Pastor Temitope Fasakin is the founding pastor of Light Assembly London. He is a dynamic teacher of God’s word with strong pastoral grace.
QUESTION 1
• Sir, can we meet you.
Thank you very much for having me. My name is Temitope Fasakin. I was born over 40 years ago. I grew up and had my education in Nigeria. I relocated to the United Kingdom after my NYSC programme. I’m the second son of my parents. My parents had 4 of us. All boys… today we are all grown up men. I am a Pastor and I also have other business interests. I’m married to my wife, who is also a Pastor and an astute business woman as well. We are blessed with 3 children;2 daughters and a son. We reside in England.
QUESTION 2
• When did you start your ministry and how is everything going now?
Well thank you for that question. When did we start our ministry? Light Assembly started in 2018. That’s the church arm of the ministry. Virtually, we’ve actually been in the ministry much earlier than that. As a matter of fact, the Lord gave me an early start. I have been preaching since the early part of my teen years. I started preaching as early as thirteen, I gave my life to Christ early in life and the Lord has used fathers of faith to raise me up in different stages of my life and in ministry. Light Assembly started in 2018 as I have said earlier but before then we were actually pastoring our former denomination. I was in that denomination for almost ten years in the UK. I joined the denomination since I first got to the UK, after fellowshipping and serving God there for about a decade, the Lord called us to start Light Assembly. I informed our general overseer and spoke with him about my calling, and he graciously and prayed for us and then released us in 2017 to obey God’s call and in 2018, Light Assembly started.
Yeah, to the second part of the question, how is the ministry going now? The ministry is doing great, glory to God. You know the bible says “in the end the vision will speak” that scripture is very true because I remembered when we started. It was challenging, especially coming from an established church, you know you’ve got helping hands, you’ve got pastors, you’ve got people and then you leave that and basically you now have to start from the scratch. I mean starting with your wife and family, you know starting from the scratch like that can be very challenging and discouraging. Though, there was no funds from anyone when we started, it was right from the scratch, we felt tired, weak, discouraged at some point but God stood for us because the vision is His and not ours. Despite all challenges, we still look back and give glory to God not for other good things that has been added to our lives only but for the number of lives that have been saved and positively impacted in this ministry. Also, for those that received God’s healing, deliverance, freedom, different miracles, the testimonies of changed life, of breakthrough, for lives that were transformed for Christ, myself and my wife always return all glory to the almighty God.
QUESTION 3
• We learnt of an ugly situation involving a calculated blackmail, targeted at your personality few years ago. Can you brief us on the matter and situation of things now?
Not a doubt an ugly situation and indeed it was a highly calculated blackmail directed at myself and my wife, but God gave us victory. You know, whenever I get to talk about it , the event becomes very fresh in my memory. It is only God that can sustain a person through a situation of that magnitude. Of course, I remember when that news broke that a woman accused I and my wife of duping her, we received different calls from all over the world, I mean all over the world. And the first set of call, the question people were asking then was; is this woman alright? Is she crazy? Or is she mad? Do you really know this woman? And that is the difficult part because you can’t say you don’t know her because this is a woman we know.
I mean myself, my wife, this is someone we know, and we can’t just say we don’t know her. I mean if it is a stranger that just wake up one morning and start saying things about you, you can easily ignore. You can easily say you don’t know that person.But for someone you know to start blackmailing you because of what never hapened…its highly incomprehensible. It is even more difficult when you know that you have something to do with her, so you can’t just say you don’t know her so it is very difficult.
A lot of lies were told and it’s unfortunate that one of the easiest way to get hated by the community in this time and age is to be a pastor and once anything is said about a pastor, people will not even wait to verify. They will just jump into conclusion, Oh Pastor! It is very wrong and it is just so sad but unfortunately that is the spirit of this age.
