General Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God Pastor Enoch A. Adeboye has showered encomiums on Pastor Tony Rapu, who was the founding pastor of the Freedom Hall- a model parish of the church that metamorphosed into what is today popularly known as Apapa Family.
Pastor Tony led about 50 workers of the church in 1991 to begin a model church that was focused on capturing the souls of the youth and upwardly mobile executives for Christ and created what is best described as a movement in Christian revivalism.
Pastor Adeboye, who spoke at an event marking the 25th anniversary of the family, at Tafewa Balewa Square, Lagos, recently, said that Pastor Rapu was a man of exceptional talent and commitment to the work of God.
The General Overseer, who has a very high standard for his pastors, said that while the present crop of leaders in the Apapa Family are doing well, he would prefer they go back to the yet to be paralleled zeal and enthusiasm generated in the youth wing of the church under Pastor Tony.
He said that Rapu is a man who easily understands the vision bestowed on him and how to amplify to achieve great moves in the kingdom work.
If you give me 1000 Pastor Tonys, I will capture the whole world for Christ, he said.
According to the General Overseer, though the idea of starting a family church for people around Surulere was God’s vision, which was given through him, Pastor Rapu caught the vision perfectly and expanded on it and turned into a movement.
Adeboye said he would recall instances when Tony and his group would accost him at the airport to seek approval for new intitiatives which were rampant then. According to him, most of the time he would just laugh and approve because he new it was God using young men and women who keyed into His vision to advance his church.
He prayed God to help Pastor Tony, who left RCCG in 1998, to realise his life purpose. Pastor Rapu is now the Senior Pastor of This Present House, which now has a model fully air-conditioned ,purpose-built worship centre at Lekki in Lagos called FREEDOM HALL.
How it all started
There came an opportunity to start a Model Parish in the Apapa area
after a failed attempt at Ikeja GRA and VI respectively. Determined to
make this work, Pastor had sold some of his personal belongings in order to pay
the rent for the Cinema Facility they’d use for the inaugural service to
be conducted by Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer who usually appoints a resident pastor thereafter. Tony’s negotiation skills came to light when he and his fellow church workers met privately with Pastor
Adeboye.
They wanted an understanding pastor who’d carry along the young professionals and students who had attended the service. Like a
spiritually perceptive leader, Adeboye shocked them to their marrows
when he announced that Dr. Tony Rapu would be pasturing the new Church even though he was a young believer, a spiritual rookie.
That singular decision would unleash the hidden potential in the young
Tony Rapu. He had to learn from the scratch, and had to develop
spiritual muscles commensurate with the responsibilities vested on him.
Like wild fire, the Apapa Parish which he pastured grew and spread,
attracting young professionals and students who hitherto loathed and
disdained born again Christianity. By mid 1990s, Tony Rapu had pioneered and planted branches of Redeemed in London, in Washington, in Israel, in Denmark, in Haiti among other places.
At the same time, he revolutionized the way church approached business by establishing Haggai
Community Bank as a resource base for financing pro-poor initiatives. He
also had programs that targeted Drug addicts, aside establishing a
Christian hospital, and Redemption Group of Schools. Through his
teachings and exemplary life, many a struggling graduate in the 1990s
built and became MD/CEOs of the New Generation Banks, and other
corporate organizations that have contributed to the economic
development of Nigeria.
