WHEN PEOPLE SAW ME ON TV, THEY WERE LIKE, ‘HOW WILL YOUR PASTOR ALLOW YOU TO BE ON TV?’ AND I REPLIED, ‘OH, THAT’S AN UNUSUAL SENIOR PASTOR’.
I’VE SEEN MY LIFE GET TRANSFORMED UNDER PASTOR MATHEW ASHIMOLOWO’S TEACHING
YOU SEE A MAN OF GOD GETTING UP FROM A CHAIR AND YOU ARE RUNNING TO SIT ON THE SAME CHAIR. YOU ARE JUST DECEIVING YOURSELF.
YOU THINK THAT YOU CAN SIPHON SOMEBODY’S GRACE BECAUSE YOU ARE CLEVER. THAT IS NOT THE WAY IT WORKS.
- Pastor Femi Faseru at the Kingdom Wealth Conference themed ‘THE SECRET OF OUR JOURNEY’
Day 3, Morning Session.
Bishop Abioye had served Bishop Oyedepo in that same position for years and as that time, it was an inspiration to me that there is somebody out there that is doing this and is not any lesser than who God had called him to be. So, the role of Elisha is sometimes referred to as playing second-fiddle but there is no second-fiddle in the body of Christ, 1Corinthians 12:23. One of the things I like to do is to make being a junior pastor attractive to the next generation. I am a junior pastor under Pastor Mathew Ashimolowo and I have an understanding that the way I’m going to get the double portion of his spirit is if I get hooked up to him.
I’ve seen my life get transformed under Pastor Mathew’s teaching, I’ve seen him at Gilgal. When Pastor Mathew takes the Bible and tears Scriptures apart, you are inspired, you just want to run. As a pastor, I like to do that, I would want to preach and have people run with the word. One day, Pastor Mathew called me and said, ‘Femi, when you get back to Nigeria, go and start television ministry’. When people saw me on TV, they were like, ‘How? How will your pastor allow you to be on TV?’ So, I was like, ‘Oh, this is an uncommon senior pastor, this is an unusual senior pastor’. Then, I began to think that this responsibility was just too heavy for me and I might let him down someday. So, I went to pastor and told him, ‘This bill was just too much. These guys have increased our bill to 50 million naira a year and together with KICC London, that is 100 million naira a year’. I went to Pastor and said to him, ‘Let me step down, it is too expensive’. Pastor said, “No, you can’t. That 11:30 am session where you are, people talk to me, you don’t know those who listen to you, those who watch you. Don’t leave that spot”. I said, ‘Pastor, let us swap. Your own 6:30am, people are usually on traffic, going to work. Let me take the 6:30am and you take the 11:30am, by that time people would already be in their office and they can connect’. He said, ‘No, you stay there’.
Somebody would have thought, ‘Oh, I’ve broken through’. That’s the kind of exposure. If you don’t get the spirit right, it can be very tempting. I’ve seen so many people come to me and say how blessed they were. It can get into your head if your heart is not just right from the beginning. A lot of people miss it because they just can’t follow to the end. After following Elijah everywhere, it got to a point that Elijah said to Elisha, ‘What do you want from me?’. You see a man of God getting up from a chair and you are running to sit on the same chair. You are just deceiving yourself. You think that you can siphon somebody’s grace because you are clever, that is not the way it works. 2Timothy 2: 2. For you to be accounted to be faithful by the visionary, it would take time. He would observe you; he would watch you whether you have an understanding of the different sides of him. How do you take rebuke? Do you make it easy for him to correct you? Do you make it easy for him to lead you or have you grown too big for him to lead because you have a title?
One Archbishop told me, ‘I heard you when you preached about Mephibosheth’’ and he was like ‘You are already out-preaching Pastor Mathew’. What he didn’t know was that the foundation of what I preached was what I heard from Pastor Mathew. If you come to our church and you say it looks nice, what you don’t know is that the template is from KICC London. I have an understanding that when you are a small tree and things are just going on for you, it is because there is a bigger tree up there that the sun and the rain is beating on. The bigger tree is the one protecting and shielding you from all those nonsenses and you are just using the chlorophyll to grow and feel nice.
