Pastor Wole Oladiyun is the Senior Pastor of CLAM in Lagos. 5 years ago he wrote a 77 page book on G.R.I.T meaning being Gutsy, Resilient, Insightful and Tenacious.
In it, he revealed what Grit means. He explained that it is your passion and perseverance towards achieving a long-term goal. “It is that unseen demonstration of inner strength that allows you to continue in an uncomfortable place in other to get your desired result”, he explained. “Grit is the roadmap of success and it is not subject to talent or intelligence.
In the book he revealed what he calls his GRIT story. See excerpts below.
There is a huge gap between teaching theory and teaching from experience.
You need to know what Grit is and how you can build it. I am able to do this because I have travelled that road and I am concerned when I see people give up because they do not know any better.
Permit me to share my story with you.
I was born on April 2, 1959; into a family with strong Christian values.
As a little boy, every morning, I would follow my father to church at 4:30a.m. before going to school and when I returned from school, I would go and pray before meeting him at his Goldsmith work-shop.
In 1971, my father died!
He had an infection, and because praying the Word into water and drinking it was the norm in CAC, he did not take medications And so he died.
As a little boy of about 12 years, I was disappointed in God; and I decided it was not worth it if God could let my father, who was a Prayer virtuoso, die the way he did when He could have healed him. As a result, I drifted from the path he laid for me before his death.
All through my secondary school days, I became very rebellious and when I was going into the university, my mother said to me: “Listen! The earlier you gave your life back to Jesus, the better for you, because you have been dedicated for His service”. She gave me a Bible to take with me but I did not obey her.
One day, in my final year, while I was alone in the room, I encountered Jesus and I retraced my steps. That was in 1984.
On April 2, 1998; CLAM started.
I was a young Engineer who was relatively successful in business when God gave the nudge that it was time to work for Him. I really didn’t want to give up those money making ventures, and for 3 and a half years, I struggled with Him but at the end of the day, He won.
When God gave me this commission, he de-programmed me from the business world in order to programme me for ministry. He told me that all He wanted from me was to start a ministry, and when He was ready to take us further, He spoke to me again. He told me He was going to start with me on a ground already prepared which He would show me. So I started praying.
Then the Lord ministered to me audibly: “I am starting the work at the border of Om ole. “(For those who aren’t familiar with Lagos, Omole is a location within Ikeja, the capital of the State.)
God gave me further instructions and one would think it would all come dropping on my laps so easily since it was all from Him. No, there is no Glory without a Story! There is no progress without a Process! There is no Message without a mess! Whatever you may be going through now, if you will persevere and continue to work in obedience to God, it will all eventually culminate into success for you.
I obeyed every instruction given to me by God and today, all eyes can behold the results. It is a journey and I know it can only get better from here on because indeed, God is faithful. I will tell you how far this assignment has come and it is my belief that you will learn from it.
God said to me, “Son, go to the junction connecting Ogba and Ojodu to Agidingbi and pray there for 3 days. “ He revealed what was preventing the gospel from thriving in that environment to me and said He was sending me to that junction as a watchman to pray for 3 days using Psalm 24.
The first night I got there, I met some police officers who were watching over the place, and I said to them: “The Lord has asked me to come here and pray so that He can liberate this area.” They said it was alright as long as I wasn’t going to leave demonic sacrifices there.
So I stood at that junction and I recited Psalm 24. I did this consecutively for 3 days. A week after the prayers, I received another instruction from the Lord: “Son, walk from that junction towards Ojodu, you will see a woman who is preparing cassava flour, talk to her, and she will direct you to who will take you to the place”.
Again, I started to recite Psalm 24 as I walked towards where He had directed me to go. And truthfully, I found the woman and she directed me to the agent in charge of the property.
Immediately I saw the man, I said to him: “My name is Wole Oladiyun. The Lord told me there is a place for the church that He is starting through my hands at the border of Om ole, take me to the place”.
Two of my assistant ministers were with me on that day.
When we got to the place, in the physical, I saw a dilapidated place but the Lord superimposed what can be seen today on the land, and immediately I saw it; He confirmed to me that it was the very place.
I requested to know the asking price, he told me and I told him we would buy it.
Now, that was courage at work!
One of the two ministers who went with me that day would later confess that he felt like kicking me immediately I made that statement because as at that time, we were just 20 people in CLAM, and we only had 40 thousand naira in our account.
My trust was not in what we had but in God who had sent me. He is able to do all things and I would have failed if my focus was on my own ability.
