Rev’d. Dr. Francis Bola Akin-John.

I love pastors. Through my personal ministry and various platforms, God has allowed me to partner with many, helping them address issues that are pertinent to church and ministry of today. I’ve learned that many pastors struggle to find people who will invest in them and help them grow as individuals, leaders and pastors.
Recently I had a pastor ask me for my “best advice” for other pastors. Wow! That’s hard to say. I’ve learned so much through the pastors who have invested in me and by personal ministry experiences. It’s hard to summarize all that I’ve learned. It could probably fill dozen of books, but at least I can offer some here;
Some few years back, I wrote a book, ‘101 Ministry Lessons’ about practical lessons I have learnt in decades of ministry. That book was a mighty blessings to thousands that got a copy to buy or read, judging from the testimonies received in my office. Currently, am updating the book, but decided to give some twenty one of those lessons as encouragement to pastors and gospel ministers that will have access to this.

Here are 21 words of encouragement for pastors:

1. Run from sins that sink pastors.

Yes, there are sins that are peculiar to pastoral ministry. You can abuse your high and elevated position for sex, money, fame and power. Those sins, even though done in secret will eventually sink you. People may rumor about you, but the rumor will die down naturally if you are not found culpable. But if you are secretly guilty of what you are being accused of, it will turn to scandals of great proportion that will sink your work.

2. Don’t grieve but obey the Holy Spirit of God.

Learn to walk and work in obedience to God’s Spirit. Don’t grieve the Spirit of our Father through flagrant disobedience. Seek His leading and let Him be the president of your life and ministry.

3. Choose your friends wisely… but choose friends.
Don’t attempt to lead alone. Too many pastors avoid close friendships because they’ve been hurt. They trusted someone with information who used it against them. Finding friends you can trust and be real with means you’ll sometimes get injured, but the reward is worth it.

