•RAPU Reveals What Many Don’t Know About Pastor SAM
•Pastor SAM Gives Tips On How To Cope With Post Lockdown
Pastor Sam Adeyemi and Pastor Tony Rapu are 2 popular men of God in Nigeria. A few days ago they had a rare Instagram Live Chat. It was an interesting moment for members of the church of the 2 Pastors as many facts were revealed about their ministries and lives as Pastors.
For those who don’t know, Pastor Adeyemi was born on February 3rd, 1967 in Yagba, Kogi State. When he was a little boy, he never thought that he would dedicate himself to the church. He never imagined that years later he would become the founder of the fast-growing Daystar Christian Centre. It was all in his future. As he got older, Sam Adeyemi became a Pastor in one of the local churches. He was also a great motivational speaker and loved to focus on success. He met his future wife, Nike, when she just started attending the church. It wasn’t the love at first sight, but she claimed: “I really did not have much feeling for him, but as time went on I heard God tell me that he was the man for me”.
Pastor Tony Rapu, on the other hand, is a Phenomenal Pastor, Teacher, Film Maker, Medical Doctor, Life Coach, Social Reformer, Senior Pastor of The House of Freedom as well as head of a group of ministries comprising This Present House, God Bless Nigeria and The Waterboro. Born January 1st 1957 in Kano State, as the only son to an Igbo Catholic family. Tony is the 4th of 6 children. His father, T.D. Rapu, worked with the Nigerian Customs, while his mother, Maria Rapu (nee Ofili), was a teacher.
Last week, was Pastor Sam and Pastor Nike Adeyemi wedding anniversary and Pastor Tony Rapu asked him how he spent the day with his wife.
“We had booked a resort where we were to go to have fun, but that was not happening. We celebrated our anniversary in the house. We prayed and we went down memory lane and there was lots of history, 27 years. Like somebody said, “no be beans”.
PASTOR TONY RAPU
“I see Pastor Sam as an officer and a gentleman. Pastor Sam is not about the title; this is a man who God has used. He is one of those men of God we look up to and we celebrate you”.
What makes him different from other men of God, when I look into the scriptures what I see is; I see Joseph in you. Because Joseph was like God’s secret weapon. God had positioned Joseph prior to a crisis. Joseph had gone through the challenges but He was positioned for something. He wasn’t on a national scene but the crisis brought him out. You are a prophet because a prophet brings accuracy, guidance and direction. You are a prophet and an entrepreneur. You are the prophet who goes to work. You are God’s secret weapon because you have both; a prophet and an entrepreneur.
The entire civilization of Egypt moves to a different level because of that man’s grace (Joseph), so we are looking up to people like you who carry that prophetic grace”.
PASTOR SAM
“Coming from a prophet like you, it means a lot to me. Pastor Tony, the reality is that you have to have prophetic grace like you earlier said.
But let me tell you how I also see you. I see you as a strategic man which really a prophet should be. I see pastor Tony as somebody we need now. Your message in December 31st, how much of accurate would it have been made? Even though you didn’t say there’s going to be a pandemic but you were talking about a plague in Egypt. If anyone places value on what you said, would know that the message would come to reality in 2020?. And the message was that ‘to prepare’ and that’s the job of a prophet. I love that accuracy and I’m glad you have been around for a while and God has used you to raise people. God bless you!.
After much has been said and done. Pastor Tony, who was the host of the live chat asked his guest, Pastor Sam Adeyemi a series of questions about COVID-19 and how it’s affecting a lot of people. Would you like to throw more light to how you’re trying to re-invent your self in this Covid-19 period?
The interesting thing is that many years back I read a book Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson. What I saw there was remarkable. It’s a story of 4 myths that saw a chunk of cheese and were all enjoying the cheese but and the cheese was almost half gone and the myth said to themselves that with this trend this cheese will go one day. So the two of the four myths would go out and be searching where they could find new cheese. The other two weren’t bothered, so by the time the cheese finished they had found another big one. So the essence of that illustration is that what is working for me today might not work tomorrow. It’s a guarantee, that a change will come. For us to thrive in the new one we have to find new cheese.
The desire not to change is dangerous. So right now we have to let go of our old ideas and old thoughts. A good example in the Bible in Act Chapter 10: God was telling Peter “ eat this animal! Peter said Lord, even you know that I have never tasted them before. Who told you never to taste them? Was it not God? God that told you never to eat them has changed His mind”
We are in a different dispensation now. What wasn’t working before, it works now! There has to be a new you now to live in a new world.