I went back to the mountain to pray. He gave me further instructions and I followed it to the letter. The payment for the land happened in stages but as difficult as it was then, miraculously, every kobo was paid off.
I remember that on one occasion when the family who sold the land to us demanded another instalment, with lots of threats, we were given an ultimatum of first thing Monday morning to payor lose the property. So the countdown began: Friday, Saturday, Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, and there was still no money. After our church service on that particular Sunday, I locked myself in and I cried out to God. I refused to sleep even though my wife encouraged me that God would meet our need and that I should come to bed but I refused, I just could not bring myself to sleep.
At 1a.m., someone rang my doorbell. The man introduced himself and said to me: “The Lord has asked me to come and write a cheque for you.” Lo and behold, it was the exact amount that was demanded of us at that time.
I had every reason to give up but I never did. I persevered and today, in addition to thatoneplot which we struggled to pay for, we have acquired another five plots in the same compound; and it is all duly paid for.
I have never been one who thought giving up was an option because I have always known that there is no alternative to hard and smart work. Looking back today, as I press on toward the mark, because there are still lots of grounds to cover, I cannot but thank God for the journey of my life so far.
From my childhood, I have always believed that to achieve anything, you must put in your best. I know that a finished product does not just come into existence; it must pass through a process so it has always been in me -perhaps due to my choleric nature because I am bold and daring- that I can squeeze water out of the rock. I believe that every project must go through a process. My engineering background also helps me to have a better understanding of how things work.
F or instance, when a project is to be put up, we will start from conceiving the idea, and then we will assemble our team which we call, “our gang.” The Architect will take the brief, he will come up with a design and the other members of the gang will have their input. The structural engineer would do his part, the builder, who is the main person for execution, will take the drawings from the architect, the structural engineer, the mechanical engineer, the electrical engineer and then, the builder who will start to interpret them.
By training, I fall into the category of the interpreter.
At the end of the day, when the project is completed, everyone would rejoice at the result and only the partakers would be able to tell you how long it took to arrive at that result.
With the knowledge acquired from my background in Engineering, I knew that coming into the ministry would not be different. I had it at the back of my mind to start a Prayer ministry that is different from what was obtainable then. To set the ball rolling, Tenacity was the number one word for me. I resolved to be tenacious, to be unbreakable, and told myself that I would not give up.
My understanding of engineering and my background as a young man from Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) gave me the impetus to drive the pattern of ministry that I wanted. It looked weird to the people around me but giving up then would be me killing the vision and leaving desties tied to my assignment, stranded.
At this point, I will like to reiterate that you cannot travel far if you intend to use the energy of your neighbour.
When my vision seemed unheard of to the people around me, I pressed on because I know Who has called me and the task He gave to me.
There is no progress without a process so it has always been in me that if you want a fmished product, you must start from somewhere and then, you must also know that you will have to put in your whole being; you must put everything that you have into it in order to succeed.
With that knowledge, I started introducing the kind of prayer ministry I wanted to the people. It was not accepted at the beginning but when everything streams from the word of God, the infallible word of God; you would not be able to wish it away.
With that, by and by, I commenced and I made sure that my focus was not broken because a broken focus makes a broken vision, a broken destiny, a broken achievement, and a broken success.
Did I ever feel like giving up?
No!
This is because when you are afraid, you cannot anticipate a good thing; the only thing you anticipate will be dread. I did not set out by myself to take this path, God called me into it and my growing knowledge of the God that called me is that there is nothing He cannot do. All He requires is
a willing and an available vessel and He will decorate such a life to the envy of everyone who comes in contact with him.
Now, because God has spoken to me, and He has shown me visions plus my background in Engineering and my innate nature as a choleric; a goal getter, it has never occurred to me that I will not succeed in life. I am an unapologetic optimist! Where people see difficulties, I see success and I would not hesitate to tell you that it can be done.
I got a lot of snide remarks concerning the kind of church I was starting but I stayed focused on God. I ensured to minister on the basis of the word of God and since no one can dispute the word, with time, the ones to whom I was sent believed in my vision.
Sometimes, the voice within would say to me: “Do you think people will accept this?” and I would reply that they would, because they could see God in it. The people around me could see the word of God at play and they could see transparency in all I was-doing. They could also see that it’s always been effective. I ensured that there were biblical basis for everything we did and we have always enjoyed God’s visitation.
Was I discouraged at the pace I was travelling seeing the people ahead of me in ministry?