4. The church can never love your family as much as you do.
Your family needs you more than the church does. They can get another pastor. Your family doesn’t want another you. You’ll have to learn to say “no,” learn how to balance and prioritize your time, and be willing to delegate to others in the church…. Don’t let your ministry destroy your family and equally don’t allow your family to destroy your ministry.
5. If you protect your Sabbath day, your Sabbath day can better protect you.
You’ll wear out quickly without a day a week to rejuvenate. God designed us this way. Take advantage of His provision. Take time to rest. You may not rest like everyone else… for me rest doesn’t mean doing nothing… but you need time away from the demands of ministry regularly. Lead your church to understand you can’t be everywhere every time. You owe it to yourself, your family, your church and your God.
6. You have influence… use it well.
The pastorate comes with tremendous power and responsibility. It’s easy to abuse or take things for granted. Don’t. Humility welcomes the hand of God on your ministry. Use your pastoral influence for God, not for personal enrichment or aggrandizement.
7. No amount of accountability or structure will keep you from temptation if your heart is impure.
Above all else, guard your heart. (Proverbs 4:23) Avoid any hint of temptation. Don’t let your heart go astray, because the heart of the matter is a matter of the heart. Look for the warning signs your heart is drifting. Keep your heart saturated with God’s Word and in prayer.
8. Let God lead.
You can do some things well. God can do the impossible. Whom do you think should ultimately be leading the church? You’ll be surprised how much more effective your leadership will be when it’s according to His will and not yours. See His leading. Walk and work under His divine camera.
9. Don’t ever handle the Word of God deceitfully.
Though we live in a fast changing world, yet the Word of God remains sacrosanct all the time. Believe that word and preach, teach it faithfully. Don’t try to change, innovate or twist the word to cover peoples sins or to please them. Be faithful, live the Word and teach it accordingly.
10. If you can dream it, God can dream it bigger.
Don’t dismiss the seemingly ridiculous things God calls you to do. They won’t always make sense to others or meet their immediate approval, but God’s ways will prove best every time.
11. Keep Jesus the center of focus in the church.
You’ll never have a money problem, a people problem, or a growth problem if people are one with Jesus. Preach and show Jesus to each of the people God allowed to come under your shepherdship. When Jesus is lifted up, He will surely draw men and women unto Himself
12. Your personal health affects the health of the church.
Take care of yourself relationally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This, too, requires discipline, balance, and prioritizing, but if, to the best of your ability, you strive to be healthy in every area of your life, as a good shepherd, your people will be more likely to follow your example.
13. The people in your church deserve authenticity.
Not only should you be honest about who you, it helps to keep you from trying to meet unreal expectations. Also, it will help the people in your church to be transparent with you and others. Don’t be someone you’re not. Be someone worthy to follow, but make sure you’re living it… not just teaching it.
14. You’ll never make everyone happy.
If you try, you’ll be very unhappy… and very unproductive. Make sure your motive is pure in all you do. Do everything from the heart of love, that will compensate for not pleasing everybody.
15. Your calling is to a person… Jesus.
That means you are working for Jesus. You ultimately report to Jesus. It is the pleasure of Jesus you are seeking. There will be days your calling is challenged by others. You’ll be tempted to cave in to the pressure of those with the loudest voices. Don’t forget who holds the title to your life. It is His church, not yours. So be true to Him.
16. Use you pulpit to bless and build people for God.
Many pulpits have lost power to transform people for God because it has been polluted by immoral, unsanctified liars jesters, corrupt politicians and idolatrous traditional kings. Preach from a holy, sacred and sanctified pulpit. Preach the truth of Christ uncensored. Exhort, challenge, rebuke and inspire from your pulpit.
17. Focus on your calling and giftings.
Don’t ever dabble into what Christ did not call you into. Let your calling and gift be the undergird of your ministry. Seek to work by what he called you into.
18. Never do ministry in competition with others.
Stop comparing yourself with others, for every ministry is different. Run only according to God’s timetable for your life.
19. Be accountable to a godly mentor.
You can’t succeed in ministry when you are a Lone Ranger. Prayerfully search out a godly mentor that can hold you accountable to godly living, not someone who is only interested in your tithes and seeds. A mentor that love and respect you but doesn’t fear to speak the truth to you, always.
20. Don’t ever help God to perform spurious miracles.
Be content and prayerful to let God do His work through you. Don’t put yourself under pressure to perform miracles, just to measure up to the expectations of people. Pray for people in need, but leave the result with God. You are never a miracle worker, only Jesus is. If you go and get strange powers to prophecy and perform miracles, you are simply setting up yourself for a great fall and judgment by the Lord
21. Don’t fight for Money, Position and Power in Ministry.
Don’t ever do ministry for money. We surely need money for ministry, but we are not in ministry for money. So, stop using gimmicks to get money in ministry. There are blood money, occultic money that can be given to you that will signal the end of your ministry. Beware of money, power and position. Don’t ever fight for them. Let God give you when and how He likes it for you.
22. Be an obedient child to God.
If you read your bible very well, all those who amount to anything in life and ministry were obedient. They display complete, total, regular, continuous and consistent obedience to the Word and will of God for their lives and ministries. Is it Noah, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, Paul and down through the centuries. Make sure you imbibe the Spirit of obedience to the Lord in everything. What one obedience will do, 100 days of fasting and prayers will not do it.

‘Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ’ (1Cor.11:1)

Introduction.
Doing ministry in His steps is about doing whatever you do in ministry in the way that Jesus did His own. In other words, if you are doing ministry, you will never go into anything that Jesus did not go into. A cursory look around us today reveals that many ministers of God are instead of doing ministry in the steps of Jesus, rather devised their own way of doing it. We may now ask ourselves, if our calling in ministry is divine, how is it that many of us don’t follow the footsteps of our caller?
The following are some of the reasons why many ministers of God are doing ministry their own way rather than following the footsteps of their caller, Jesus Christ;

WHEN YOU ARE NOT A DISCIPLE.
‘And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me’ (Lk.9:23)

In the scripture above, Jesus makes it clear to His followers, the condition for discipleship. Discipleship is all about denying yourself and following Him. It follows that whoever is not following His footsteps is not a disciple. If you are not a disciple, you will find it difficult to follow His footsteps and you are simply not in business with Him.

WHEN YOU ARE IMPATIENT.
One of the major reasons why many of us don’t follow His footsteps is that we are often in a hurry, as we use others to measure our own progress in ministry. We often forget that no two lives or ministries are the same. The fact that someone has achieved something does not mean that you must also do the same. Another fact we often forget is that we don’t know the story of that other minister that we are trying to copy. It is not all progress in ministry that is of God.

