Aligning Anointing With Leadership Strategy by Pastor Poju Oyemade: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

One of the most important things learned in ministry is this: training people and pouring your heart into them, no matter how small the church, is never wasted work. In the book of Acts, wherever the Bible speaks of multiplication, it is preceded by discipleship, training that causes multiplication. Following the Holy Spirit for every principle matters, because a principle that worked for someone else at their level, without the Holy Spirit's leading, will not automatically work for you.

Ministry and Leadership

A person can be a very effective minister and still be a poor leader. Leadership is not an inherent virtue; it is something that has to be learned and cultivated. One of the biggest temptations for a founder is the inability to delegate effectively, because the initial breakthroughs came through personal anointing and grace, and it feels as though amplifying that same anointing is what will carry the ministry to the next level.

Moses was heavily anointed, he parted the Red Sea. Yet Jethro, his father-in-law, told him that the way he had structured his leadership was wrong. Even a heavily anointed minister has to catch up on the leadership side, because poor leadership can destroy what strong anointing has built. What the anointing brings, bad leadership can destroy.

Four Patterns of Growth

• Straight growth does not exist. Every leader plateaus somewhere; a person operating at a much smaller scale often cannot even perceive another's plateau, because the scale is so different.
• Some break through a plateau without understanding what caused the breakthrough. Because the lesson was never learned, when a decline eventually sets in, it becomes very difficult to reverse, the hardest thing in ministry and organizational life is reversing a decline.
• Two other patterns look alike, except that in one, the transition times between levels keep getting shorter, because the person has learned exactly what adjustment to make each time growth stalls. Proverbs 4:18 describes the path of the just as shining brighter and brighter, between one degree of brightness and the next, something was learned.

Two examples of learning to make the right adjustment:

• Jonah disobeyed God, and a ferocious wind arose while he slept at the back of the boat; when the sailors found him and cast him out, the wind ceased. It would be easy to build a teaching around identifying the Jonah responsible for chaos in your life, the unconcerned person, asleep while everyone else struggles. But when Jesus said "let us go to the other side," a storm also arose, even though the disciples were in the perfect will of God, and the one solving the problem was also asleep at the back of the boat. Using yesterday's lesson on today's challenge can mean throwing Jesus Christ out of the boat, mistaking Him for a Jonah, and making the problem permanent. The most unlikely person in a church can be the one who brings growth.
• A baby cries to be fed, and every adult in the room responds, even a leader of note will turn at the sound. The baby masters this method of communication. But there comes a point where crying no longer works, a baby cannot get a job or get married by crying. What brought growth at one level of ministry can hinder growth at the next; each level requires unlearning certain habits and relearning new ones.

Ask for Counsel, Not Just Relief

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Pastor Poju Oyemade

The Covenant Nation

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Kenneth Copeland once shared that his ministry carried a recurring million-dollar debt. During a twenty-one day fast, God told him that sixteen years earlier He had instructed him to give ten percent of the ministry's income. Copeland obeyed the first half, but never asked what to do with it, so it took sixteen years for the shortfall to catch up with him. Solving problems comes from taking counsel from God, not simply asking Him to remove the difficulty.

Genesis 25:22, when the children struggled together in Rebecca's womb, she inquired of the Lord rather than only praying for the struggle to stop. God's answer revealed that two nations were in her womb, and that the elder would serve the younger, a mystery of flesh and spirit that Isaac never fully knew, since it was only in inquiry that Rebecca understood Jacob, not Esau, would carry the inheritance. Without that inquiry, whatever God moves in a person's life to promote can be misused, for lack of understanding of the purpose behind the promotion.

Leadership: The Burden Is Not Meant to Be Carried Alone

1 Corinthians 10:13 promises no temptation beyond what is common to man, and that God provides a way of escape. It does not mean God will never let a challenge exceed personal capacity to handle it alone. The same author, Paul, wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:8 that he and his companions were burdened beyond measure, beyond strength, to the point of despairing even of life. The way of escape came through companions: 2 Corinthians 1:11 speaks of others helping together in prayer, and Philippians 1:19 credits deliverance to "your prayers and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ."

• In Acts 4:23, after Peter and John were threatened, they went to their own companions and reported everything, the companions then raised their voices together in prayer.
• Daniel took his problem to his companions, who went into prayer with him.

Illustration: Heavy equipment can be moved slowly and painfully by several men each straining to carry one piece alone, or quickly and efficiently by the same men working together to carry one piece at a time before returning for the next. That corporate effort is the way of escape scripture describes.

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by Apostle Emmanuel Iren

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Jethro told Moses plainly that he could not do it alone. When God said in the beginning, "It is not good for man to be alone," He was not speaking only of marriage, isolation weakens anyone. When the early church prayed corporately for signs and wonders to be done through God's servants, the result in Acts 5 was that even Peter's shadow healed the sick, not by Peter's faith alone, but by the faith of the whole company.

Eyes That See

Not all labor leads to spiritual profit and impact. There is a difference between what could be called grace works and works works. 1 Corinthians 15:10, Paul said, "By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain, but I laboured more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." Paul's work rate was higher than anyone's, yet he remained unhurried, because his labor flowed from grace, not striving.

Romans 11:5-6 distinguishes work from grace: if by grace, then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. When God opens a person's eyes to see what season they are in, they enter into it and experience a season of breakthrough, finances flow, growth happens with ease. Attempting to do something outside of that season, building when it is not the season to build, for instance, produces only struggle, works works, out of sync with what God is doing at that time.

Ecclesiastes 10:15 says the labor of fools wearies them, because they do not even know how to get to the city. Much activity without impact is often a sign that the eyes have not yet been opened to see what should actually be done.

Genesis 19:10-11, the men at Sodom were struck with blindness and wearied themselves trying to find a door that was right in front of them. Whenever eyes are closed, people can labor endlessly around a breakthrough that is already before them but invisible to them.

The Story of Hagar

Genesis 21:10-19, Sarah told Abraham that Ishmael, his firstborn, had to be sent away. It was grievous to Abraham, for Ishmael was his son. Though Abraham was extremely wealthy in silver, gold, and cattle, he sent Ishmael away with only a loaf of bread and a bottle of water. When the water was spent, Hagar cast the child under a shrub, sat some distance away, and wept, but did not pray. It was the boy who cried out, and God heard the voice of the lad, not the mother.

God's answer was not new provision but a change of sight: Genesis 21:19 says God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. The well was already there. She simply had not seen it.

The breakthrough of a ministry is often already present. The problem is not lack of provision, but unopened eyes. Paul prayed for the believers he wrote to, not that God would give them more, but that He would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation, the eyes of their understanding being enlightened (Ephesians 1:17-18). Even the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, walking with the risen Jesus and hearing Him open the scriptures until their hearts burned, did not recognize Him until He specifically opened their understanding. There is a difference between having scripture opened and having understanding opened.

What produced growth to five hundred will not be what produces growth to five thousand. What produces five thousand will not produce a hundred thousand. Continuing to ask God to repeat the same provision, rather than asking Him to open fresh eyes for the next season, keeps a person circling the same plateau.

Closing Illustration

An elderly man was brought to a dental clinic. Before giving an injection, the dentist asked what he had eaten that morning. Wanting to appear refined in such a setting, he claimed he had eaten cornflakes, fried eggs, and sausages. The injection was given, and what came up was plain pap and beans. No matter what a person packages on the outside, life eventually injects them, and what is truly inside will surface.