The Christ Apostolic Church is distinctly an indigenous African Church. By its structure, belief and practices, it is an independent Pentecostal Church.
The history of the Church is traceable directly to our fore-fathers, namely Oba/Pastor Isaac Babalola Akinyele, Pastor David Ogunleye Odubanjo, Joseph Sadare, Miss Sophia Odunlami and Evangelist (late Apostle) Joseph Ayodele Babalola who was called to the ministry by the Lord on 11th, October, 1928. Apostle Babalola’s call subsequently led to the great revival of 1930.
Before then, there was the 1918-28 Faith Tabernacle era characterized by the formation of praying groups’ such as the Precious or Diamond Society found in small pockets all over Nigeria. The brethren in control were Joseph Sadare (a.k.a. Esinsinade), D.O. Odubanjo, I.B. Akinyele (late Olubadan of Ibadan) and Miss Sophia Odunlami. Majority of the members of the first group of Diamond Society were worshipers at St. Savior’s Anglican Church, Ijebu-Ode, where they began meeting regularly for prayers and spiritual guidance in 1918. Mr D. O. Odubanjo soon developed contact between members of the ‘Praying Band’ and Pastor A. Clark, the leader of Faith Tabernacle in Philadelphia, USA. through correspondence and receipt of tracts and magazines such as ‘The Sword of the Spirit’.
Soon, tension rose between the group and the Anglican Church over such practices as divine healings, opposition to infant baptism, reliance on dreams and visions, abstention from dancing, drumming, debt-owing, drinking of alcohol, gambling and mixing with non-Christians. Mr Joseph Sadare was compelled to give up his post in the Synod and others were forced to resign their jobs and to withdraw their children from the Anglican School.
But in less than a decade, branches of the group had been established in Lagos, Ibadan, Ilesa, Oyan, Ile-Ife, Minna, Jos and Zaria. Their members had also imbibed reliance on the power of prayer, divine healing and the All Sufficiency of God.
