Discipline, Distinctives and Disquisitions – THISDAYLIVE

Banji Ojewale

Vladimir Kuts was Russia’s unforgettable long-distance runner who, in a wildly combative career that lasted only three years in the 1950s, trashed the records for both the 5000 and 10000 metres in one single competition. He didn’t believe there was any limit to man created in the image of God. Any being with such Divine trappings couldn’t fail.  They would strive to reinvent the wheel, march across dreaded territory and plunge wordsmiths into uncharted depths to attempt to capture their achievements.

Therefore, retiring from global athletics while still at his peak when there were no more challenges, Kuts worked as a coach in the Central Army Club in Moscow and declared his mission: to discover a boy who would run faster than himself. It was a tall call; nobody could match Kuts’ tenacity, iron will and speed in his day.

For many, it was illogical and inconceivable that a mentee would align with his lionised mentor’s agenda to outdo the legend.  But the Russian Spartan didn’t rubbish race records resting on rational thinking. Nor on public opinion. Or on emotions.

In his 1976 book, ‘Kings of Sport,’ British author Steve Douglas recalls Kuts’ unbudging vision in his own words: “I am looking for a boy born with the mental power to force himself beyond the natural limits…But this is not enough. This power must then be developed, by his life, by his experiences and by his training. It is impossible to talk about limits where man’s capabilities are concerned.”

The Russian athlete lived out his assertion. Five days before the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, Kuts injured his chest in a car crash. The watching world thought it was over for the celebrated sportsman; he would need to be off the tracks to allow for days of hospitalisation and healing. He’d miss the race. But Kuts saw a larger universal summon from history and humanity, which must be honoured, summons higher than hearkening to localised and fleeting personal discomforts of the body. So, an hour after the crash, Kuts was on the field of training, preparing for the Melbourne race ahead.

Guess what happened on the day of the 10000 metres chase. Kuts took part and won with flourish, setting an Olympic record! The distinctive streak of discipline was at work!

This has been the same selfless, steely and stoic stretch walked by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi, Born on Friday, June 6, 1941, at Erin-Ile, in Osun State, Nigeria, but born again in Christ, by the Mercy of God, on April 5, 1964.

Now, whereas Kuts willed and donated himself and his accomplishments to the atheistic state and its agencies, Kumuyi released his into the hand of Heaven, which, through the Salvation he got in Jesus Christ, has been unveiling a more profitable pursuit for a person’s body, spirit and soul, together with their accompanying skills, attainments, goals, etc.

The old cage that housed the laissez-faire young Kumuyi had to leave, to give way to a new unsparing home with no tolerance for doting fleshly indulgence.

Otherwise, the fresh life he had in Christ wouldn’t run its full and impacting course as desired by Heaven. The difference the redeemed life offers is that it brings discipline, distinction, diverted trajectory and demanding challenges that mustn’t be left unaddressed or allowed to be pampered by untrammelled passions. Salvation possession, profession and practice, without following up with a fierce intentional push for self-abnegation, would not give you dignity but disasters and delusional outcomes.

Thus, when we look at the life and times of Kumuyi, whether as we thank God now for his 85th natal anniversary, or it’s a discourse on one of his numerous Global Crusade with Kumuyi (GCK) breakthroughs in arduous missionary outreaches to far-flung regions of the globe, or when we’re asked to contribute to controversies naysayers never fail to drop on our laps about how the evangelist has been rubbishing and overthrowing tradition for the sake of the Gospel of Christ, or if there’s a return to the ancient history of why the Deeper Christian Life Ministry (DCLM) he founded in 1973 and has shepherded by God’s Grace for decades is unapologetically deploying the TV and allied technological pillars as effective evangelism weapons after he raised concerns about the screen’s negative content profile, or if it has to do with the cyclical purgative disciplinary actions in the Church, or it’s a matter of the social media robing Kumuyi and wife in japa garments and situating them somewhere in Europe or the Americas, or if it’s a case of dissecting Kumuyi’s sermons and discovering that, although you held court in a closet with Preacher Kumuyi,  he came through as three great figures to overshadow you: a cross-carrying evangelist, an alliteration-wielding neologist, and a citizen of the world with his soul already a denizen of Heaven, you always get to the inevitable conclusion that the man of God has emerged unbowed from a host of crushing blows because, after his Salvation and Sanctification experiences, he didn’t hibernate, or become a modern-day Rip Van Winkle.

He took to Apostle Peter’s counsel: soldier on after the ground-breaking spiritual redemption, and add the elements (virtues) of self-control that will give validity and credibility to your Christianity or profession of holiness or power of the Holy Ghost. Apostle Paul says possessing this indispensable trait of temperance saved him from being lost (cast away), the impressive castle in the background showcasing his voluminous toil for Christ notwithstanding.

Well, Pastor Kumuyi has his own story regarding this consuming power of discipline and the uncommon signatures (distinctives) it has given him in his Ministry.

On Sunday, March 8, 2026, at Ahoada, Rivers State, in Nigeria’s South-south, during a GCK session, the man affectionately referred to as the Defender of the faith and Preacher (Ambassador) of holiness spoke of his secret. He told the gathering that morning: “I prioritise the inside man. I check the inner man. I don’t allow the one inside, moved by the flesh, to also move me. I control and subdue the flesh in order to faithfully fulfil my duties as a responsible Christian and leader and servant of Christ…” (Paraphrased)  

Therefore, we miss the point, its import and the thrill, together with the lessons it promises if, in seasonally or annually honouring God for giving Kumuyi to humanity, we only celebrate the cleric’s Scripture-brand holiness, without acknowledging or probing his prevailing personal props. In other words, would the General Superintendent of the DCLM have come this far or earned Heaven’s attention that is guaranteeing him superlative Bible-age miracles and signs and wonders if he had a self-sabotaging libertine spirit warring against Heaven’s goals? Would the Lord have enlisted him in the noble army of those He is using to usher in millions of converted souls into His Kingdom through GCK this end time, if the pastor was a mere public churchman sentenced to loose living and licentiousness in private?

Your Christianity or ecclesiastical office, together with its activities like crusades and fasting, and long hours of prayer and giving of tithes, is hollow and unnoticed by God if your so-termed holiness or its teaching isn’t undergirded by integrity and character, and all you present are ephemeral charisma and drama. It’s subversion of Christ’s teachings to talk of a genuine Christian without the bridled spirit.

In Kumuyi, you find a leader who has subdued the self and imprisoned it so he can offer unhindered votive service to the Lord, His Church and mankind. It’s what the writers of Kumuyi: Defender of the Faith have described as the “Davidic Exegesis”.

This takes us back to the nexus between leadership and development or progress in society as proposed by the illustrious writer and thinker, Chinua Achebe of Africa. He wrote a slim book that traced Nigeria’s generational problems to a succession of failed leaderships. Achebe simply meant that, in the long run, undisciplined helmsmen, even if educationally, socially, economically or religiously advantaged, would end up unruly and ruinous rulers, who stamp their low image on the environment, its citizens and its institutions for never-ceasing seasons of dwarfed growth.

Happy, Hearty, Healthy 85th Birthday, Beloved Pastor W. F. Kumuyi!

·    Ojewale is a writer in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria.