Jerry Eze in Manchester

More Than an Internet Personality

A search for him on the web reveals that he is an internet personality, a description that barely captures who he is. He is the founder and lead pastor of Streams of Joy International and the convener of the New Season Prophetic Prayers and Declarations (NSPPD), a 7am online prayer broadcast that grew during the pandemic into a global movement across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Mixlr. With the kind of following he commands, he is an arresting presence who has mastered the social media platforms to spread his message.

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

My scepticism had a particular source. I am no stranger to Pentecostal and Evangelical settings, and I have long followed English, Australian, and American "Word of Faith" preachers, whose cultural and social frame of reference I have grown accustomed to and readily taken in. This, however, is a specific brand of exuberant Nigerian Pentecostalism that I never encountered even during my years in Nigeria. A shared heritage does not always guarantee a shared instinct in worship.

Years ago, a friend sent me links to recordings of prayer sessions, both rowdy and cacophonous, in which I could not fathom what was going on. My sensibilities, broadly Anglican and attuned to the liturgical, would have felt criminally assaulted.

Yet this, I suppose, speaks to the mystery of a God who is as attentive in all our noise as He is in our orderliness. I should not be too much of an Englishman for God; I know that He understands, listens to, and answers Englishmen too.

Getting to Old Trafford

The venue for the NSPPD UK Prayer Conference [YouTube] was Manchester United's football stadium, commonly known as Old Trafford, and getting there was quite an ordeal. The buses were filled to capacity by the time they reached the second bus stop, so we had to board a tram. I spent the ride recalibrating our journey, and we opted to get off five stops earlier, since it proved the nearest stop to the venue on foot by that route.

We met up with friends, a couple I had not seen in forty years, and as we queued to gain entry to the grounds, we reminisced about our times of youthful religious innocence. I learnt that I was the one who had ministered to the husband when he gave his life to Christ some forty-one years ago. I simply had a recollection of where his conversion had happened.

A Feat of Organisation

On finding our seats in the stadium, we sat together, and from our vantage point the ground was almost at capacity on three sides, save for the area behind the stage. The whole setup was a logistical operation involving troops of security personnel, guides, ushers, helpers, and many more volunteers. It was a feat of organisational ability that left me quite impressed.

Something about the ministry of the man Jerry Eze suggests that prayers are answered, exemplified in big notices such as "We Dey Pray, E Dey Show" and "What God Cannot Do Does Not Exist." The first, in Nigerian Pidgin English, carries the sense that when we pray, the answers show; the second is the ministry's confident refrain that no situation lies beyond God's power.

This outfit caters for a broadly black audience, with a few attendees of other races. Patrons had travelled long distances for a touch of God through the ministration of this man.

Swept Up in the Sound

When the sound of praise and worship enveloped the stadium like a roar that would put an ecstatic football crowd in the shade, I was swayed by the sheer volume, and one could easily be caught up in the mass hysteria of congregational participation.

Most of the earlier songs were unfamiliar to me. I felt like an alien impostor, persuaded beyond my comfort zone to engage as I tried to appreciate this thing. The worship leader might have allowed the microphone to carry her singing voice to the speakers, rather than appearing to perform in a stadium yet losing out to sometimes unintelligible shouting. In fairness, the sound and acoustics did seem to improve as the event went on.

Another worship leader, apparently a Nigerian gospel singer, stirred my participatory enthusiasm at the prompting of old-time songs drawn from the recesses of my memory. Closed-caption signage, readable from my seat, could have helped, nearly as much as sign language would have. The default, as I saw it, was the ability to create a raucous din through the extreme exertion of voice and bodily movement, all for maximum effect.

Give Me Substance

The most impactful message I heard in this setting came in the lyrics of "Let It Show [YouTube]" by Kaestrings, partly excerpted below:

Give me substance,
Give me proofs,
Give me presence,
Give me You;

Give me substance,
Give me proofs,
Give me evidence,
Give me You;

Give me Your substance,
Give me proofs,
Give me fire,
Let it show that I met with You.

These words clearly identify with what this ministry is all about.

Yes, I was looking for ways to engage, even as I was overwhelmed by spectacle, performance, agitation, and vigorous incantation. It was so different to me that at times I was left a total observer, waiting to be shaken out of my stupor.

Prayers and Declarations

My concern was heightened as I heard many prayers and declarations with no punctuation, and no invocation of the name of Jesus except in the songs; as things progressed, however, we heard more in that respect. The many names of God were mentioned, but prominent in the list was El Roi, the God who sees me, first spoken by Hagar, an Egyptian servant to Sarai (Sarah) in the book of Genesis and the mother of Ishmael, Abraham's first child.

All the representatives who appeared on stage to take the microphone, regardless of how far afield they had come, including from Canada, prayed in the same almost riotous manner, one I had difficulty connecting with. It brought to mind the trigger behind the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the three Hebrew men who refused to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar's golden statue. I simply imagined it as, "at the time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music."

I concede that far more people are attuned to this environment than I am. It yields results, judging by the testimonies of impossible situations transformed and the amazing, mind-blowing stories of triumph in life and circumstance. I probably need a better interpretation of the goings-on.

Testimonies Before the Man

In the run-up to Pastor Jerry Eze coming on stage, some testimonies were shared. A few spoke of answers to prayer received at previous conferences, and others of breakthroughs that had come through attending the 7am meetings online.

These accounts appeared to steady the atmosphere and to remind the crowd why they had gathered. Whatever my own difficulty in connecting, the conviction in the room was plain, and the testimonies carried a weight that the spectacle alone did not.

Gospel Royalty on Stage

Three hours into the orchestrations and events, Pastor Jerry Eze was somewhere in the background, yet to be ushered to the podium, perhaps long after I had gone. Then Nigerian gospel royalty came to perform: Mercy Chinwo, the winner of the second season of Nigerian Idol in 2012 and now one of the most celebrated voices in Nigerian gospel, known for anthems such as "Excess Love" and "Obinasom." I know none of her music, yet even I could muster the swagger, deigning to move to it.

After her, Dunsin Oyekan, the worship leader affectionately called "The Eagle" and known for immersive songs such as "Fragrance to Fire", became like John the Baptist, preparing the way for the man of God.

That figures of such standing would grace his stage said something in itself. It lent a weight beyond the capacity crowd, and confirmed that Jerry Eze is a good deal more than an internet personality.

An Acquired Taste

At the fourth hour, Pastor Jerry Eze mounted the stage, first articulate in a call-and-response declaration over the dry bones in our lives, commanding them to rise to life and living, before we were led to see that the place we were in was too small and that we needed to break out. After being led in prayers to bare our hearts and souls to God, we were blessed by the preacher to celebrate the answers to our prayers.

Then it was testimony time, and we rose to leave. I heard that proceedings drew to a close barely half an hour after we departed.

In concluding this piece, my honest opinion is that Pastor Jerry Eze is an acquired taste; it has to grow on you. I am glad I attended, for it was revelatory, and I tried to remain as open-minded and receptive as I could, even where those long conversant with his ministry were plainly carried along and I was not.

This should not in any way diminish the wonder and miracles that others have experienced by attending this conference, for which the testimonies would tell of a God who sees me, where I am, and touches me in miraculously stupendous ways.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog