Live At Akure Leaders And Ministers Meeting by Pastor Poju Oyemade: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Choke Points: How Growth Really Happens

Picture two ministries. One rises in healthy steps, climbing, levelling, then climbing again. The other shoots up, stagnates, and because the person never learned the lesson of the plateau, decline sets in. I call that place of stagnation a choke point, and nobody's ministry escapes them. Someone far ahead of you still has hitches; you simply cannot see them because everything they are doing is still aspirational to you. The key to growth and impact is knowing how to navigate choke points, and the difference between the one who keeps rising and the one who declines is how quickly they learn what God is teaching in the plateau.

Pray for Wisdom, Not the Outcome

At a choke point there is a deep dissatisfaction in your heart with how things are going. Romans 8:26 says the Spirit helps our infirmities, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought. God says his thoughts are not your thoughts, in Isaiah 55:8, which means the answer will not readily occur to you no matter how you guess. So if your church is not growing, do not pray for growth; pray for wisdom to know what to do, the way Paul prayed in Colossians 1:9 that we would be filled with the knowledge of his will. Spend time praying in the Spirit until you hit a note of victory, then quietly ask God what he would have you do at this juncture.

I met a young minister in Ethiopia whose crusades draw enormous crowds, and his story, from a childhood prophecy to the word that launched his church, is entirely his own. At his very first service, with eighteen people present, he told a man to rise and be healed, not knowing the man was crippled; the man collapsed, and only at the end of the service did he suddenly get up on his own, and the whole community came the next week. You cannot plan that, which is why the moment you think you have the formula, you have forgotten that God is bigger than you. Do not leave with ten principles for growth; only one thing is needful, communion with the Holy Spirit.

Pay Attention to Insignificant Things

Give attention to small things, to invitations that seem beneath your status. Jeremiah 17:6 describes a man who inhabits the parched places and does not see when good comes. It was not that God was unfaithful; the good simply did not look like good when it arrived. Philippians 4:6 tells us to be anxious for nothing but to pray, and the peace of God will guard the heart, and Job 22:21 says acquaint yourself with him and be at peace, and good will come to you. When prayer brings you into alignment with God, good comes, but people reject it because it seems counterintuitive.

A single question from a Muslim journalist on social media took me to a small book-fair gathering seated on mats, and out of that uncomfortable trip came packed meetings in that region and requests for more. Had I despised that invitation, the door would never have opened. Remember that Jesus reached a whole city through the woman at the well in John 4, exactly the person conventional wisdom said you do not talk to. Good always comes; the reason people miss it is that it does not arrive looking like the big opportunity they imagined.

Mentors and Sent Ones

Do not confuse a mentor with a sent one. A mentor is someone you return to for ongoing counsel, but God is at liberty to send anyone to you once, even a child, even the donkey that spoke to a prophet. When Moses had just parted the Red Sea, the man God used to reorganize his entire ministry in Exodus 18 was his father-in-law, a man with no background in ministry, and he gave that counsel once and did not come back to control him. So when a person says something, you try it, and it works, receive it as from God, but do not turn a one-off word into a permanent controller, and do not gravitate to a mentor by popularity rather than calling.

Do Not Carry the Burden Alone

You may be a powerful minister and still a poor leader, and the mark of a poor leader is doing everything alone to keep power concentrated. In Exodus 18:14 Jethro warned Moses that he would wear himself and the people away, because he was not able to do it alone. Delegation does not mean appointing a single deputy, which invites rebellion; it means distributing responsibility among many so that everyone can see what everyone else is doing.

When Peter and John were threatened, Acts 4:23 says they went back to their own company and reported everything. When Daniel faced a death sentence in Daniel 2:16, he told his companions, they sought mercy together, and the secret was revealed to Daniel; he received it and spoke it, but their prayer backed him. Out of that place of shared weakness came the boldness where even Peter's shadow healed the sick. 1 Corinthians 10:13 promises a way of escape in every temptation, and Paul shows what that way is in 2 Corinthians 1:8, where he was pressed beyond strength in Asia and delivered as the believers helped together by prayer, which he also calls his deliverance in Philippians 1:19. Alone and fruitfulness do not go together, for as Jesus said in John 12:24, a grain of wheat must fall and die to bear fruit. So drop your burdens into a trusted company and let them carry them to God; you will feel lighter, sleep better, and move faster.

