WHEN IT IS YOUR SEASON, ALL THINGS WILL WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD.
ANY DOOR THAT GOD OPENS FOR YOU IN YOUR SEASON IS A DOOR THAT HONOURS AND ENCOURAGES YOU.
IF YOU STAY LOCAL, YOU CAN DIE LOCAL.
WHEN YOU CREATE OPPORTUNITY FOR YOURSELF, IT REVEALS YOUR POTENTIAL TO PEOPLE AND ALSO OPEN DOORS FOR YOU.
-Pastor Olumide Emmanuel at Kingdom Wealth Conference Tagged ‘The Secret of our Journey’
Day 2, Morning Session.
Father we thank You because You are God all by Yourself. Thank You for how far You have helped us on this mountain. Lord this morning we ask that You will do it again. Meet us at the point of our needs. Minister to us in a special way. Let no man, woman, ministry remain the same in Jesus mighty name.
Hallelujah!
You may please be seated in God’s presence.
God is a good God; our God is a faithful God. This morning, we want to see how far we can go with reference to all that we began to explore yesterday. Church Gist. Yesterday we saw our to effectively run a special Parachurch ministry and to continue in that vein, this morning we want to look at How to build a strong Itinerary ministry.
Yesterday we looked at three definitions within the confines of a special ministry; the Parachurch ministry, Itinerary ministry and the Non-governmental faith based organization. Today, we want to look at the Itinerary ministry.
Matthew 4:23-25
Jesus had a very massive Itinerary ministry. He went from place to place and He was a blessing to His generation. Church Gist. As He went around, the Bible says that His fame spread abroad because He was going from place to place and all the people that had an encounter with Him and His ministry went on from there and began to talk to other people about Him.
There are two questions we need to answer;
- Are you called or designed for an Itinerary ministry? We saw yesterday that not everybody is called to pastor a church or to be a foundation layer; some people are called to water and when it comes to running an itinerary ministry, there are people that are not called to go from place to place. They are actually called to stay in a place; to be builders and to be shepherds over a region.
- What do you have to offer? Reverend Mrs Funke Adejumo will always say, if your Christianity is not working at home, don’t export it. For you to export something, it is because it is valuable. You cannot give what you don’t have. Church Gist. In order for you to go from place to place, you must have something to offer people and more people can benefit from it.
We also need to understand that there is time and season as we walk with God (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 11, 14). In verse 1, the Bible made us to understand that there is time for everything. Verse 11 told us that He makes everything beautiful in His time and in verse 14, the Bible says whatsoever the Lord doeth, it shall be perfect and it shall be forever.
So picking those verses, it means that as a minister of the Gospel, you need to ask yourself some questions:
a) Timing – God may call you into an itinerary ministry and even though He has called you into an Itinerary ministry, He is saying it is not yet time for you to do that. Church Gist. So you need to understand the place of timing when it comes to your walk with God. As we grow in our relationship with God, we also grow in our chapters and journey in life.
I got born again as a teenager and became a Pastor at the age of 21 but when I started, I started as an Itinerary minister and I was going from place to place; going to different campuses and ministering as a young man in many churches and as a guest minister in most of the youth conventions and conferences.
I was a pastor in a church under another pastor and then in 1995, God spoke to me that it is time to build the people and build a church. God told me that this work that I’m about to start, I must never go anywhere for the next two years and I must never miss any Sunday service for the next five years. So what does that mean; it means that one way or the other, the Itinerary ministry will not continue again.
When the Church started, for the first two years, I never stepped out of the church. I was in the office every day for the first two years and I also stopped going for programs outside the church. By the third year, we began to move again; going round campuses again but I don’t miss Sunday services. What God told me was, “you are called to the Body but I am sending you to build the Church and raise the people”. When we started the Church, my focus was on training and raising people and we had workers class from morning till night every month. I did a training; deliverance and counseling training and I was to handle it by myself and I told the people, “Anybody that wants to attend this training should register and if you are five minutes late, just go back home”. So I came and somebody came late and I asked him to go back and the person said, “I didn’t know that it is pastor that will handle this training”. It was a serious training and we were disciplined. I trained people and I was blessed. Now I can go to other places on Sundays because we have able men that have been trained and raised but I couldn’t have done that at that season.
I spoke to one of my mentors and I asked him, “how do you handle the Itinerary ministry and the Church”. He said he has not gotten an answer to that question because when you have a strong Itinerary ministry, somethings will have to give way; your church may have to suffer for somethings. So because of that and my experience, I tried to see how I can balance the two. Church Gist. Sometimes, not everybody has what it takes to make some courageous decisions because they are waiting for the pastor to make the decision in case anything goes wrong…
Why did I bring the second verse out? Because somebody may ask, how do you know the season? If things are not beautiful, it is not yet the season. When it is time, everything will be beautiful. When you are trying to do something and it is not working, it is not the season. When it is the season, all things will work together for good.
