. I think that what God has given his people through Kumuyi will be kept and grown after Kumuyi is gone. This was God’s work, and all the credit goes to Him.”

Pastor Kumuyi and his new wife. Kumuyi was born into a Christian family in the western part of Nigeria, in the city of Orunwa, in the state of Ogun. He finished high school at Mayflower School in Ikenne, Ogun State, in 1961. From there, he went to the University of Ibadan, where he got a first-class honors degree in mathematics in 1967 and was named the best student who passed that year. He then went to the University of Lagos to take a post-graduate course in education. In April 1964, he was reborn as a Christian.

Pastor Kumuyi said that when he was young, he often got up early, read the Bible, sang songs, and went to church every week. He stopped going to church in high school because the director taught atheism. He changed his mind after a while and started going to churches in town. In 1963, a group of speakers and singers from a Gospel church were finally allowed to come to the school. That’s when he understood the Gospel, and on April 5, 1964, he was born again.

Pastor Kumuyi was inspired by people like John Wesley, Charles Finney, and Charles Spurgeon, who wrote books that he read. The Anglican Church was where his father went to church. Before he became a pastor, Pastor Kumuyi was a part of the Anglican Church, which is now the Anglican Communion, the Celestial Church of Christ, the Scripture Union (SU) movement, and the Apostolic Faith. In 1962, he began teaching math at his old school, Mayflower School. He went on to teach math at the University of Lagos at the beginning of the 1970s.

In September 2016, plans were made for a one-day program in which Pastor Kumuyi would speak to more than 50,000 youths from all over Lagos State. He would encourage the youths to develop the highest virtues and stay away from antisocial and push-pull behaviors that distract youths, especially in this age of social media.

In 1973, Kumuyi started a Bible study group with 15 students who had come to him to learn more about the Bible. He was teaching math at the University of Lagos at the time. The Deeper Christian Life Ministry was built on top of this training. Kumuyi was kicked out of the Apostolic Faith Church in 1975 because he talked about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He kept doing work on his own, which in 1982 turned into the Deeper Life Bible Church. The Christian organization is said to have more than 800,000 members as of 2005.
The world headquarters of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry’s church are in Gbagada, Lagos. The church auditorium at the international headquarters is said to be the fourth biggest in the world. It has enough seats for up to 30,000 people. On April 24, 2018, the theater was opened. The Vice President of Nigeria, Yemi Osinbajo, and some other important people were there.

Publications

The Time to Choose, 1990
How to Know God’s Will in Marriage, published in 1990
Have kindness for them, 1991
W.F. Kumuyi published The Spirit-Controlled Family in 1996.
Prayer of the Lord, 1997
The Woman Who Is Really Free, 2000
Providential Help in Every Situation, 2009
2011 Daily Manna, Vol. 1
Daily Manna: A Daily Bible Reading Plan, 2014
Higher Everyday: A Daily Devotional Guide for Successful Youth, 2014
In September 1972, Pastor Kumuyi met his first wife, Abiodun Olowu. She started going to his Bible study and joined his new Christian organization. They got married in Lagos, Nigeria, on September 13, 1980, and she gave birth to two boys, Jeremiah and John. His wife passed away on April 11, 2009. Pastor Kumuyi married Folasade Adenike Blaize in London on October 13, 2010, exactly 18 months after his first wife died. She was in charge of the Deeper Life Bible Church in London at the time.

In 2013, Kumuyi was named one of the “500 most powerful people on the planet” by the magazine Foreign Policy. The University of Abuja also gave Pastor Kumuyi an honorary PhD in 2018.