Actually this is what happened:I will just try to summarize it right? The woman made an audio recording and she did a write up and of course everything went viral. A lot of lies were told… for instance she made mention that we duped her… that as a blatant lie. Again she mention that she paid her tithe into the church account, that was the former church, the denominational church I was pastoring before and that nothing was found in the account, that also was a total lie. Now this was what actually happened.
She approached us because as at that time she was planning to relocate to Nigeria based on what she told us and that she wanted to buy a property. I don’t live in Nigeria, I live here in the UK and she said she wanted us to help her. So what we did was that we just linked her up with somebody that I know, in fact the person we link her to was visiting with us in England and they are even from the same town, so you know we just linked them up. And that was the person that helped her buy the properties. The properties were bought in her own name. In fact before they made that recording and all of that, she has already started the renovation of the house and was already living in the house, yet she came out to say there was no house. I don’t know how people can be so heartless. I don’t know the right words to use, maybe you will borrow me words. I don’t know people can be so callous to concoct lies of such magnitude. It’s just unbelievable you know.
She also said she wanted things that can be bringing money for her inform of investment and all of that. And this was her coming to us to ask us for all these things. And all we did was to direct her, you know sending her to people, that was actually what happened. Later she said she wasn’t interested in the case of the investment and all of that. And of course in things like that there are processes and procedures,you cant just come out of an investment anytime you want! And that was when she now started getting impatient with the company and she feels the best person to drag will be me because we were the one that directed her to the company. To now make her story sell, she added all manner of stuff, chewing a lot of stuff and people brought into it and at that time we were so much under pressure. When we explained our own part of the story to people that are close to us, they were like go online as well and tell your own side of the story and all of that because everything was online.
But we now decided at that point to institute a legal action against her and our lawyer said we shouldn’t join her on the social media rant that it is going to become even messier you know. So we took the legal actions against her and that was when the whole thing started dying down.Later our former general overseer instituted a committee to look into the whole thing and the whole thing was properly investigated and we were vindicated. So we really thank God because God gave us victory over that matter but it was such an unpleasant experience.
QUESTON 4
• Where is the woman who attempted to blackmail you now?
That’s a one million dollar question. Where is the woman now? Well I don’t know where the woman is. To be honest, In fact since the matter was sorted and laid to rest about two years ago or three, I haven’t set my eyes on her I don’t know where she is. One or two people from her side had tried to contact us, even early this year someone called to say she wanted to come and apologize and all of that but we’ve not heard anything from her and I don’t know where she is.
QUESTION 5
• If you find yourself in a similar position to assist someone knowing they can turn against you later, what will you do?
That’s an interesting question, perhaps the most interesting or most important question you’ve ask me. If I find myself in a similar situation, what will I do? Well there are numbers of things I will do differently absolutely. Because when you look back and discover that you know someone, you just have to do things in a certain way. I and my wife learnt a great deal from that great incident. You know sometimes the Devil will do some things to want to bring you down and destroy you but God is an expert in using whatever the enemy throws at us to make us a better person. If I find myself in a similar situation now, I will be more careful, more sensitive, more discerning. You know most of the things I do now as far as business is concern, right from the start I will involve the lawyer which we’ve always done to be very honest but because we weren’t the one that deal directly with her remember? All we did was sign post her, even now I don’t sign post again. That’s why I said if I find myself in similar situation and I have to sign post; it will be done a particular manner. You should learn, because if you don’t learn you are bound to repeat that kind of mistake again. But if one is not careful, its possible to allow the bitterness and the pain to hinder you from helping people who now need your help genuinely. What I am saying is even in helping people we need to be discerning, we need to be wise, we need to be smart, and open our eyes. Saints can become devils overnight,therefore never do things without proper documentations.
I will want to state however that we should not because of our past experience stop helping people. The Bible says “we should not be weary of well doing” and “do not let your good be evil spoken,” so we have to be very careful. If I find myself in a similar position to help people, as a matter of fact we have helped people. This is the truth of the matter and I say this before God between that time and now that the incident happened, we’ve helped more people than we’ve ever helped in my entire life. My wife and I we have helped much more people than we have helped prior to that time but we do it in a particular manner because we’ve learnt from that experience.
