Reverend Yinka Ojo is a mentor to ministers, missionary church planter, pastor, healing evangelist and investor. He is the senior pastor of Grace Family Church , which he co-founded with his lovely wife Rev. (Mrs.) Adeola Ojo. Known as the home of World Changers and history makers, the church has developed into a multi-congregational network of seven churches. He is a member of the Fellowship of Inner City Word of

The name Grace Family
The name is a revelation from God because the body of Christ is a family. There have been a lot of divisions in this body, a lot of disjointing because of names. Grace Family Church is a place where families are catered for.

The family is the bedrock of the society. Whatever system we find in the world, people that run it must come from a family and God has created the world in a family setting. After Adam was created, He created Eve that they may live in a family setting. Our relationship with Christ is a family setting. The body of Christ, the church is the bride while Christ is the head. So the family is very central to the things of God and He gives His grace. So in these two senses, we derive the name of the church.

Our goal is to build a place where the family, the grandfather, the father, mother, singles, brothers, children will be ministered to. Every strata of the society will always get something here hence, we have various fellowships in the church.

For the vision you have, the church here seems too small for the family.
Thanks you. Already, we have bought piece of land at about six minutes drive from here. We had our ground breaking ceremony during our convention in December. We hope to have our headquarters built there. However, in this church, we have four services every Sunday morning and all the services are chocked up. So we actually need a bigger place and the Lord is listening to us on that already.

What is your background like?
I was born in a family I will describe as nominal Christians. I grew up in an Anglican setting where I had water baptism but I was not saved. When I got admitted into the University of Ibadan in 1982 to study Geology, things changed. At the University, a friend invited me to another friend's room where I met another person who began to speak about Christ to me.

The witnessing made the bible to come afresh in such a way that I saw Christianity in a new light. And it appealed to me so much that I yielded. I said the sinner's prayers that same day. The brother began to visit me and two weeks later, he came and I got the gift of the Holy Spirit and that was how it all began and my life took another dimension.

I started attending the campus fellowship, going out with them to preach Christ and getting people born again. Not too long after, I found myself in the leadership cadre of the Rhema Fellowship now called Victory Fellowship. One day, the fellowship president called me that I would be preaching the following week. I was kind of stunned by this but rather than be afraid, I began to pray and get prepared.

"... this church is not just a church as we know it, but a kind of centre, an outreach where we reach out to sinners wherever they are, get them saved, nurture them from being just converts into being disciples..."

Apparently, the president had seen what I did not see. While I went on seeking the Lord, He spoke to me that He has a calling upon my life but I never knew what dimension it would take. At about the time I was graduating, I went on seeking the Lord and He said I should just go on preparing myself. I had my youth service in Port Harcourt where I had an ample opportunity to pray, fast and read the bible. The youth service period was almost a free period for me because we had virtually nothing to do.

That was when the Lord told me that after my service that should proceed to Kaduna to serve under Pastor Tunde Bolanta of Restoration Chapel. And after that, He would tell me what to do. I went to Kaduna where I was between 1987 and 1990.

After that, I returned to Ibadan where my wife and I started our church in a very humble way. We started with two to three people, having midweek services, then Sunday services. Through perseverance and the faithfulness of God, we have grown to having branches, three in Ibadan, the headquarter in Lagos, one in Abuja, one in Cotonou, republic of Benin and one in Ireland. We are still counting.

Challenges:
The initial challenge was that I have to grow in stages and in phases. Like any man, I had thought the church would grow big very quickly; we would start speaking to thousands of people in a short while. The urge to grow big was there but God will take you in stages.

The second challenge is that when your church has not gotten a big name or such flamboyant members, or the church is not so big, people tend to look at you as small. It is often difficult to make people understand that you are not in this calling to compete for big names but to get people saved, have His grace and move on to reaching mankind. And as God will bless you, He will.

Not everybody wants to identify with a project when it is small and looks so insignificant. That was also another challenge. But God has taught me so early in my Christian life to trust in Him and be prayerful. So all these challenges drive me further into prayers.

Parental feelings about your calling:
Like most parents always have low regard for children becoming pastors, I had my share of opposition. This is because I was the first graduate in my family and more so I studied Geology which would have made me work in an oil company. And parents would be glad because of the fat salary paid in oil companies. So when I told them of the calling , they all thought other wise.

The first two years was very hectic for me but I stood my ground and gradually, they began to see reason. I prayed for them and told them that the Lord I am serving does not leave His servants in penury, this God will take care of everybody. So all I can say today is that God has been faithful over the years.

Convincing his wife about his calling:
Interestingly enough, I did not encounter such problems like other people. My wife is an exceptional person who has also known the Lord long ago. We met while in the university. She was also in the leadership cadre of the fellowship and was also preaching. Inside her, she knew she was called and when I told her of my calling, it was two called people meeting.

This has helped us to grow because we complement each other. When I'm not around, she takes over and nobody misses me. There is a great anointing on her life. She has being a big blessing to me.

Surmounting the challenge of building the first church:
The first church we build was in Ibadan and this was through series of miracles. Essentially, God will bring some people around you to actualize the dream. It might be only one person to support you and this might not be at the time you are expecting it. But you have to stand on the word of the Lord.

We must recognise that often, it might not be at the time we expect God to do it. God has specialised that act of showing up at the last minute. Things might be so difficult that you might want to throw in the towel, and at that point, the Lord will show up. God is never in hurry. He will never be late either. Man calculates but showing up is for God.

