The president of the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) in Zimbabwe, Bishop Amon Madawo, says CCC leader Nelson Chamisa is not an ordained pastor of the church.
Madawo said Chamisa attended the Living Waters Theological Seminary, an AFM in Zimbabwe college, but did not seek ordination.
This comes after a purported AFM poster advertised Chamisa as one of the preachers at the church’s youth conference to run from 9 to 10 April.
It later emerged that the poster was photoshopped and the actual preacher on the original poster was one Reverend Musvubi. Said Madawo:
AFM in Zimbabwe has nothing to do with what he (Chamisa) is doing. Nelson Chamisa is not an AFM In Zimbabwe pastor. He was never ordained as an AFM In Zimbabwe pastor.
He never sought ordination after he went to Living Waters Theological Seminary, an AFM in Zimbabwe college which trains all those who seek training regardless of their denominational affiliation.
Our AFM IN Zimbabwe National Youth Conference advertising poster was doctored by our erstwhile brothers to tarnish the good image of the church.
If you observe it very objectively you can see that it is photoshopped.
Meanwhile, Madawo rejected claims that he told Chamisa to leave church issues alone and focus on politics.
He said Chamisa has even called him apologising for the photoshopped poster and expressed surprise that people were using his image to tarnish the good name of the church. Added Madawo:
AFM is not an appendage of any political party.
AFM has experienced factionalism over the years and the divisions culminated in the split of one of Zimbabwe’s largest and oldest Pentecostal churches in 2018 with one faction led by Madawo and the other by Cossam Chiangwa.
On 28 May 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that Madawo, and not Chiangwa, was the legitimate leader of AFM.
Chiangwa grudgingly accepted the judgment and went on to form a splinter organisation he named the AFM of Zimbabwe but the two factions have been fighting over the church’s properties dotted across the country ever since.