LACK OF VISION.
What did God really ask you to do for Him? There are many that just because they are gifted, felt that they should become general overseers and they became one. There are many who are running without a message. If you run without a message, you are bound to do things that are not in line with the master’s expectations.

2 Samuel 18:22-23
‘Then said Ahimaaz the son of Zadok yet again to Joab, But howsoever, let me, I pray thee, also run after Cushi. And Joab said, Wherefore wilt thou run, my son, seeing that thou hast no tidings ready? But howsoever, said he, let me run. And he said unto him, Run. Then Ahimaaz ran by the way of the plain, and overran Cushi’ (2Sam.18:22-23).

The way Cushi was ordered aside by King David is the way many ministers are being ordered aside after laboring either when no one sent them or they don’t have message.

LACK OF GENUINE MENTORS.
The role of a genuine mentor is crucial in the life of any minister of God. When there is no one that can speak over your life, there is the tendency for you fall out of line with Jesus. However, it is very important for you to select a godly mentor who has an abiding testimony in his walk with God. This is very important because the life of your mentor has a way of reflecting in your life. A mentor with failed marriage may make you to feel that your wife is not really relevant in ministry. If you keep hearing that time and over again, you may buy into it and ruin your relationship with your spouse ignorantly.

LACK OF GOOD FRIENDS.
Whoever you are moving with, has a way of affecting your life. Consequently, you must be careful of those you move with, including your close friends and associates in ministry.

SPOUSE THAT IS NOT ROOTED IN GOD.
Your spouse will either encourage or lead you astray in walking with the Master in life and ministry. When your spouse is rooted in God, she serves as a veritable instrument that may be used by the Holy Spirit to warn you against doing things that is not in line with God.

IGNORANCE OF THE CONSEQUENCES.
There are a lot of things that we do in ministry that we wouldn’t have been doing if we really know that there will be consequences or we know the effect that it will have on our fulfillment in life and our eternity.

FORGETTING THAT YOU WILL RENDER ACCOUNT.
Many also don’t walk in the steps on the master in ministry because they forget that one day, they will stand before God to render the account of how that ran the ministry that God committed into their hands.


CONSEQUENCES.
Since ministry is all about doing what God asks you to do, there are consequences when you don’t follow the footsteps of Jesus in doing it. Following are some of the consequences;

STRUGGLES.
Because you are not following his steps, you may be struggling in areas of ministry where you would have otherwise found rest.

YOUR MINISTRY MAY BECOME SNARE TO THE BODY OF CHRIST.
When you fall out of step with the master, you may start doing things that will make people may generalize about the body of Christ as a result of your evil ways.

STUNTED VISION.
When God gives you a vision, you are expected not to walk outside His ways to actualize the vision. When you start walking out of the steps of Jesus, you are most likely to go outside the vision that God has given you. This will make the original vision that God has given you to become stunted while you pursue your own agenda.

OCCULTISM.
One of the major consequences of walking out of steps with Jesus is that at a stage you may start seeking after other gods to seek help, since God will not pay for what He has not ordered. Many of the occultic pastors became so, not intentionally but were led into it by circumstances which arose from not following in the steps of the master.

BECOMING A MENTOR THAT LEAD YOUNGER MINISTERS ASTRAY.
A minister of God that is not walking in His will is a potential destroyer of destinies. As you age in ministry, there are younger ministers that will look unto you as mentor by the reason of age or experience. There is the tendency for you to mislead such mentees into doing what you are doing.

LACK OF FULFILLMENT IN LIFE AND MINISTRY.
There is no way for someone that is not doing ministry in the steps of Jesus to have a fulfilled life as a minister of God except he repents. Apostle. The testimony of Paul in 2 Tim.4:7-8 should be something that every minister of God will aim at but which is unattainable for someone who ran his ministry independent of the one that called him into ministry.

Conclusion.

Every minister of God who is sure that his calling came from God should know that the sure example which will not lead the person astray is to walk in the steps of Jesus Christ, our model. Unfortunately for a considerable percentage of us, there are a lot of factors, some of which has been identified above that prevents us from doing so. Despite all the factors working against such goal, you should overcome them to run the race according to the ripples of engagement which is stated in Romans 12:1-2;
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
So help us God!

