•Founder & Snr. Pastor AKINTOLA SAMUEL Tells City People
If you meet Pastor Akintola Samuel for the very first time, you will fall in love with him instantly. You will get addicted to his warm personality. Even when he speaks, you will want to listen to him. You will want to hear him out.
He has a way of picking his words and making sure he delivers his lines in a simple but appealing way.
He is one of the new generation men of God who run Ministries that are growing by the day. He is a single man, who loves to be called by his name, Akintola Samuel. He hardly puts a prefix to his name.
Even the title of Pastor, he sparingly uses. This gentleman is a Relationship Therapist, Certified Life Coach, Accredited Management Consultant, Workplace Psychologist, International Conference Speaker, and Pragmatic Teacher of God’s Word.
He is the founder and Senior Pastor of The Gateway Church, which he likes to call an excellence-driven Christian faith community in Lagos, committed to changing lives and raising spiritually-mature men and women to become leaders in every industry and field of play. He is passionately obsessed with helping career people and business owners make it big in the marketplace.
Last week, City People got him to share with us the story of the church. “The Gateway Church was officially 7 this year. It has been 7 years”, he explained. “The Gateway Church actually exists to raise devoted followers of Christ to become significant in the marketplace.
One thing I noticed that was missing in many people’s Christian walk, is that when they give their lives to Christ and get born again, then what next? I grew up in a Christian home.
I know a lot of people who are Christians, also grew up in a Christian home. But the question is: after Salvation what next?
I also say it humorously that the only reason why you became born-again is to get to heaven. The moment you received Jesus, you should have dropped dead right there and just go to heaven. So, there is a reason why you are still here. There must be a reason and a purpose that is bigger in God’s Agenda and God’s plan than just getting saved. I realised that the answer to that question is in Genesis 1&2. The first thing that God gave to man was work. He gave it to the Male and Female gender.
That means there is a responsibility, there is something we are supposed to achieve on earth. Growing up there is this visual image we all have of God, as one big, old man sitting on the throne, stationery. But Jesus came and changed that narrative. He said the works I see my father do. It means God is just not sitting down stationary. He is at work.
That is the approach and the mindset that we have as a church, that when people give their lives to Christ, and they become fully devoted followers of Christ, it doesn’t just end there. They are supposed to be significant, to stand out in their field of play. God is interested in our work. Our Walk and Work of faith are not supposed to be separate entities, as it were. They are supposed to be one and the same.
That is the focus of The Gateway Church, that is what gave birth to The Gateway Church”.
Why does the church also focus a lot on Relationships, Marriage, and Being Single?
“It is because I believe man is not just a spirit. Whilst most ministries focus on just the spiritual aspects of human development, we take the holistic approach. All my needs are not just spiritual, even as a Pastor, you are called a Man of God. You have to be a man first before you become a man of God. There are things everybody deals with but sometimes the church doesn’t talk about them. For us, we believe in approaching ministry from a holistic standpoint, which affects the Spirit, the Soul and the Body. They are all interrelated.
That has to do with why we talk about Marriage. Marriage is such a critical aspect of our life and society. It is a decision that can make or break your life. Every person that turns out to be a good citizen, they were a product of a family. Everyone that turns out to be a problem for society, is a product of society.
That is one of the reasons why we talk a lot about Relationships. We also talk about Finances. As a church, we also talk about how people can start businesses, and how they can run businesses because we have realised that a larger percentage of new businesses fail. Statistics show that 95% of new businesses fail between the first 5 to 10 years. So we teach them how do you run a business. How do you make a business successful? Those are things we talk about. We have a service that we call the Life Master Class, every Sunday that has to do with Life, apart from spiritual growth and development. We talk about that for just 1 hour, from 8 am to 9 am on Sunday morning. And every last Sunday of the month, we call the service Love Lounge, which is where we talk about Marriage, Relationships and everything.
The reason for doing that is that we want to take a holistic approach to meeting the needs of people. If you study the Bible critically, you will see that Jesus actually addressed all these things.
He said (the spirit of the Lord is upon me. For he has anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor.) The first thing he addressed was the Financial and Economic situation of people. He didn’t say the spirit of God is upon me and he has anointed me to take people to heaven.
Yes, when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, according to scriptural standards, you will make heaven.
But, what is going to happen between that time you accept him as your Lord and Saviour and the time you actually go to heaven.”
