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Over 20 Yrs Ago-Pastor FEMI FASERU
Pastor Femi Faseru needs little or no introduction. He is the eloquent and spirit filled Resident Pastor, KICC Nigeria.
He has been in charge of KICC Nigeria for over 20 years and still counting. When the founder and Senior Pastor, KICC, Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo announced Pastor Femi Faseru as the ministry’s Resident Pastor, many were quite surprised to see that he was a youngman, but one whose incredible knowledge of the word of God was not in doubt. You only needed to sit with Pastor Femi Faseru for a minute to experience the grace of God upon his life. Just like his spiritual father, Pastor Ashimolowo, he breathes the word of God, drinks the word of God and speaks the word of God every minute.
Last week, at the annual City People End Of The Year Thanksgiving Service, Pastor Femi Faseru was invited to briefly minister and pray for the organisation. But before he took his leave, he was kind enough to spare a few minutes for a brief chat with the City People Editorial Team led by the Publisher, Dr. SEYE KEHINDE.
Pastor Faseru shared with us how he found himself saddled with the responsibility to take charge of KICC Nigeria at a time he wasn’t expecting such humongous responsibility to come to him.
It is quite revealing. Enjoy excerpts of the interview.
We’re so delighted to have you and good to see you again. Quickly, sir, share your own template with us. You’ve been in KICC for a long while now, and I recall that at the time you were given the mandate to deputise for the founder, you were quite younger. it was a whole lot of responsibilities of the time. And so far, you’ve been holding your own very well without any problems with Pastor Ashimolowo.
So share your template with us. How have you been able to run the ministry so effectively well that it’s been growing in leaps and bounds?
Thank you so much. My experience, I was called into ministry sometime in December 2003. Even though I didn’t think I was going to be called into the ministry, I didn’t wish that I was going to be called into the ministry, you could almost say that I did not consciously have any preparation for the ministry, because I didn’t go to any Bible school or seminary in preparation to be a pastor or a clergyman. But I took my call as a call and not a career. When my pastor told me to lead the church, I realized that it wasn’t a job that I applied for, so it wasn’t a job for me, it was a call. And I think that makes all the difference. If I was called into it, in 20 years or more, I would not be called out of it, and that’s why I’m still there. Because it was a call. If it was a job, you probably would have gone looking for a better job, or a job that pays more, or a more suitable job in another city, but this was a call. So I was called, and I received the call, I embraced the call, and I’ve been working in accordance to the call. So that way, it’s very difficult for me and my pastor to have any differences, because he has his own calling as a senior pastor, I have my own calling as a resident pastor, a junior pastor to him, and if that is the case, we are not on the same lane, so there won’t be conflict, and there has never been conflict.
That’s number one. Number two, knowing fully well that I’ve been called into a work where the visionary is far away, and he has delegated and given me the responsibility to build the work in accordance with the dictates of the word of the Lord, I remember him telling me that I should just be free with what I’m doing, anything that is within Genesis and Revelation, he has my endorsement, and that’s been my guide.
And then one other critical thing that I can say that the Lord has made me to have is the perspective of a leader rather than a manager. So early I realized that to become a manager is a dangerous thing to do when you are handling the vision for somebody else. Bible tells us about a parable of talent. There was a guy that was given five talents, there was another one that was given two talents, and there was one that was given one talent. No wonder the guy who was given one talent, because all that the guy did with one talent was to manage it. A manager will help you keep what you have given to him, and when you come back maybe 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, he will give you back what you gave and say, this is what you gave me. And then I realized that the time, the resources that has gone in between the time it was given to you and the time that you are given an account of it, all of that should count for something. So I never wanted to be a manager. I never desired to be a manager. I want to be a leader. A leader will take what has been given to him and will enlarge it, expand it, and push it forward, make it bigger, expand it. And that is the mentality that I’ve had from the onset.
We were given a branch at that time to pastor. And by the grace of God, we have branches all over Lagos. On every axis of Lagos, we have at least a branch. We have in Ojo, we have in Festac, we have in Lekki, we have in Aja, we have in Ikorodu, we have in Idimu, we have in Ikotun, we have in Ogun State, we have in Oyo State, we have in Ondo State, we have three in Rivers State. We have two in Delta State, we have in Warri and Asaba. We have about three churches in Abuja. So when you are a leader, you just don’t keep what has been given to you. You will find a way to increase it, you will find a way to multiply it. You will find a way to justify the time, the resources, and the grace of the man of God that you are working under. You know, all the resources that have been given to you, you must be able to justify it. That has been, I would say, a major help for me in this twenty something years that I’ve been pastoring KICC in Nigeria.
What would you say are some of the very instructive lessons that you’ve learnt, some of those very significant points that you’ve picked from the over 20 years that you’ve been working closely with Pastor Ashimolowo?
Number one, Pastor Matthew has passion for the work of God. Incredible! Every year, the passion seems to be increasing. My pastor is 73 years old now and he acts like somebody that was called into ministry yesterday. He himself is an example of a leader. He didn’t sit with vision KICC. In recent years, you see him with CCRW. That is Christ Compassion for Rural World, going to cities and running ministry like he’s a 40-year-old man, like he’s a 35-year-old man. Running crusade for a week non-stop and being the preacher every day. After having served the people with food and all the relief materials and all of that during the day, I remember we just finished one in Port Harcourt. One of the pastors in Port Harcourt came and asked me, the first thing he said is how does Pastor do it? Because he will personally be serving. He will personally be on the ground to make sure that everything is orderly. Not that he didn’t have sons and daughters to do it, but that is his passion. I saw his passion for the work of God and that is something that I have embraced, for one.
Number two, Pastor Matthew will never say no to an opportunity to share the word of God. I think I’m learning that. I’m sure the publisher will be wondering how I was able to make it today within the limited time. I was actually far away in Ekiti State when we communicated a couple of days ago. But that’s one of the things I learned from Pastor Matthew. Every opportunity to share the word of God, to be a blessing to people, he makes himself available.
Number three, maybe a lot of people probably will notice or not notice, but Pastor Matthew is a very simple person. With all his accolades, with all his achievements and everything, if you really come close, you will find that he is some person that is not guided by structure or things. He is a very approachable, very simple person. I remember him years ago telling me that as I go out to minister to people outside of our church, that I should be an easy guest. And that’s what it is. He will not tell you that you must have this kind of this, this kind of that to host him. He will not tell you that you must have this kind of this, this kind of that, if he wants to come, he’s not asking for something like you find some other people that may be requesting. I learned that from him to try and be simple with ministry. And then maybe lastly, but not the least of it, but just because of time, I think also I see him minister the word of God with simplicity. And I try to emulate that. Once Pastor Matthew finishes preaching, you can go away and have things to work with immediately. He won’t often times bother you with Hebrew words, all those words that have messed up your head and you don’t know what to do with the word that you have shared. It makes him simplify things for you in such a way that you can practically use it wherever you are. I think I probably saw that in him and I also embraced that and I’m trying to work that out in my ministry. And I see that it’s helping the work that we are doing for the Lord under his vision.
With the number of branches of your church set up across Nigeria, how busy are you coping running each of them?
I try to do what my pastor does with me. My pastor basically leads KICC by delegation. Likewise, we have district pastors who we have delegated the powers and authority for them to not only run churches, but to also plant churches. So we send a man to a state and then the man in the state, working with us, will plant other churches. So in the Abuja district, we have three churches there that were planted not by me, but by the pastor that I’m leading, the district pastor. So it’s a lot easier when you lead by delegation. Of course, you must make sure that wherever you are delegating such powers and authority to have your kind of spirit. So the way we start from is to find out the spirit of the man of God that we are serving. We know his likes and his dislikes. We listen to him, we hear him. We are able to interpret his dream so that in our own space, when he comes, he sees what we’re doing and he says, oh, this looks like what I would have done if I were to be the person who did it. So that is how we have been able to do the work without losing our hairs, even though I’ve lost most of it, but it’s not because of ministry.