Well, I had this negative thought asking me what mode of church I wanted to operate. It pointed out to me that if it was about Prayers, Dr. D.K. Olukoya of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries was doing that already. It said if it was to Teach Faith, Bishop David Oyedepo of Living Faith Church Worldwide (Winners’ Chapel) was teaching that already. It if it was to teach Prosperity, Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo of Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC) was teaching that already. It said if it was to teach humility, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) was teaching that already. It said if it was to teach Success power, Pastor Sam Adeyemi of Daystar Christian Centre was doing that already. Those thoughts actually came but I immediately said to myself: “Reject these thoughts because there is space for everyone. “ I celebrated each and every one of them and I still do.
The next thing I did was to look for mentors. I looked at what they were dishing out then and I started to search for relevant contents. I discovered that I needed to learn from each of them, majorly, from Dr. D. K. Olukoya. So, I became his mentee unknown to him because I had the intention of running a word-based praying ministry. This is the brand I have developed over the years, by the grace of God. I wanted my own prayer ministry to stem from the realities of new creation so that I could preach and teach people Faith. I wanted to build people’s faith up by teaching them from the word of God, and afterwards, I would lead them in prayers. What did I do? I read Pastor Kenneth E. Hagin’s books, I studied what Pastor Sam Adeyemi was doing, I looked at what Dr. D.K. Olukoya was doing and from there, I came up with my brand. I developed a brand based on faith and the reality of new creation and today, it is a brand that has gone global. So, when people sit under my ministration, they will hear a man teaching soundly from the bible, crisscrossing same, and getting result through the mercies of God.
Did I encounter opposition while at it?
Oh yes!
I thank God that today, despite all the challenges and discouragements, because I didn’t give up, it has come out well.
I attended Pastor Sam Adeyemi’s-leadership–school and also sponsored some of the people working with me to attend. I wanted to learn about how to engage the mind of people to do something for themselves; how to put their gumption to use so that they can be productive in life. I added talking about success to my prayer package because beyond hearing about it, people also need to pray it into fruition.
Contrary to the plan of the voice that brought those thoughts to my mind, I chose not to be threatened but rather, I leveraged on their records, learned from them and created my own brand. I saluted and I am still saluting their courage. I loved what they were doing then and I still love what they are doing now so I benchmarked my ministry as at that time majorly with the leading prayer ministry at the time which was MFM, to see what I could take from there to develop my brand.
If you have followed my story consciously, you would see that in developing my Grit, mentoring was germane for me.
You see, in the race of life, it is necessary for you to be mentored. A mentor helps you to think forward. Mentors give you a push into unfamiliar territories, they gift you a lift on their shoulders.
Now, you may not be able to access every mentor you desire but you can read their minds from the books they have authored. You can attend programmes that they have designed; and you can avail yourself of materials they have launched into the world-These people also know that it will not be possible for them to teach every one, hence their putting their thoughts together in materials for you to access and run with. It is unfortunate that rather than for some people to get these materials and use to their advantage, they would prefer to complain about the cost.
If you are a growth-minded person, the cost of a material that would launch you into relevance should be immaterial to you. Smart people pay for advice to advance in life. Moreover, there is no adequate amount you can pay for knowledge. If you think knowledge is expensive, try ignorance. It kills faster than any disease. (Hosea 4:6) Invest in knowledge, and become a person of influence
and affluence.
In life, you need a mentor who has gone ahead of you because he has seen what you have not seen, he has faced a lot of challenges, and he has solved them so you need to study those principles that worked for him so that the journey of twenty years can become a journey of twenty days for you.
Equally, having a mentor in an area gives you the platform to understudy that person and when your mentor knows that you key into what he does, he would give you the opportunity to showcase what you have on your inside.
When you have the right mentor, he will help you develop your grit and people will be able to perceive you accordingly. They will see that you are connected to a tested person, and once that becomes obvious, once they can see you on the radar of that mentor, they know that you are up to something great.
Mentoring will reduce your marginal error; it will reduce the fatality in your profession and it will place you on your mentor’s shoulder to learn. I need for you to know that neither age nor gender must be allowed to stand in your way of getting a mentor. Those factors should not have anything to do with developing a vision, nurturing your grit and getting empowered with knowledge.
As a matter of fact, humility is one of the needed recipes to develop your grit. Whether your desired mentor is older than you, your age-mate or younger than you, you’ve got to absorb knowledge from the person. And you had better get on to it to help yourself!
If you are considering age and refusing to tap into what he knows, you will be wasting your time. Whether male or female, you had better learn from the person.
To develop your Grit, use Age positively, use Gender positively, use mentorship positively and humble yourself. Humility will open doors for you. You also have to be civil. One of my major mantra is: “Civility costs nothing but earns you everything.”
