Excommunicated: He Didn’t Planned to Establish Deeper Life, Just Pure Preaching the Gospel of Christ Then This Happened To Him.
After becoming born again on April 5, 1964, Kumuyi developed a strong passion for studying the Bible and evangelising. He later became a member of the Apostolic Faith Church.
Then, in 1973, while he was a mathematics lecturer at the University of Lagos, some young people approached him because they wanted him to teach them the Scriptures. He began a small Bible-study group in Flat 2, his residence on the University of Lagos campus. There were initially only 15 people.
Though he was still a member of the Apostolic Faith Church.
But something happened that would change the course of his life.
Kumuyi became increasingly involved in personal evangelism. He believed that the command of Christ to preach the gospel was not restricted to formally ordained ministers, it was the responsibility of every genuine believer.
This created a problem with the leadership of the Apostolic Faith Church.
According to Kumuyi’s own later account, his overseer called him and told him that he was unhappy with what he was doing and that he Kumuyi was not practicing what the church taught.
The disagreement was not primarily about whether the Bible should be preached or not.
It was about who was permitted to go out and preach to other people.
According to an account based on Kumuyi’s own explanation, the Apostolic Faith leadership believed that ordinary young members should not independently go out preaching to win souls because they were young and insufficiently trained, and their concern was that they might teach people incorrectly.
Kumuyi saw it differently.
His understanding was essentially:
If someone is genuinely born again, that person has received the Great Commission and can tell another person what Christ has done for him or her.
He wasn’t saying every new believer should become a pastor.
He was saying that personal witnessing should not be restricted only to ordained ministers.
Kumuyi explained his convictions to him, but he was not prepared to abandon his understanding of evangelism.
That conviction became increasingly difficult for the church leadership to accept.
Eventually, the church decided to excommunicate him.
Kumuyi remarkably acknowledged that from the church’s own standpoint, they had been patient with him and believed they had to take that action.
And there is another striking part of his story.
Kumuyi later said that his expulsion was publicly announced from the pulpit, the church leadership formally removed him, and the congregation was informed publicly.
He recalled that his former overseer was a great man, but that he could not allow the opposition to stop him from obeying what he believed God had commanded him to do.
“I did not plan to start the Deeper Life Church.”
He explained essentially:
He had not planned to establish a church.
His intention was simply to obey Christ’s command to preach the gospel and teach the Bible. The Bible-study fellowship had started independently as a teaching ministry, not as an attempt to create a denomination.
The Bible-study ministry had already begun in 1973, years before his eventual expulsion.
What happened after he was expelled?
This is where the story becomes particularly interesting.
Kumuyi did not immediately say, “I have been expelled, therefore I will start my own church.”
Instead, the Bible-study fellowship continued.
And as it grew, people from different churches began attending. Eventually, some of those people’s home churches became uncomfortable with their involvement in Kumuyi’s Bible study.
Some members were themselves disciplined or excommunicated from their churches as well because they were attending Kumuyi’s fellowship.
Kumuyi eventually faced a new problem: these people needed somewhere to worship.
Some needed a place where they could marry. Others needed regular Sunday worship. The pressure continued until the Bible-study movement eventually developed into a full church ministry.
The first Sunday service of what became Deeper Life Bible Church was held on November 7, 1982.
So the sequence is roughly:
1964 — Kumuyi becomes born again
1973 — Begins Bible study with 15 people at University of Lagos
1970s — Becomes increasingly involved in evangelism
1975/1977 — Expelled/excommunicated from the Apostolic Faith Church
Afterward — Bible-study movement continues growing
1982 — Deeper Life Bible Church formally begins Sunday worship.
One thing I find especially remarkable
Years later, Kumuyi didn’t tell the story as though he had been the victim of a wicked church leadership.
In fact, he repeatedly acknowledged that the Apostolic Faith leadership had a reason for what they did, even though he fundamentally disagreed with their position on evangelism.
That is why his story is more complex than simply saying:
”Pastor Kumuyi was wrongly expelled from his church and then started Deeper Life.”
His own account is closer to: “I had a conviction about evangelism that I could not abandon; my church leadership believed I was acting contrary to its rules; they warned me repeatedly, and eventually they excommunicated me.”
And interestingly, decades later, Kumuyi himself recalled this experience when dealing with a younger evangelist who was being pressured by church leadership. He said, in essence, what happened to him would not happen to that young man under his leadership.
And there is another person in this story you should know.
His name is Elijah Dosunmu.
Kumuyi recently spoke about him while celebrating Deeper Life’s 50th anniversary.
Dosunmu was one of the people connected to Kumuyi during those early days and became one of the original 15 people in the Flat 2 Bible-study group. He later became the first choirmaster.
And Kumuyi revealed something very touching about him.
When he was excommunicated, Dosunmu himself was a worker in the Apostolic Faith Church.
He had a choice:
Stay in the church where he already had a position and connections, or stand with Kumuyi.
Kumuyi said Dosunmu chose to go with him, “ex-communication or no ex-communication.”
That means the story wasn’t simply about Kumuyi standing alone.
There were people who believed in what he was doing enough to stand with him despite the consequences.
The sentence that, to me, captures the entire story is what he said decades later:
“Since I did not stop obeying God since 1964 when I surrendered my life to Jesus I am not ready to do that now.”