QUESTION 6
• How is the work of evangelism in the United Kingdom, considering your experiences these past few years?
That’s another interesting question. The work of evangelism in the UK. I have the privileged of being involved in the work of the ministry and evangelism back in Nigeria. Of course the major part of church planting is evangelism. The major part of ministry is evangelism whether you are doing it on the street or through any other means; I mean a lot happen now on social media, the message remains the same but the methodology differ and vary. But what I have come to understand is that the work of evangelism in the UK is very much challenging because of the society. For example, this is not to water down what is happen in Nigeria or any part of the world as far as third nation are concerned. But you will realize that the gospel in those places are mainly preached in their mainly need centers. Listen to me that type of gospel is needed, I mean if there is no water, if there is no power you are on your own, you are basically your own government. People don’t just want to get born again, their body and soul needs to be attended to as a whole, so that is also needed. However the gospel must be complete it must cater for the spirit of man cater for the soul of man, cater for the wellbeing that is the physical aspect of man but in a society where I live in the United Kingdom, people have needs don’t let us get into that, they have needs; the country cannot be compared to Nigeria or other third nations however people have need. But there are systems in place that still help and support people, so when you are teaching or when you presenting the gospel, it has to be Christ centered, the people you are preaching to needs to know that there is eternal life right? That can take care of you. These people may not see the thing, so we have to let them know that your spirit is important, your life is important, life after death is important. So there are challenges in that way and the gospel of Christ is the only power onto salvation. Another thing is that the society, the ground is different, I mean the fathers of faith in Nigeria that have labored. The atmosphere in that place is ripe, for instance, if you start anything in Nigeria, I am speak as pastor, if you are a pastor you will understand me you know? If you put anything down in Nigeria people will show up and it is not like that here. In fact the people I have been able to counsel here as far as the work of the ministry is concern and people can look at you and see what you are doing and believe that if you can do it, I can do it too. I always tell them “make sure you are called” right? Because if you are not calling in Nigeria, you can still survive very well, you can mingle with the crowd but in the United Kingdom, you need to be called right? Because it could be frustrating, the land is hard, very had. It takes the grace of God to breakthrough, to have impact into the heart of people because its modernism, you know the ideology is different. There are a lot of things that clouds the heart of people that is not making the people to welcome or receive the gospel. So the work of evangelism here in my own estimation is much more challenging than you have it in Nigeria or other third country of the world. With the grace of God people are still getting born again, people are getting saved, people are getting healed, and churches are filled. But we are still trusting God weight because when God comes down, something extra ordinary can happen. So the work of evangelism here needs higher grace, needs deeper wisdom, needs wider strategy. The message remains the same but the methodology of winning soul here is far different from what we are used to in Nigeria.
QUESTON 7
• What is the relationship between you and Reverend George Adegboye?
Oh thank you for that question. Rev. George Adegboye in Pentecostal status needs no introduction. However, to me He is a father, my spiritual father.He is one of the great apostles of our time, a prolific anointed teacher and one of his kind. Baba is a gift to the body of Christ, his knowledge ofthe Bible is wide, he quotes the bible like no other. My last ordination was as a pastor in the former church God gave me the opportunity of pastoring, that was long before Light House started, but few months ago, myself and my wife were officially ordained into office as a reverend and a full fledge Pastor respectively over the ministry God called us to although we have been doing the work and assignment God gave to us since it started. I must say, It was a great privilege and a wonderful experience to be ordained by Reverend George Adegboye, we are really blessed by God to have him carry out our ordination as an apostle in the body of Christ. Rev. George is a father like no other, I mean he is a coach, he is a mentor, he is teacher, summarily he is just a blessing to the body of Christ and I thank God who gave us access to him. We bless God for his life and I pray that the Lord will continue to keep him for us in the body of Christ to continue to be a blessing.