Cherubim and Seraphim (C&S) as a body of major and minor strands of autonomous churches does not have a national choir. The seeming disunity and independency that exist among the streams of churches that claim Orimolade as their spiritual progenitor have made it impossible the C&S to have a single national choir. The Cherubim and Seraphim Unification
224 These are integration of tangibles, namely candle, palm frond, olive oil, holy water, soap, blessed perfume, fruits and biblical verses mostly chosen from the book of Psalms. Devotees claimed these ritual elements, when appropriated provide solutions to their existential crises situations.
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Church of Nigeria, the administrative organ that is responsibility for uniting various strands of the church and for harmonizing their activities for best practices, is yet to draw a plan that can facilitate unity among different choir groups of C&S churches. CSUCN does not have any record of a national choir, which any of its registered members established. None of the strands of the C&S visited has a national choir.
3.10.2 TCLA
The C&S comprises major and minor autonomous strands and as such, does not have a single national choir that represents them. None of the strands of the C&S visited has been noted for establishing a national choir; but that plans are on to establish their respective national choir.
The church of the Lord Aladura (TCLA) as a unified religious organization established its National Music Ministry (NMM) under which the National Choir is subsumed. This came up within the first ten years of the stewardship of Primate Rufus Ositelu. The church considers music as a tool of evangelism and a means of marketing itself through a music ministry and national choir that is saddled with song ministration and production. In its joint purpose for establishing Music and Drama ministries, the church intends “to expose the Church to a wider audience and to reach out and win souls for Christ” (Ositelu 2009:217). The NMM executives in 2009 commenced a series of visitation to choir groups in sub-international headquarters at Elegbata, and provinces in order to consolidate the efforts of the primate in establishing the ministry.225
3.10.3 CCC
For the first four decades of its emergence, CCC worldwide had not a central choir. Each parish, through the selfless efforts of some individual members, brings together both young and adult members who indicate interest in singing for the Lord. The selfless service of Superior Evangelist Wole Adetiran to the spiritual and material progress of CCC worldwide was once again demonstrated when he (Wole Adetiran) formed the CCCCC in 1987. The choir composes gospel songs and also sings hymns drawn from the CCC church hymn book.
The choir sings choruses that cut across denominations namely Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, old and new Pentecostals including CCC, TCLA and others. The founder and director of CCCCC is currently working on the CCC hymnal project of scoring, harmonizing, and internalizing the melodies of the church hymns. The varieties of tunes with which various parishes and individual members of the CCC worldwide sing CCC hymns contradict the tunes
225 Interview with Tunde Gbogboade, 03 January, 2014, Ogere.
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with which they were being sung at first compilation. This project is expected to save the original tunes of the CCC hymns from adulteration.
Figure 27. CCC Central Choir (CCCCC webpage)
The CCCCC has a record of forty-five performances outside the church most importantly at Aso-Rock Villa Christmas Carol, Abuja, Professor Wole Soyinka’s seventieth birthday concert, British International High School, Aja, Lekki, International Choir competition, Republic of Benin, Osun state Polytechnic inauguration and in other church denominations such as cherubim and seraphim, Surulere, Lagos, Foursquare Gospel Headquarters, Lagos and Redeemed Christian church of God, Christ church Parish, Gbagada, Lagos.226 The CCCCC’s silver jubilee celebration came up in 2012. Members of CCCCC are drawn from various CCC parishes worldwide.
3.11 Summary
This chapter presents the organizational out look of the C&S, TCLA, and CCC. The foregoing describes the gradual buildup of the organizational structure of each church. The structural levels of each church depends largely on its followership, expansion and the management strategies employed in stratifying its branches for effective management and productivity on the parts of the respective branch leaders, spiritual and administrative workers and other members of the church. According to Weber (1947:15-19), in a verband or a corporate organization, it is important to have an internal differentiation of roles, where there is respect for authority; where orders are carried out and enforced by individuals and responsible administrative agency, from the highest authority to the ordinary member of the
226 Interview with Wole Adetiran, 06 April, 2013, Lagos.
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group. He emphasizes the significance of subdivisions in a corporate organization where the whole administrative (verwaltungsstab) staff is subsumed under the highest authority chief/leiter. Weber classifies this authority into rational-legal (that, which is legitimized by rules, institutionalizes or empowered body); hereditary that is legitimized by the sanctity of immemorial traditions; and charismatic authority that is claimed on the basis of extraordinary or supernatural gifts.
At their respective formative stage, the three prophetic churches paid much attention to spiritual healing and preaching the gospel at the detriment of building organizational structure that could create enabling environment for clearly defined roles and functions for every significant member of the church. The emerging elaborate administrative set up in the C&S, TCLA, and CCC has created increased role differentiations between, in many cases, the charismatic authority of founders/leaders of Aladura churches and their followers. Although the founder/leader is revered because of his/her charismatic gifts and the authority which his/her office carries, the hierarchization of authority and its institutionalization in the Aladura church, to a great extent, has helped to demystify the old idea that the charismatic founder/leader had all encompassing powers and functions in his/her group. In this regard, the creation of administrative offices, secular and non-secular departments and ministries, the establishment of English model, theological and secular institutions, and finance department help to sustain the contributory roles of various members for administrative advantages of the churches.
The dynamics of the religious market in Nigeria and the increasing competition among religious organizations have compelled the churches to redefine their respective organizational set up for competitive advantages. According to Miller (2002), religious organizations are social enterprises or are like secular firms that require collective contributions of members in the production and distribution of spiritual commodities, and that potential pressures from within and outside the organizations particularly those that stem from drifting from tradition, accommodating external elements, emerging cultural contexts, stiff competitions with old and new religious organizations, and the government regulatory regimes encourage religious organizations to employ management strategies as dynamic response to pressures in order to sustain traditions and also bring about innovations for competitive advantages. In doing this, each church employs both human and social capital to structure and restructure its organization into units, departments, ministries and bands. This has been done to eliminate role conflict to some extent; to obtain human potentials that
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individual member can offer for the progress of the church; to meet the demand and supply in the religious market; and to create competitive advantages with which it sustains its relevance.
161 Chapter Four Aladura Spirituality 4.0 Introduction
The spirituality of the Aladura churches is the sum total of their religious beliefs and practices that marked them out among Christian churches. This involves their total cosmology, which includes their belief in God, angels, the gifts of trance, dream and prophetic revelation, and the integration of all these in their liturgy. According to Aylward Shorter (1978:4), spirituality is “the core of the Christian experience, the encounter with God in real life action”. All the data in this chapter have been sourced from the observations of phenomena and interviews carried out among members of the C&S, TCLA, and CCC. This chapter describes the churches’ appropriation of sacred space and time, prophecy, consultation, health care, church
hymnal and the choir, liturgical practices, and prayer.