When I (Sunday Adelaja) had first arrived in Ukraine, I had determined not to start another church because I couldn’t understand why God had me leave Minsk, Belarus, and the new church I had started there. All of my plans had been in place, and I knew God had told me to plant the church there; but then suddenly I was gone. Although I had planted several other churches in Belarus and then had turned them over to nationals, this time I felt that I should pastor the new church. I felt that giving up the leadership of the church in Minsk was like a breast-feeding mother giving up her suckling infant.
When I asked the Lord why He didn’t allow me to pastor those churches, His answer was unforgettable: He had instructed me to give them up in their infancy because He never wanted my heart to be embedded in them. That is to say, He didn’t ever want me to see a church as my own corporation with myself as the head, owner and operator. It was then that God specifically taught me never to build a denomination. Neither did He ever want me to build a pyramid or hierarchy answerable to me. Instead, I was always to see myself as the manager, who is entrusted only with the temporary caretaking of God’s church. That meant that at any time, the true owner of the church could order me either to leave that position or to give over the church to someone else as he instructed me.
God knew that I needed to learn to detach myself from the churches I planted in Belarus, despite the fact that they were only in the birthing stage. I learned that the church must never be my own thing! Even though the Lord may use me to start a church or ministry, I must not see myself as the president for life or the supreme authority. I am there only as long as He allows me to be, and I should always be ready to relinquish it if need be, maybe for another mission field or another country.
Once that lesson was firmly established in my heart and in my mind, God released me to plant a new church in Kiev. This time He directed me to pastor it, not to turn it over in its infancy to the charge of another.
Today, by the grace of God, our church in Kiev is well over 20,000 people strong. But because of the lesson the Lord taught me — never to attach my heart to the work but only to Him — I am ever ready by the grace of God to hand over the ministry to someone else at anytime, as the Lord instructs. This freedom is probably one of my greatest assets in ministry today. Nor am I afraid to release pastors, ministers, evangelists and apostles from our ministry to independently start a fresh work.
We now have 20 branches from our church in Kiev; they all have their own church name, structure, financial policies and accountability. This is also the case with over 300 more daughter churches. All are free to relate to me as the senior pastor, or apostolic covering, which they gladly do. Thanks to this policy, we have never experienced a split or break from our church. All of our churches know that they have already been released to become an independent work if they so wish. My obligation is to help them get their feet on the ground, help them financially for a year, train them spiritually and release them to accomplish God’s will through them. From then on, they have the choice whether or not to remain affiliated.
My relationships are so strong with the ministers I mentor that I have decided never to build an organization. I want to invest my life in building leaders. My dream is not to leave behind an organization when I die, but rather it is to leave a legacy of men and women who have a vision to spread the good news of the Kingdom worldwide. I think this focus is one of the reasons the Lord has chosen to bless our work, giving us over 300 churches in only eight years.
I do not doubt that in the years to come we will see an even greater acceleration of growth, because it is only now that most of our new believers are attaining maturity. There is nothing that can stop the potential of a church that is totally released to do for God anything that the Lord calls it to do. There is tremendous freedom when people know that they are not building an empire for the person at the top.
My goal in ministry is to raise up leaders and teach them what the Lord has taught me. To this end, I have raised a team of 12 pastors and leaders, whom I train as apostles and with whom I spend up to 10 hours weekly. My first apostolic team has already been sent out by God’s direction to plant new churches in other parts of the world. I continue to mentor and train a second apostolic team.
(From the book Out Of Africa by Peter Wagner and Joseph Thompson, pg 47-49, 54)