Why every christian must pay tithe – Pastor Wole Oladiyun

The Senior Pastor of the Christ Livingspring Apostolic Ministry (CLAM), Wole Oladiyun has explained the reason why every christian must pay tithe.
The pastor spoke on the issue in a recent interview with City People Magazine where he also advised all Christians to adopt the principle of giving.Below are excerpts of his views:


Over the last few months many Pastors have come under close scrutiny and attack from those outside the church. What is your take on various criticisms pastors have been subjected to?

The Bible says the prince of this world comes and finds nothing in me. The Bible equally said: “He who stands must beware, so that he does not fall”. The criticisms are both positive and negative. There are norms that we must conform to as Christian leaders. Once we deviate from those norms, we must be checked. The criticisms, in a way are checks, and they are welcome. We are in a position of leadership and we must be responsible.

There are 3 major things I emphasise to Christian leaders. One, that God has put us in the ministry, we have not put ourselves there and it’s a great opportunity. So, the first thing is God has given us an opportunity. When a man is given an Opportunity, the onus now lies on the man to be responsible and be accountable.

So, those two things must be adhered to. We must be responsible for the opportunity to be in ministry and we must be accountable. When responsibility is shirked, then there must be deterrent measures. When we are not accountable then we must be pummeled.

The public, singularly speaking can raise voices against us, and then we must check ourselves. You can’t rule it out that people are saying what they don’t know because we are human beings. We have the episcopal grace. But we must use the grace to better the lot of the people. Some pastors are not called, they called themselves.

You can imagine abominable things happening in Christendom. It gives us concerns, those of us who are really standing right by the grace of God. How can you imagine pastors patronising dark practitioners, people in the occult world? It’s not right.

How can you imagine pastors using the inflowing to the ministry for frivolous things, instead of using the resources to build humanity, to build a better life for people, to build legacies that our children will see tomorrow and congratulate us. When you see pastors living extravagantlifestyle, it shouldn’t be so.



These days, you see pastors sleeping with women in church and young ones doing abominable things or saying things they don’t do. It’s not right. That is not being responsible, that is not being accountable. When those things are happening, the Holy Spirit goes away from such ministers, and then they will now look for other means to help themselves up.

So, when we are criticized in those areas, those criticisms are welcomed, so that we can change. So that we can conform to the norms of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many General overseers, who are doing evil these days don’t have eternity in mind. But I must say some criticisms in some areas are purgatory.

They are not positive, like people criticizing Giving, Tithing and first fruit. Those are biblical norms nobody can work against. You can criticize those who are not using the resources right. For instance, every income in CLAM for the past 21years is well accounted for, I have the records. And you can see the visible things we are doing with the income.

By the grace of God, if you check in Nigeria today, CLAM has one of the leading medical facilities, caring for people with minimal charges. We just take charges that can make us to pay the staffers. For example, we did the 4th brain surgery a few weeks ago.

Each brain surgery will cost 8 million in India, but here we did each one successfully for 900k. Here in CLAM Soteria Maternity, we’ve done hip replacement and so many surgeries successfully. Now we just concluded one-month free medical checkup for women with our Mammogram machine.

Last year alone, 2 to 3 mad persons gave birth to children by the way side and they were brought here. We took care of them and handed them over to the Lagos medical welfare successfully. When we see people who could not afford their bills we let them go.

We are doing things right here. Our farms alone will be able to take 7,000 to 10,000 youths off the street. How about using money coming in to CLAM to set up an acquisition scheme, vocational center? Miscreants are being brought in here to be trained. People from other faith are coming here to be trained. We award scholarships. We are training a lady who will become a Pilot in 3 months’ time, in Philippine.

We are training people in primary school, secondary school and University. Even the Muslim community here benefited from our scholarship awards. We are taking care of them. We live together in peace with our neighbours. That is Christianity as defined by Jesus. When ministers veer off, we must be checked, they must be checked.

The money that built the Soteria Hospital could have been deposited to wet lease a plane, but I have not done that. There is nothing bad in using a Jet. Let me balance it and let the whole world hear. I am a crusader; I go to villages that pastors don’t go. I have been to several countries, states, towns and villages.

Sometimes I would be tired in the car and feel like having a helicopter, to bring me out of those villages and hamlets immediately I finish. If anybody gives me, a helicopter, I will collect it, use it, and nobody must shout because I have paid my dues. So, for those of us, who have paid our dues, we deserve a major comfort.