THE MINISTER’S HEALTH.

TO ALL OF US WHO ARE BETWEEN 40-90 YEARS OLD, HERE ARE SOME SIMPLE AND USEFUL SUGGESTIONS FOR EACH OF US

Always check:
1. Our blood pressure
2. blood sugar
3. triglycerides
4.cholesterol

Minimize:
1. Salt
2. Sugar
3. Bleached flour
4. Dairy products
5. Processed products.

Food needed:
1. Vegetables
2. Legumes
3. Beans
4. Nuts
5. Eggs
6. Cold pressed oil (olive, coconut, …)
7. Fruits

Three things you should try to forget:
1. Our Age
2. Our Past
3. Our Complaints

Three essential things:
1. Our Friends / comrades;
3. Our positive thoughts;
4. A clean and welcoming home.

Three basic things:
1. Always smile / laugh
2. Do regular physical activity at your own pace
3. Check and control your weight

Seven essential things:
1. Do not wait until we are thirsty to drink water;
3. Do not wait until we are sleepy to sleep;
4. Do not wait until we are tired to rest;
5. Do not wait until we are sick to have medical examinations;
6. Do not wait for miracles to trust God;
7. Never lose confidence in ourselves
8. Let’s stay positive and always hope for a better tomorrow.

GOOD HEALTH TO YOU.

Sleep is such an all important part of life!
I didn’t understand this until a certain time in my life when I lost the peace of a good night rest…I was in training to become a specialist.🙄 Despite this change in sleep rhthym, I still got me some shut eye some nights whenever I got a chance to close my eyes.😴
Moving forward, after this all important training, I got me accommodations in a noisy neighborhood which literally murdered my sleep. I lost the ability to sleep when I wanted due to some religious activities nearby.😭
This poor sleep transformed me to someone I didn’t recognize. Fortunately, someone told me about modifying my environment, I did and I got my peaceful sleep back
Sleep is so important that it is mentioned in the holy book and I quote “the Lord gives his beloveth sleep”

Ability to have a good night sleep is used in medicine as an indicator of recovery and well-being. Nursing care actually documents if the patient had a peaceful night sleep.
Sleep is good for mental health and it’s deprivation can actually mess up your mental health. A sleep deprived person is a cranky person.🥴
Sleep deprivation can also mess up your physical health, put you at risk of heart diseases amongst other things.
Sleep gives your body the opportunity to “repair”itself.
Little wonder there is a medical specialty dedicated to sleep and there are many sleep labs researching sleep. That is how important sleep is.
I have noticed a lot of over achievers telling us how they sleep only three to four hours in 24hours.
They go further to inform us how any serious minded individual should burn the midnight candle🌅
They don’t stop there, they go on to tell us how if we sleep more than four hours a day we shall remain poor.
Fair enough, they may be right but then I have this question to ask…
To what end is your wealth and achievements if you are not in good health (physical,mental, social, spiritual) to enjoy it?

Adequate Sleep contributes to good health.
Sleep is a physiologic requirement and we all need adequate sleep. It is so natural that you need many tricks to stay awake when you should be asleep.
Think about sleep and what it means to your well-being.
#livingmybestlife

Dr. Mary Ugalahi

It is with great joy that I present to you this edition of The ABIDING MINISTER, a bi annual publication aimed at keeping you informed about the the Abiding Grace Foundation. This edition is designed to serve as resource material for the 18th Annual Abiding Ministers’ Conference, as the the materials for the conference are included.

A new feature of the journal is that it now has columns for the ministers’ home and as well as health apart from updates on the activities of the Ministry. Every article from Rev’d Dr. Francis Bola Akin John and my own are focused on the theme of the 18th annual Abiding Ministers’ Conference; WALKING IN HIS STEPS.

For the first time, the journal will be online on the website of the ministry’s well our other social media channels. Henceforth, you may reach us on our website and other social media channels as follows:
Website- www.abidinggrace01.com
Facebook- Abiding Grace Ministries
Whattapp- MARRIAGE MATTERS
Instagram- abidinggracefoundation & mattersarisinginmarriage

We hope you will find the edition helpful as you strive to walk in the steps of our Master Jesus in your journey of faith.

Welcome to the world of Abiding Grace!

Mike Oluniyi
April 2021.