By Wilson Adekumola
A Geography graduate from Adeyemi College of Education, Francis Ekundayo is not just a teacher by profession, he is a teacher by calling. But his sojourn as a teacher in the secular environment was cut short when he succumbed to God’s call to preach the gospel.
Also married to a teacher, Ekundayo now conveniently teaches the word of God. For 15 years now, God has used him greatly to liberate young men and women from the clutches of darkness with the inspired word of God. His ministry is based in Ota Ogun State from where he holds weekly meetings that have seen many coming to the saving knowledge of Jesus.
He believes nobody who has encounter with God remains the same. “I think largely what we have in our churches today is that preachers don’t spend time with the word of God and thereby they have trouble impacting their listeners. The word of God is fire. It is sharper than any two-edged sword. It is capable of breaking the stronghold of sin and bondage in the lives of people. So, there is no gainsaying that anybody who hears the word from a heart that is sincere that person will experience liberty.”
He told Church Times that in his walk with God he has seen many people who had negative addictions that have been liberated. “I think we should as a church begin to shift our focus to the liberating word of God. We have had enough of miracles. We have had breakthroughs. It is time for us to begin to teach our people the word and make them see Jesus. We can’t go wrong with the Jesus message. In any case the greatest miracle in the life of man is the miracle of salvation.”
Recently the men in his ministry celebrated their 13th anniversary. The entire church auditorium was packed full of men from near and far who came to celebrate God’s goodness. The theme of the event “Prepare for the unusual” was quite apt as Ekundayo used the opportunity to emphasise to the men that that God was ready to do something drastic in their lives.
He said, “Our God is a God of miracle and when you talk about miracle you are invariably talking about unusual happenings, uncommon events. We believe God can transform the life of a man without any protocol and that is what I want you to know.
“We should not limit ourselves. We must do something that has not been done before we can experience uncommon occurrence. We have to believe in the unusual and do the unusual so that we can experience the unusual. There are some unusual things we do that makes us have unusual experience of God in our lives. Do not follow crowd but be one out of a crowd instead. Even in the scripture, it was erroneously believed that no prophet could come from Galilee but Jesus Christ was an exception. It was an unusual situation.”
He observed that there are some men who are yet to understand how to serve God aright, “There are some men who are yet to understand how to serve God in a proper way but this event has created avenue to change their orientation and we will stop at nothing to ensure they do the needful in His vineyard.”
The Kogi born cleric encouraged the men to serve God without reservation “You must have keys to His blessing to break the yoke of poverty; otherwise, even your fifth generation can continue to wallow in abject poverty. So, it should be borne in our mind that it is only through hard work and God’s mercy you can be a partaker of His infinite blessing.”
A foundation member of the church, Deacon Odetayo S.O described the men’s meeting as an awesome time before God “We give glory to God for the success of the men’s anniversary. The power-packed event has really foster unity among men and makes us to rediscover ourselves towards being important vessels in the body of Christ.”
Saheed Akanni in the Technical department of the church described the event as overwhelming. “The anniversary is awesome. I feel like never before. It has apparently changed my perspective about God. I have discovered a unique way of serving Him.”