Somebody was telling me yesterday that you don’t know how it feels to lose your job. Companies are cutting cost, we are in bad shape and here is pastor Sam preaching success. What do I do? What do we tell all those kind of people?
The first thing is to validate how you feel. Losing a job is not easy. Right now, some people have lost their health. Some people are on hospital beds. Some people have lost loved ones. This is not the best of time for people, at all. I have to shut down a business. But what we must remember is that this whole scenario is temporal. That is the most important thing. What we can tell the person is to hold on. It will pass. Just like what Jack Ma said “if you run a business and you manage to survive through 2020, you make profit already. And I like to use this illustration!: when I drove on the road and I’m approaching a hill, I don’t see beyond the hill. When I’m approaching a bend, I don’t see beyond a bend. To me, it seems like an end but it’s not. There’s no point parking on the road and say I’m not going anymore. No. No. When I approach there, I see a little space ahead, I move and again eventually, the road just stretches out in front of me again. Things are going to be uncertain until the end of this year. Don’t expect unnecessary expectations. It’s going to be a while, especially in the business angle. But I promise it is not an end but a bend.
What critical tool would you say is essential for those who are leading people at this time? How would they succeed in this period where everything is changing?
I would say it’s in the word Flexibility. You know we say vision is the act of a leader. If you take a vision out of a leader there’s nothing left. I define vision as the ability to see places, people and things, not just the way they are or the way they could be. For you to be able to do that you have to have a flexible imagination. A leader needs to have a vision and a leader needs to have Flexibility.
The people who are following you are afraid. What do you want to say to them? Even you are afraid or uncertain. I recommend what Moses did by the red sea. He told the people to calm down and relax and he said God will fight for you today. And he left them and he was telling God what am I going to do now(smiles). So I believe things are going to get better.
We are now building for the future, we are not building for the past. It’s not complicated. Hold your phone, put on the video camera and talk into it for 2-3 minutes. That’s is the starting point and post it on your Instagram page. That’s how to start.
Let me tell you my story because I can’t be talking like an expert that hasn’t made mistakes. January last year I was praying to the Lord. There is this leadership programme that Pastor Nike and I started. We did the first one in the New York about 4 years ago for leaders; Ministries, business and all that. The year that followed was in Chicago, then we stopped it. I said to Pastor Nike that the crowd should be bigger than this and we were spending so much money. Then we stopped it. So January last year I was praying to the Lord, I asked “what do we do about this conference? He goes on with it. Go online and I said okay. And that’s where I had my first Webinar ever, February last year. I was almost jumping up that day, seeing the number of people that participated all over the world. I did not rent any venue, I didn’t buy any flight ticket, I didn’t book any hotel. I only sat in front of my laptop.
I have a marketing consultant in the US, she was there. She saw how excited I was and said pastor let’s walk across to take a cup of coffee. She said, Pastor Sam, I have been talking to you about this for 2 years. Can you remember I told you to record yourself on video but I said I felt so awkward that’s why I never posted them. She said that’s the problem with your generation; you aren’t comfortable enough with technology and said if were you I would hire a 20 something-year-old man to be doing all that. So I began to do it. Pastor Nike and I did one mentoring ministry programme webinar last year and that’s recorded 25 thousand views on Facebook.
Pastor Tony replies— in the last month I have done more technology than the last 5 years.
What is your message to the small, younger and bigger ministries in this period? How do they navigate this period?
Sometimes the greatest enemy of progress is a success. It is usually easier to turn a car than a truck or a trailer. You need a longer curve to turn a trailer than you need to turn a car. So it’s not going to be very easy for the large organisation, especially ministry. We have to accept a few things. First, we have to accept organisations have lifecycles. You will have to make that critical decision, else the organisation will fizzle out and this is now a misalignment between the organisation and environment. The environment has changed! They say the reason dinosaur expires is because the environment changes but they could not adapt. The people that found the organisation or that led it, they usually start in their twenties and thirties and they have the intuitive knowledge of the needs of their generation. That is why they succeeded. I was telling someone that you guys need the need of your generation and that’s why you have succeeded up to this level.
– ISAAC ABIMBADE
