‘How our teachings revolutionised companies in food industry’

As the Shepherd’s Flock International Church (TSF) celebrates its 20th anniversary, the Lead Pastor of the church, Rev. Tony Akinyemi, talks about the church’s 2024 DIVINE IMPACT SUMMIT which ended recently, the impact of his healthy living ministry on the Nigerian companies in the food industry,  Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects. Excerpts.

How you feel seeing the church clock two decades this year on February 1, 2024.

We are full of gratitude to God for two decades of the commission. It didn’t look like it when we first started. All we had was God and the instructions He gave us. We had no financial or material resources to prosecute the vision. However, we had faith in the One who called and commissioned us, that He would provide all the resources needed to carry out the mandate – spiritual resources, human resources, financial and material resources, and He has been more than faithful in sending us quality and loyal men and women who have teamed up with us and laboured alongside us to get to this point.

We can only shout Ebenezer at this time, ‘hitherto as the Lord helped us.’ We feel extremely happy and joyful for the privilege of serving the greatest employer of men, the Almighty God Himself.

Specifically, what are you mostly grateful to God for as TSF clocks 20 years?

We are most grateful to God for the faithful and loyal men and women of skill, character, and integrity that God has used to support us. We are grateful that, despite some challenges along the way, we are still standing and growing in leaps and bounds. We are grateful for all that God has helped us to accomplish in 20 years. We are grateful that when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, TSF did not lose a single soul to COVID-19 in any of our parishes scattered all over Nigeria and abroad. God preserved every single one of us. We are grateful.

Briefly recap the vision that birthed TSF

The mandate God gave us is to raise holy, healthy & highly successful people using a new platform to accomplish the vision. We could have stayed back on our previous platform in the denomination where we were privileged to serve as pastors for 11 years; but God said we should create a new platform for the vision so that it would not be hindered in any way due to a misunderstanding of the vision, hence The Shepherd’s Flock International Church. We set out to start the vision by simply listening to directives from God and guidance from the Holy Spirit every step of the way. When He says “move”, we move, and when He says “stop”, we stop. Every step we have taken is by divine instruction, direction, and guidance, and this has made the work stress-free for us. Alleluia!

What were some of the early challenges of the church, and did you overcome them to keep the work going till now?

Of course, if we didn’t overcome our challenges, we wouldn’t be here celebrating 20 years! Like any other human being or institution, we have had our fair share of challenges but, to the glory of God, we have overcome them all because God has made us more than conquerors. Among many other challenges, was the challenge of the venue for our church services when we first started. Today, God has planted us on our property right now. Not only that, even all our parishes all over Nigeria have been blessed with their own landed properties, except only one parish, and we believe God that that one parish too will acquire its property soon. Even our parish in the UK is on its property to the glory of God. Even three parishes that we are yet to start already have their landed properties in place in Lagos, Ogun, and Osun states. To God be the glory!

You started the church with a unique dimension of healthy living teaching and services. To what extent has the healthy living dimension contributed to TSF’s growth in these 20 years

Well, we set out to teach healthy living to fulfill an aspect of our mandate. It was not intended primarily to grow our church numerically. We have other strategies for numerical church growth. We have been raised to be a blessing to the entire body of Christ in the area of healthy living and to the world at large.

For example, if a pastor general overseer,  a deacon and elder, or a church member from another ministry or denomination comes to our ministry to be ministered to in the area of their health, we sure are not going to expect that after we have ministered to them and they are healed, that they would now abandon their ministry and come to join us. No! That’s not our objective. We have been raised to fill a gap in the body of Christ, to minister to people so that they can be healthy and live long enough to fulfill their destinies and finish their assignments. By the way, there have been instances when unchurched people have come to know the Lord and joined our ministry through our healthy living teachings and medical outreaches.

However, if you are talking about growth in terms of impact and visibility then it would be right to say that our healthy living teaching has helped us to be well known out there. Today, we have a fairly large following on social media because of our healthy living teachings. Two of my healthy living videos (one on Facebook and one on TikTok) garnered more than one million views each in less than one month after we released those videos. Our series on EXPOSE WITH TONY AKINYEMI, which we stream on Facebook and YouTube every Monday at 8 pm Nigerian Time, has a fairly good following too, and has been a blessing to many. Our RAPHA INSTITUTE OF HEALTHY LIVING  has also trained hundreds of Healthy Living Ambassadors (HLAs) both from within and outside our ministry who are also doing amazing things out there in the wellness & fitness industry. To God alone be all the glory.

Aside from the healthy living programmes, what are the other programmes of the church in which God has impacted lives in the past 20 years?

As I said earlier, our mandate is to raise holy, healthy, and highly successful people. We have published books and held seminars in all of these three areas. Our annual free 5F Conference is one of the programmes specifically designed to minister to folks in the areas of their faith, fitness, family, finance, and future. We aim to raise and discipline well-rounded and well-grounded individuals who will be able to radically transform their world for God’s glory and their fulfillment and joy.

We also run The Shepherd’s Academy, our free discipleship training programme for fostering spiritual growth and development and for building spiritual capacity. Our TSF Creche has been another platform to impact the lives of infants and toddlers very early in life. Our Rev. Tony Akinyemi Scholarship Foundation has been a lifeline for many brilliant but indigent students who may never have been able to get formal education if our ministry didn’t offer them scholarships. To the glory of God, we have helped to train several people who are now graduates in medicine & surgery, dentistry, agricultural science, mass communication, computer science, economics, accounting, business administration, engineering, education, you name it. Some of them even graduated with first-class honors. To God alone be all the glory!

What is the significance of the annual Divine Impact Summits (DIS) of the church that also marks its yearly anniversary?

Essentially, our annual Divine Impact Summits (DIS) are moments of taking stock and counting our blessings to reflect on what God has done in us, for us, and through us, to elicit deep gratitude and appreciation on the one hand. On the other hand, these summits also help to create both a platform and an atmosphere for Divine Encounter with God for all attendees. These summits are moments when divinity kisses humanity. Because the Divine Impact Summit (DIS) is held around February 1 of every year, we also use the occasion to emphasize the direction in which God is leading us in every New Year. So, the theme of the year is often the theme of the summit, so that our people can be taught the mind of God for the moment, the present truth, if you will.