Orombi retires to continue serving

One mid-week evening in April in the Year of Our Lord 2005, a giant of a man strode up to the pulpit in the cavernous auditorium of Kampala Pentecostal Church to a rapturous welcome. It was not so much his physique, though that is imposing, or even his charisma, which is engaging. It was Holy Week, a few days to Easter, and the resurrection message blended well with the symbolism of the breaking down of the denominational divide.

Where the congregation was used to sharp-suited pastors, what they got that evening was a six foot, five inch man in the ubiquitous, almost monotonous, maroon shirt and ‘dog’ collar, the kind of down-to-earth person that Ugandans call “a son of the soil”.

In preaching at KPC (now Watoto Church) that night, Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi became the first bishop of the mainstream Anglican/Church of Uganda to speak in a major Pentecostal church.

Fast-forward to a sweltering summer afternoon in Jerusalem, in June 2008. Over 1,200 delegates from around the world are retracing the footsteps Jesus walked about 2,000 years ago as a stuttering Church in the modern world looks for inspiration and direction from the vagaries of heretical teaching in the West that are threatening the very survival of the worldwide Anglican Communion. At this point, years of theological deterioration in Canada and the United States, and the failure by the church structures led by the Archbishop of Canterbury in England to bring order and discipline, have left Bible-believing Anglicans looking to the Global South for direction.

Up steps you-know-who: Henry Orombi and Peter Akinola, the Archbishop of Nigeria are the de facto heads, spiritually and morally, the Global Anglican Future Conference, Gafcon. Called as an alternative to the staid and indecisive Lambeth Conference in 2008 (Orombi, Akinola and another 400 bishops and archbishops principally from the south opted out of Lambeth), Gafcon brings together Bible-believing Anglicans in a movement bringing freshness. It has been described as a renewal movement, rather like the East African Revival, which returned east and central Africa to true biblical Christianity from the 1930s through to the 60s.

Asserting his leadership
On the Gafcon pilgrimage, Orombi’s leadership comes through not only in debate on what true doctrine the world-wide Church should follow, but also in the leadership of men. On an excursion to the ancient biblical city of Jericho, the delegates stop at a sycamore tree, said to be 700 years old, but a descendant of the very tree which Zaccheus climbed to see Jesus. It is halfway the bus drive from Jordan and people are keen to get to Jerusalem. Orombi puts an end to the stop-over, but a talkative delegate does not stop asking the Palestinian guide more questions. With stern yet gentle authority, Orombi asks the delegate to stop, and everyone returns to the tour buses. It is a firm leadership that he also exhibits during the conference itself in asking a mzungu priest, who had joined the lead worship team, Uganda’s Anglican Youth Fellowship, to leave the stage and let the choir sing without hindering the work of the Holy Spirit.

Orombi has needed to be firm in ministry work that began in 1979 as a youth worker in Northern Uganda, through the bishopric of Nebbi from 1993 to 2003, and finally being Archbishop of Uganda, from 2004 to this year when, at 62, he is taking early retirement. He is leaving the House of Bishops but, given his global profile, he will not stop ministry; if anything he will be working harder yet, unfettered by the limitations of formal office.

At Gafcon Jerusalem, while the combative Akinola charges the Church with adhering to bible-centred faith, and escaping from tedious non-stop meetings that yield nothing, Orombi brings a quiet spiritual depth, teaching from Jesus’ encounter with the paralysed man at the pool (John 5:1-14). The Church is paralysed, and Jesus is passing by and asking: “Do you want to get well?” Orombi’s teaching sets the tone for what the Rwandan archbishop called a Reformation Moment.

Bridging the gap
Orombi’s work has been principally as a bridge: a bridge between the Global South and the West – under his ministry, the Church of Uganda has sheltered over 50 North American congregations, including consecrating a bishop, John Guernsey in Mbarara. He consecrated an Englishman, Sandy Millar, as assistant bishop in the COU. He is a bridge between the COU and other evangelical Christians in Uganda. His ministry has included youth (it was at a youth camp presided over by Orombi at Kazi back in the 1990s, long before he became archbishop, that this writer was baptised in the Holy Spirit [as opposed to perfunctory baptism by water]).
Orombi has been called the darling of Ugandan Pentecostals. Last July, tears were shed, repentance was pronounced, and new commitments were made at the Lweza training centre when leaders of the Pentecostal Movement met with Bishops of COU. The Pentecostals, who initiated the meeting, apologised for the negative attitude they had harboured towards the Anglicans, while the COU bishops repented for calling the Pentecostals names like “Break-aways”. It was the culmination of a monthly prayer meeting with the Pentecostal pastors that Orombi holds at Namirembe Guest House. Orombi’s ministry is about the big picture.

