COVID-19: Bakare Reveals When His Church, Latter Rain, Will Reopen

The serving overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, popularly known as Latter Rain Assembly, there’s no specific timeframe for resumption of services and and other spiritual activities in his church.

Bakare made this known when spoke at the second edition of the virtual 3Gz — Guys, Girls and God — session of the CGCC Legacy Youth Fellowship,

Bakare said government couldn’t close down the church, it could only shut a building, stating that the church is marching on.

He said he would Reopen his church when the COVID-19 infection did not pose any threat to the gathering of worshippers.

Bakare also revealed that he was in a virtual meeting with Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor of Lagos and his team, where it was predicted that August would likely record lots of coronavirus cases in Lagos and Nigeria.

The pastor noted that the church was not about tithe and offerings but about sensitising and enlightening the people and fixing the challenges of the world.

he said he was not in a hurry to reopen a building, when services can be conducted virtually and more people can be reached with the “word of truth”.

He said he would opened his worship center when “the coast is clear”.

Making biblical allusion to Genesis Chapter 8, Bakare said “Noah was on a lockdown for 150 days”, after which he sent out a raven to check if the water on the earth had receded.

Bakare added that “Noah was not trying to prove his anointing by coming out to swim in the flood” before the water had dried up, stating that Noah waited another 40 days after the 150 days before setting out.

He said that those who want to be the raven sent out to check the water can go out and check, but he is not ready to put the life of his people at risk to prove anything.

The 65-year-old cited an instance of a choir in the United States which met for rehearsals and recorded transmission of the novel coronavirus disease among over 40 of its members and recorded some deaths after that meeting.

When asked when the church will reopen, he said with the projections by the government on when the disease would subside, he was looking at September or the end of the year.

“We are not opening till the coast is clear,” he said.

Bakare and the CGCC had given up their church halls as isolation centres to the Lagos and Ogun state governments in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.