The third verse is that, whatever God does, it will be perfect and good. So if God is the one that is opening the door, it won’t be a door that will insult you. It will be a door that honours and encourages you. I was speaking with someone yesterday about some people and he said Sir, you have preached the message but the problem is the danger of early arrival. When you arrive too early, it can be trouble and you will be lonely because nobody is there with you.
As ministers of the Gospel, there is time for everything. Don’t be in a hurry. There is a time in your life especially those of you that are women that you will just sit down with your children and be a mother. Church Gist. Yes, you are called but if it is not working at home, what are you exporting? The same thing for career people, a lot of women have ruined their marriages because they are career women. Name any successful career woman that you know; there are two things that are common to them:
a). They are either single parent or divorcée
b). They became prominent after raising their children.
You have to choose one.
Some strategies to look into:
- Let go and let God; except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. There is something about the sovereignty of God; don’t push doors, don’t force doors. Just let God and be busy doing what you are called to do and the God that sees in secrets will reward you in open.
- Create Opportunities (Luke 4:16-21). Sometimes religion can mess you up and you can even interpret scriptures religiously; “Oh let the Lord announce you” and you are sitting down there. If you stay local, you can die local. Many of the people that people called “prominent and popular” is only because they are known to you that’s why you called them prominent and popular. Church Gist. The most popular person that you think you know, some people do not know them. Somebody can pass by them and not know that there is anything special about them. There is something about you but if people don’t know, you are just like every ordinary person.
In Matthew 4, the Bible says He went from city to city preaching and teaching. Why was He going round? Church Gist. This is Jesus showing you a model that you can’t stay in one place. So you need to go from place to place and it is easier now; we have the social media to go anywhere and reach out to anybody in the world.
When you create opportunity, what it does is that:
i). It reveals your potential to people.
ii). It creates demands.
iii). It opens doors.
People don’t know what you have until you reveal it. How do you go about this; you need to use the media. Media is very powerful because you will be shocked to know that not many people are actually what you think. Many of you have never travel pass Lagos so you think that everywhere is developed like Lagos, it’s not. Church Gist. There are many people you are calling celebrity; they are only Lagos celebrity, nobody knows them in the east, south or north. They are not national celebrity.
So you need to sit down and think on how to create opportunities for people to know what you have to offer. You can make use of:
i). The radio and television. These are powerful media platforms to reach people at the local level. Most people in the local areas have the option of radio and television only, there is money at the bottom.
ii). Social media. This helps you to go global, you can stay local and go global. You can start you own blog, vlog, YouTube channel, online radio station, online TV station, Facebook etc. I was telling my wife yesterday that if people can just understand that some of us are prophets even though we don’t have prophet in front of our name, their lives will be better. She said why are saying that? She was telling me that she was trying to send message on WhatsApp and it was not connecting. I said there is nothing wrong with the internet. Later she went online to check what’s happening and then it was said that Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp are down. Church Gist. I said people don’t believe that I’m a prophet. She said why did you say that? I said on the first of October, I told people that, “enter early because the church is always playing catch-up. All of you that are here now, all the social media you are on, are you the owner? May God help you. The day Facebook, Instagram and the rest will decide that they don’t want the church program on their platform, all your supposed online stuff will die. It’s time to have an alternative”. Come on board and join us on TV station. This TV station we have started, we are not in competition with anybody. I have done my research and it will pay later. Let me give you an example. On our own platform, we have 220 channels. Let’s say we are selling 100 of those channels and one channel is 5 million per month, that is huge money per month. Multi choice have over 800 channels and one channel is a big money, now multiply it by 800 – that’s huge!
iii). You can publish books and newsletter; don’t think people are not reading. One of the things I’ve learnt about life is that people find it difficult to call you, to commend you or reach out to you to appreciate you. They just feel that if they appreciate you in their hearts, you are appreciated. Church Gist. So many people are reading it but they’ve never said thank you. I’ve met people who said they’ve read all my books and they have never for one day send me an email to thank me. That’s why I tell my members, if you don’t honour me while I am alive and then after my death, you are crying that he was a good man, I will wake up, slap you and go back again. When somebody is alive, honour people and encourage them. So, people are reading but they are not saying anything.
Stay focused and continue to do what you are doing.
I was invited to a church in Botswana because somebody read my books and I was privileged to meet with other prominent speakers across the globe. When I went to google the Church, I saw the calibre of people there; T.D Jakes, Bishop Mike Okonkwo, and I was like; “how did my name gets to this cycle?” The pastor said, I don’t know this man, I’m meeting him for the first time but I’ve read his books. My wife went to visit the children in their school in UK and also went to the children’s church and this man was the Guest Minister that day. She bought all his books and told her husband, we need to bring this man. He said who is he? He’s a Nigerian, I don’t know him. The wife told him to read the books and he said when he read the books, he was surprised and that’s how I was invited. So keep doing your best.
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