Three years ago, when human sacrifice had reached preposterous levels, the archbishop hosted a press conference by different Christian groups to galvanise the country for a nationwide prayer drive. Seated in the COU Province’s boardroom on the morning of Thursday February 19, 2009 was a collection of what could pass for a roll call of Who-is-Who in Ugandan Christianity: Titus Oundo, overseer of Deliverance Churches; Laban Jjumba of Intercessors for Africa and senior pastor of Kansanga Deliverance Church; Franco Onaga of KPC/Watoto and bishop in the Pentecostal Assemblies of God; Michael Okwakol, President of the Baptist Union of Uganda; Andrew Mwenge of Kampala Baptist Church; Phoebe Sevume of Intercessors for Uganda; and Orombi, chairing. There was an acknowledgement of the prayer campaign from Catholic Archbishop Cyprian Lwanga. Pastors Michael Kyazze of Omega Healing Centre and Joseph Sserwadda, presiding apostle, later joined the drive. It was an illustration of how it is, that believers can put aside what Zac Niringiye, Orombi’s assistant as bishop of Kampala, called “the little clubs” of denominations (which have no place in Heaven).

That meeting, and 40 days of prayer, not only bore fruit with a noticeable fall in incidences of child sacrifice, but it also demonstrated the words of Psalm 133: “How great and pleasant it is when brothers sit down in unity. For there the Lord bestows His blessing, even life for evermore.”

By appointment and anointing, at such a time as this, Orombi has dragged along those strands of Ugandan Anglicanism that had rejected the idea that there could be legitimate alternative expressions of evangelical Christianity that are in keeping with the Bible. He has brought into the fold of oneness in the Body of Christ those condescending Pentecostals that thought that theirs was the only doctrinally correct expression of the faith.

Orombi’s commission has smoothed away that dread by Uganda’s Anglicans against Pentecostals for taking their flock. His ministry has uncovered the prejudices of poorly exposed Pentecostals who are blind to true Christianity beyond Pentecostalism. The archbishop has related to the Baptists like none of his predecessors.
Orombi has dragged along those Anglicans stuck in traditions that have no biblical basis, and reached out to Pentecostals whose arrogance has no place in Jesus’ teachings. He has been keen on straightening deviations from the apostolic faith in the West, especially as manifested in acceptance of same-sex relationships by some sections of the Church.

Yet he also has his critics: he has been faulted for what some have called an unhealthy closeness to the political establishment, his unrelenting criticism of corruption in government and private life notwithstanding.
Many believers are uncomfortable with the COU taking material offers and presidential freebies which, they say, compromises the Church’s prophetic ministry. At a personal level, he has been criticised for not being strong administratively, shortcomings possibly explained by his primary spiritual calling as a teacher and evangelist. But he has kick-started the construction of the Church House, across from the Central Bank and, in a sign of selflessness and sacrifice, he donated a personal award of $25,000 for the construction of COU’s Provincial Headquarters in Namirembe.

Orombi has had a burden and respect for Buganda, and its king, for the pioneering work of the faith and as a contact point for the introduction of Christianity in the 1870s. Where many do not appreciate it, he is respectful of foundational work of the martyrs who died for the faith in the 1880s.

Yet like Nelson Mandela, in his zeal for social equality and political justice, or John Sentamu, who as Archbishop of York ranks second in the Church of England, Orombi’s calling transcends his country of birth. That big picture view is what has enabled the outgoing archbishop to see the pitfalls the worldwide church faces with theological deterioration and how the Church in this country limits its impact with denominational rivalry. It is likely that even while he retires, Orombi will be working a lot more for a truly apostolic church, which Christ left, to take root in Uganda and overseas.
Orombi had been married to Maama Phoebe for nearly 40 years. They have four children. Maama Phoebe is reputed to be a very prayerful person, perhaps the perfect match for her husband, whose spiritual calling is in teaching and evangelism.

Where Orombi is a charismatic and engaging speaker, and a physically imposing man, Maama Phoebe is a quiet, reserved woman, who covers her husband with prayer and practical love.

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