Knowledge Is Not Utterance

You may know a thing and still not know how to say it. When captains were sent to Elijah in 2 Kings 1, the way the third one framed his words changed the whole outcome. People respond to utterance, not merely to knowledge, so a person with less knowledge but more utterance will carry the room. That is why Paul, who already knew the mystery, kept asking the churches to pray for utterance, in Ephesians 6:19, Colossians 4:3, and 2 Corinthians 8:7. The same figure said two ways lands differently: a wasted sum stated as billions means nothing to people who have never seen it, but stated as the salaries and pensions of every teacher for generations, it lands. Utterance comes in answer to prayer, so ask God for the right words.

Continue What Others Began

Ministry is not hard once you remove pride. The day God calls you is not the day the work began; you are called to continue something already in existence that has already succeeded, so you cannot fail, and your uniqueness is only a small deviation from it. Moses' calling continued what God had already told Abraham in Genesis 15 about four hundred years. People who know ministry can trace a preacher's lineage as they listen. In John 10:5 the sheep will not follow the voice of a stranger, so the one who refuses to be a continuation of anyone is like a person who insists on inventing his own arithmetic.

When God sends you, he sends you into a field, and often into another's labor. In John 4:35 Jesus lifts their eyes to fields already white, where one sows and another reaps, and says he sent them to reap where they bestowed no labor. Job 8:8 says inquire of the former age, for they shall teach you and utter words from their hearts, and Isaiah 30:20 promises that in adversity your teachers will not be removed and your ears will hear a word behind you. Joel 2:28 says old men dream dreams and young men see visions, and a vision is the building of a former dream, the way Solomon built what David dreamed. So connect to those who went before, and when you cannot reach them in person, a book can carry their grace to you.

Called Versus Sent

Being called is not the same as being sent. When you are sent, it is specific, and you have a burning-bush experience like Moses in Exodus 3, where the bush burns but is not consumed and you are told to take off your shoes. In Luke 4:25 there were many widows, but Elijah was sent to only one; an anointing that is real but not yet sent leaves you like the blind man in Mark 8:24 who saw men as trees, blessed but not yet clear. People came to John the Baptist in Matthew 3 because he was sent.

Here is how you know you are called but not yet sent: you will not have enough money to do your dream, but you will get just enough not to give up, because God is holding you to show you he is with you before you are fully in it. When I began Covenant I was called and not yet sent, and every time I was ready to leave, an envelope would appear under the door and the visas I applied for were refused, because God was holding me. So do not be deceived by packaging and platforms; if you go in prematurely you may shut down an authentic calling, the way Moses, called but not sent, killed a man and fled to become a shepherd. Enter your heart in prayer at that stage, as Daniel did, until the angel comes and you are truly sent.

Every Ministry Needs the Supernatural

There must be a genuine supernatural dimension to your ministry. Pray for the sick and be bold, even though the first person many healing ministers ever prayed for likely died; test it, intercede, and refuse to hide behind shyness. Do not excuse yourself by saying you are only a teacher, because Jesus was a teacher. In Mark 6, where he could do no mighty work because of unbelief, he went into the villages teaching, and it was out of teaching that the miraculous flowed. The key to the miraculous is teaching. If there is no supernatural element under your care, people will honor your words but go elsewhere for power.

Take Your Ministry Beyond the Walls

Do not limit yourself to Sunday and midweek services; come outside the walls and let your ministry, the specific calling you carry, grow the church, because that is how spiritual authority is established. Every growing church has a point of contact with its city beyond the weekly service. When Kenneth Hagin hit his own choke point after nearly a year on the road, God told him to get out of the circle he had been going around, rent his own halls, and put his afternoon sessions into books, moving from a small circle to a far larger one. Social media has now made the local global, so location is no longer an excuse; finances and audiences come from everywhere. Exercise the well of your ministry, cut those clips, put the teaching into books and online, and with real utterance and a connection to a high-impact source, you can reach the nations from wherever you are planted.

Hold Your Five Loaves as Five Thousand

If you preach while discouraged, it cannot have impact, because ministry is spirit and beyond words, and people sense when you do not believe what you are saying. You pass the test of ministry when the number of people you are speaking to no longer counts. Most members of mega churches came out of small churches, and those pastors often hold their churches in a defective way because the size makes them doubt that God is with them, and to the one who despises what he has, even that will be taken away. But every five thousand began as five loaves held in thanksgiving rather than manufactured in arrogance. Be full of gratitude for what is in your hands, pray over the people you already have, and pour your soul into them as Paul did in 1 Thessalonians 2:8, for those you disciple are the ones who will carry your work to the next level. Even if some betray you, do not withdraw; pour in more.