Pastor W. F. Kumuyi

[Confidence Iyke]

Early Life
Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi was born in 1941, in Nigeria’s Western Region, into a family that knew the Bible was very important as the word of God; they would rise up early in the morning to sing hymns, read the Bible, and pray. However, it was not until he left home to attend high school in another part of the region that young W.F. Kumuyi got an experiential knowledge of who Jesus Christ was, and what radical changes He could effect in lives surrendered to His lordship.

While teaching mathematics at his alma mater, after graduating from high school, Pastor Kumuyi was introduced to the Apostolic Faith Church. He heard the Gospel, and believed the word of God on righteousness, temperance, judgment to come, and salvation from sin: Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi became born again on Sunday, April 5, 1964.

In his early Christian days, as he still does many good writers, Pastor Kumuyi read John Wesley, Charles Finney, and Charles Spurgeon, among others. He got involved with the Scripture Union (SU), and he grew spiritually.

Education
Formal education for Pastor William Kumuyi started in his home town; he went on to attend Mayflower School in Ikenne, near Ijebu-ode, whence he graduated with a high school diploma in 1961. After teaching at his alma mater for a brief period, Pastor Kumuyi gained admission to study mathematics at Nigeria’s premier institution of higher education, the University of Ibadan, obtaining a first class degree in 1967.

Pastor Kumuyi went back to teaching mathematics at Mayflower School, Ikenne, before going for a postgraduate course in education at the University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria. On the completion of his postgraduate study program, Pastor Kumuyi became a lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Lagos in 1973.

Ministry
he Deeper Christian Life Ministry along with its church arm, the Deeper Life Bible Church, which now has over one million members in more than sixty countries around the world, started as a fifteen-member Bible Study group in Pastor William Kumuyi’s official quarters (Flat 2) at the University of Lagos in August, 1973.

While doing his postgraduate work at the University of Lagos, some people who knew Pastor Kumuyi as a member of the Scripture Union (SU) would approach him to ask questions about the Bible and Christian living. Some of these enquirers would come at odd hours, so the Pastor felt it was better they gather as a group to study the Bible, on Monday evenings in his apartment, instead of spending so much time dealing with them as individuals.

Soon enough, the time came when Flat 2 could no longer hold the Bible Study participants, so they spilled outside and occupied the front of the building. In due course, as more people came and the Bible Study Group grew, it became necessary in 1976 to find a more commodious place outside of the university campus. Because the Group was non-denominational, people were happy to come from various churches to study with Lecturer Kumuyi, as the Pastor was still called at that time. Soon, the Bible Study Group membership went over 1,500.

The exponential growth of the Bible Study Group, and the need to encourage believers in Jesus Christ to live the deeper Christian life enjoined by the Bible, as different from the legalism of many of the orthodox churches of that era, led to the transformation of the Bible Study Group into the Deeper Life Bible Church in 1983. Even with the formation of the Church, the leaders of the erstwhile Bible Study Group still retained the Deeper Christian Life Ministry as the larger umbrella body which allowed them to minister to others outside the Deeper Life Bible Church.