The founder and the General
Overseer of Deeper Life Bible
Church, Dr W.F Kumuyi in an
interview with Elife talks about
his Christian Faith, why his
church was named Deeper Life
and the real meaning of his
name.
Pastor Kumuyi narrated why he
changed his original name
Ikumuyiwa meaning “death
brought this” to Kumuyi.
Excerpts:
African names have
meanings. What does Kumuyi
mean?
The full name is Ikumuyiwa,
which means ‘death brought
this”. After I became a Christian,
I realised it was the death of
Christ that has brought us
salvation, and also the
redemption and reconciliation
we have with God. So, for me,
the name, Ikumuyiwa, is very
significant – death has brought
something good. The death of
Christ has brought us the grace
and goodness of God, and the
relationship we have now with
the Lord.
How many siblings do you
have?
I have two siblings – a sister
who is three years younger
than I am, and a brother who is
far much younger, 18 or 19
years younger than I am. Both
of them are in Nigeria . My
sister lives in Ondo State . A
born-again Christian, she
attends Deeper Life. My brother
lives in Osun State, and he is
also in the Church. Both of them
are following the Lord.
You left the Anglican Church
for the Apostolic Church. What
made you switch?
I was teaching in Mayflower
School, my alma mater. I
completed my secondary school
education in 1961, and started
teaching mathematics at
Mayflower in 1962. It was there
that I was introduced to the
Apostolic Faith, not Apostolic
Church, and really heard about
the change that Christ could
make to our lives when we
turned from our sins and
believed in him and how he
died for us on the cross of
Calvary. It was there that I had
the salvation experience and
things really turned up for me.
You became a born-again
Christian at the age of 23, on
5th April 1964. Do you still
remember what happened?
Yes, a preacher was preaching
a simple message, and because
I had become almost like a
moralist in the sense that I
protected my name and
personality, when that preacher
preached, I saw that it was not
just our actions that made us
unacceptable to God, even our
wrong thoughts and wrong
plans or planning our lives as if
God didn’t exist, also made us
unacceptable. I then realised
that I needed God. And when
the preacher made an altar call,
he pointedly said if “anybody
needed Christ to fill the void in
their lives, such people should
come forward”, I felt drawn to
what he was saying. I went
forward, knelt down and
prayed.
In fact, it was such an
important day for me that I still
remember it to this day, even
where I knelt, how it all
happened, and the peace and
joy that came to my heart, that
now I was reconciled with God
through Jesus Christ. It was
very definite.
Was it in Lagos ?
No, it was in Ijebu-Ode in Ogun
State , about one-and-a half
hours drive from Lagos.
Why did you call it Deeper
Life?
Actually it came from the
people. When they received the
articles, they came to the Bible
studies and said: “We’ve been
Christians before, but this one
is deeper than what we used to
know.” So they used the name
Deeper Life. We also knew that
we were leading them to
deeper relations with God; that
is how those articles became
Deeper Christian Life Articles.
Then as we continued with the
Bible studies, the group
became known as the Deeper
Christian Life Ministry. And
when it became a Church in
1983, we called it the Deeper
Life Bible Church.
Are you saying the name,
Deeper Life, didn’t come from
you?
Well, yes and no. We called the
articles we sent out “Deeper
Life Articles”. The people
themselves were saying those
articles were deepening their
Christian lives. So the name
came from both sides.

Sir it will be nice if you told the interviewer if you were the true author of the so called deeper life articule articules you sent out