Vision Statement:
We are a family church that reaches out to the lost locally and globally, raising up strong believers through preaching the integrity of God's word and embracing the flow of the anointing.

What this means is that this church is not just a church as we know it, but a kind of centre, an outreach where we reach out to sinners wherever they are, get them saved, nurture them from being just a convert into being a disciple. This is why we say we want to develop strong discipleship. So many people claim to attend different churches but their lives are not better than those who do not at all. What is lacking there is discipleship.

The snag here is that a church that believes in strong discipleship will not explode over night because we are all humans. We all have to die to the flesh and to change our ways.

" We met while in the university. She was also in the leadership cadre of the fellowship and was also preaching. Inside her, she knew she was called and when I told her of my calling, it was two called people meeting. "

Satisfied by the quality of sermons coming from our pulpits?
Certainly no. A big N O. The reason being that the bible says pastors should rightly divide the word of truth. But what I see today, there is so much imbalance in the preaching and teachings. We can take any portion of the bible and make any doctrine of them as we want but by and large, we have not been able to balance the preaching. A case in point is the prosperity message.

I believe in prosperity, but divine prosperity. I don't believe in materialism. There is a thin line of difference between the two. A pastor can preach materialism using prosperity scriptures. The bottom line is we want to be rich but for what purpose? The main reason why God wants us to be rich is to promote the kingdom. The money is to be used to promote evangelism.

Not only that, there is also a danger to money. Jesus warned about mammon, the love of money. A man became rich and the next thing was to tell his soul to now rest and eat but his soul was asked that night. We need to teach people that the way we pray for money, some people will destroy themselves when the money comes. The focus of so many rich people is no more the kingdom. I don't hear this kind of sermon being preached across the pulpits.

Moreover, a little is being preached about sin and hell. Jesus mentioned hell more than he mentioned heaven. We don't need to worry about heaven but hell. Hell is real. There is no gospel other than salvation I don't hear this being preached

The church in the acts of Apostle, which we now try to ape, is far from what we have today. Though thousand rush in as it happened then but the unserious people distant themselves from the church. They church was feared. They are a distinct people in the society. But now, what do we have? Fornicators, adulterers, thieves, embezzlers, etc. They even feel so cool in the church. I don't know if alter calls are still being made in some churches.

Solution to this:
The solution to these anomalies are the ministers of God themselves. Even politically, the solution to our national problem is the ministers of God not politicians. The problem is neither with followership in the church but the pulpits.

In the 1970, when we had very few pastors like William Kumuyi, where holiness was the focus of the church, people acted with so much decorum. Sinners were careful about the way they sinned because in the realm of the spirit, the ministers were the gate keepers of the spiritual realm over the nation and whatever happens in the realm of the spirit can lead into the realm of the politics and economics.

Though we had dictators as rulers, they did not throw caution to the winds in the way they looted. That showed me that there was a spiritual caution which translated into national caution. But in the 1980s and 1990s, with the revelation of the word and the liberties that came with the word of God came the desire to acquire such material wealth that compromised the kind of sermon that come from the pulpits. That now accounts for politicians stealing in millions and billions. How can we explain such stealing other than believing the thieves are being propelled by demons?

Now why has these happened to our country? Because the message changed and so ethics of rulership changed. The solution to this is that let us all go back and change the church, the visible leadership of the church, the sermons and let us all renounce the gospel of materialism, so that all the demons of corruption that are preying all over our nation would run away. We shall then see new types of leaders and new nation. That is the solution. The key to our solution is Christian leadership. The name of the demon troubling us is called corruption. And that is affecting so many ministers of God. If you want to get rid of corruption in the society, get rid of it first in the church

Your convention just ended. What is the essence of convention? Churches have resorted into inviting big names to preach so it could attract crowd. Some churches even import American pastors. Just as we have abused anointing oil, mantle, foot washing, vigils, Holy Communion, are we not also destroying the essence of convention? What is the essence of convention really?

You have asked about four questions. Our ministry here is multi-church ministry. The convention allows us to speak to all members at once. The convention gives us a forum to share our vision, direction and pour out our hearts to all members at once.

Basically, we are out to minister to souls, to save them from going to hell. We are not only ministering to souls, we also minister to their bodies too. People feel that the Pentecostal churches are stingy, but we are not. We are now providing free medicare for children between ages 0-5 free ever y Sunday morning. We hope by this, we shall contribute our quota to reduce the infant mortality rate in the country which the UNO said is very high in this country.

We are also giving free dental care service to all people. We are also sharing clothes, shoes bags, etc to all the needy around us. We also give out free welfare packages like soaps, toiletries, etc.

"... But now, what do we have? Fornicators, adulterers, thieves, embezzlers, etc. They even feel so cool in the church. I don't know if alter calls are still being made in some churches. .."

On who we invite here to preach, the Lord told me not to invite just anybody here except those I have personal relationship with. We have found out that the quality of ministration of those pastors who have not gotten such big press attention are far better in quality, richer in purpose and full of fire than those media big names.

So many of the big names have no time again to spend with the Lord. They are too busy to ask for new anointing and refreshing topics. So we try to avoid calling the so-called big names here. But even when we call them, It has always been on the basis of holiness, purity and character and if they are currently flowing in the anointing. Some of them are living in the past glory. We may bring big names, but basically on relationship.

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