Ahead of a leadership conference that he is going to host come November, Pastor of the Daystar Christian Centre, Sam Adeyemi, speaks on the growth of his brand.
As a child, life wasn’t a bed of roses for the man of God, unlike other children of the affluent. But he certainly experienced modest comfort at a point in time.
When his father was a civil servant, he had the kind of fun that children of the middle class have. Later when the old man became a contractor, things turned better for the family and life turned rosier for the young Adeyemi.
Unfortunately, life showed the family another card. Old Adeyemi’s business encountered trouble and finally collapsed. Without invitation, poverty stepped in. That is how the proverbial mouth that used to eat beef began to run after bones.
“I tasted poverty and real hardship. I used to brush my teeth without toothpaste,” Adeyemi says.
According to the pastor, motivational speaker and financial teacher, that singular experience eventually shaped everything he has become in life.
“The experience gave me the capacity for compassion. I cannot forget where I am coming from,” he adds.
He notes that after he accepted Jesus Christ — when he was still an engineering student in a polytechnic — he got a kind of vision in which God situated him in a context where he was teaching a group of people.
This happened in the course of a prayer. He found the idea funny initially, as he did not believe he was cut out for teaching. But his decision to heed the signals has transformed his life and the church that he eventually founded — although he found it tough in the first three years of its existence.
Noting that he is sometimes amazed at the progress Daystar has made, he says what hinders the progress of many people and organisations is what he calls the culture of ‘big-mannism’.
This is bossing around when one is supposed to be a leader — a leader whose armours ought to be compassion, humility and the urge to develop the potentialities of other people.
culled from Punch