I work like this is my vision. In eighteen years, we have planted twenty-something branches. I work like I was the one God called; I give him my best. I understand that everything in life is about seedtime and harvest. The days that you are carrying bowls, the days that you are strapping the sandals, the days that you are helping the man of God, there is a deposit of knowledge that is coming into you. A day is coming that you will need all those things and it is your proximity; the way you handle your servanthood, that will determine how you will enjoy your mastery.
After Elijah had been taken up, Elisha took the cloak. While Elijah was being taken up, Elisha said, ‘My father, My father’’. He did not say, ‘My boss’. 2 Kings 2: 12. I have a father-son relationship with my pastor. You can get angry with your boss for the way he spoke to you but you can’t get angry with your father for the way he spoke to you. I have a father-son relationship with Pastor Mathew. His interest becomes my interest, his desire becomes my desire, what he wants for the ministry becomes what I want. Fifty percent of the time he gives instructions and I don’t understand, it is because I don’t agree with the instruction, but I understand that he is my father, it is for him to instruct and whether I understand it or not, it is for me to obey.
I will give you an example. When I started in the month of December, 2003, we had to quickly rebuild the church and don’t forget that I was absolutely green. It was a lot of work but we grew the place. I would be preaching drenched in sweat because there was no A.C. Some of the members wanted to donate some A.C and put them in the place but I couldn’t do anything without my pastor’s permission. I needed to get my pastor’s permission before I could be here today. Not that he requested it, but I need his cover, I need him to know where I’m at. I need him to know that I can be depended on. Not that he is requesting for it but I need to make myself accountable.
I didn’t think that because the money for the A.C was not coming from the church’s purse, I didn’t need to tell my pastor. So, I said to pastor, ‘Thank God. Testimony. Brothers in the church are coming together to get ten A.Cs’. Pastor Mathew said, “Femi, what I think is you should break the wall and expand the church. It’s not time to get A.C yet”. I said, “Pastor, we don’t have money to do any construction and expand”. He answered, ‘Go to the bank’. I said, ‘We would need like five million’. He replied, “Go to the bank. If they don’t give you, come back to me”. I didn’t like the idea of borrowing. Two, I just needed a place with A.C and expanding means we won’t have A.C for another year or two. I didn’t understand the instruction but I obeyed. I went to the bank, got the money and expanded the place. Some seven years later, we were going to dedicate the dome. That morning, I got to call Pastor Mathew that the church was ready so that we could start the service. When we got to the place the church was, he said, “Femi, do you remember when you said you wanted to put A.C in this place”. That was a strange question but I said ‘Yes’. He said, “If you had put A.C in this place then, you will still be there till now because the church would have been comfortable like that and not build this”. Seven years before I could come to terms with why he said it, but thank God I chose to obey his instruction else I wouldn’t have known what we had missed out on.
So, we don’t understand what they are saying all the time but we have to trust their leading and when we do, we get to a point someday where we are left to ourselves to go back the way we came, to cross the Jordan, we would have enough because we have seen not just a pastor but a father in our visionary.
This is my story, this is my inspiration, this is why I’m where I’m at. I look at my colleagues who are still in I.T, they earn a lot of money but I don’t envy them, I’m not jealous of them. If you ask me, I prefer to be in ministry than to still be in I.T. There is nothing I would have wanted to do in I.T that the Lord has not done for me now and I’m not doing those things because I’m a senior pastor. I’m still a junior pastor because I am serving a vision and my reward does not come from the man I’m serving; my reward comes from the Lord and He is supplying all of my needs in ministry and in my family. Today, I want to encourage everyone, every junior pastor to embrace the work like it is your own and your reward is out there in this life and in the world to come. I hope that my story has inspired you.
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