Calisto Odede's long road to becoming Citam bishop

“I never knew it would get this far.”

This is the one line that summarises Rev Calisto Odede’s long journey that has finally culminated in his naming as the Presiding Bishop of  Christ is the Answer Ministries (Citam).

Bishop Odede, who trained as a physics and chemistry teacher and briefly taught at St Mary’s Yala, says that when he was ''born again'' in February of 1980, his zeal was to preach.

“Before I got saved there was this pastor back in my home in Migori who used to preach in a very clear and inspiring way and I remember thinking to myself that one day I would want to preach like this man,” Bishop Odede said during an interview in his office at Citam Parklands. One of his most famous students at St Mary’s was John Lonyangapuo who is now the Governor of West Pokot County.

Apart from the revelation that he was more into sciences in high school and at university -- many people do not associate such kind of people with propagation of the gospel -- Bishop Odede further revealed that he never applied for the job he is currently holding but that people who believed God had spoken to them approached him and his wife on many occasions saying that he was headed to head Citam.

“One day I was sitting in my office at the Nairobi Baptist Church when this lady came to see me. She said that she had dreamt that I had been appointed the bishop of Citam. She left with the rider that all her dreams usually came through. Then there was a day I was leading a prayer session at the same church. As I was climbing down from the altar, one of the pastors started weeping. When I asked her what the problem was, she said she had received a revelation that I was leaving the church.”

Early life

The newly-minted bishop, who was consecrated on Saturday, December 5, 2020, was born in what was then Migori District in 1962. He attended Kadika Primary School and later joined Cardinal Otunga High School for both his 'O' and 'A' level education.

It was while in Form Four that Odede became born again and, with it, came the zeal to preach. “When I went back to Cardinal Otunga for my 'A' levels, I started a bible study group which had the full support of the deputy principal. He used to attend our sessions, bringing four other teachers with him. It is crucial to note that these were Dutch Catholic Brothers,” he says.

Back at home, there was this group of seven people who met at weekends for bible study. They also organised preaching missions to local schools. I soon joined them in the missions.” After his Sixth Form, Odede was torn between joining Kenyatta University, where he had been offered a place to train as a teacher, and continuing in his preaching work.

He chose Kenyatta but, even there, his zeal for the gospel continued burning and he was soon made the head of the Christian Union. He was also active in the affairs of the Fellowship of Christian Unions (Focus), a national body coordinating activities of CUs.

After a seven-month teaching stint, Odede joined Focus on a full time basis. In the meantime, he earned a diploma in Biblical Studies from Trinity International University of the United States as well as a  Masters in Inter-Cultural Studies (Missiology) from Bethany University of Singapore. He later worked as a regional coordinator with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES).

He says the stint with Focus and IFES gave him invaluable international exposure which included participation in the internationally renowned Lausanne Movement and the Keswick Conference.

In 2008, Bishop Odede joined Citam where he pastored at Valley Road, Woodley and Karen and back to Valley Road again. Then Nairobi Baptist Church came with the request that he becomes their Senior Pastor and he agreed after the Citam leadership gave him the go-ahead. He served there for six years when he was approached by the Citam leadership and asked whether his name could be included in the list of those being presented for consideration as the bishop. The rest, as they say, is history.

Huge responsibility

Bishop Odede, who has been married to his wife Elizabeth for the past 29 years (they have three adult sons), is well aware of the heavy responsibility thrust on his shoulders. He says it is daunting to walk in the footsteps of people like Denis White, Bonifes Adoyo and David Oginde, all who preceded him as Citam bishops.

However, Odede says that he takes comfort in two things -- that he will not try to be any of his predecessors and that the very burden is made light when looked at against the milieu that it is God who is doing the work and the bishop is just but a helping hand.

Bishop Odede takes over the leadership of a church that has come a long way from 1952 when John McBride, a Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada missionary, arrived in Nairobi with the vision of establishing a church. From that one church, today Citam is a big body with some 25 congregations spread across the country as well as Namibia, the United States and Romania. He lays out a clear vision of what he is trusting God to achieve through him in his tenure (he is eligible for a second five-year term if an evaluation board gives him a clean bill of health after the first five).

The Covid-19 pandemic has also changed the way churches do ministry. Bishop Odede sees this as both a challenge and an opportunity. “The challenge is that fewer people are now coming for in-person services but the opportunity is that we can expand our online presence as well as our safari groups (cell groups),” he says.

Church presence

He is seeing a future where Citam will have a presence in a majority -- if not all -- of the counties with an emphasis on the communities least reached by the gospel  like El Molo, Rendille, as well areas like Marsabit and Turkana, among others.

Internationally, church attendance in the West has been on the decline and Bishop Odede believes it is time for reverse missionary journeys to happen -- Africans taking the gospel to the West and he sees Citam playing a major role in this.

According to Bishop Odede, Citam can play a bigger role in helping to train leaders of other churches to make them better equipped for the work of the gospel. Another area he is keen on making the voice of Citam heard is in the national arena especially on issues of governance.

All these seem to be quite a heavy burden and maybe it is time Bishop Odede’s flock helps him sing the all-time Christian favourite song ''Burdens are Lifted at Calvary''’ every morning as he sits down to work.

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