Dr. Samson Makinwa, Chairman & CEO, TECHO EQUIP Limited and Presiding Pastor of Kingdom of Light Ministry, (KLM), Idimu, Lagos, shares his thought and experiences on mentorship/mentoring with Christian Benefits’ Peace James on our column on Apostle in the Market Place. Excerpts.
Dr. Samson Makinwa is an astute entrepreneur as C.E.O of Techo Equip Ltd. He is also a respected preacher of the gospel as Presiding Pastor of Kingdom of Light Ministry (KLM). Sir, please tell us how these two paths crossed.
First, my name is Samson Makinwa. I studied Mechanical Engineering. I started practicing the art of fabrication as soon as I set up my business over 30 years ago. In the course of my business activities I received the call of God into ministry. And that call eventually birthed the Kingdom of Light Ministry (KLM) 15 years ago.
How do you balance the commitments between running your business and the ministry together without one affecting the other?
The ministry is a divine vision from the Lord. I believe the business is also a vision from the Lord though secular in nature. Times are allocated to each of them. For example, on Sunday not so many companies open offices for business operation. So, I have all the time for God’s people and his work every Sunday. Even while behind my desk in my business office the work of God is going on. On Monday and Tuesday I go straight to my business office till around 4pm when I resume in the church office. On Wednesday, I’m fully in the church doing administrative work, counseling and praying for people till evening when we hold Bible study. More so, because my business office is very close to the church the business staff can come to the church to see me wherever there is any need for my attention in respect of the business. I see my business and the ministry as the same thing.
To what extent will you say your entrepreneurship is impacting on your ministry and also to what extent is your ministry impacting on your business?
I will say that it wouldn’t have been very easy for me to go into ministry and immediately started recording some reasonable success in the ministry within a short time without my business background or my entrepreneurial acumen. For instance, we built the church massive structure within three months 16 years ago. That wouldn’t have been possible if I was not into business. The other wing of the church that we are constructing with the church resources is still under construction for over three years now. There is a spirit of entrepreneurship. If this spirit is being used in the work of God it will improve the work of God more. Entrepreneurial spirit is required in the running of a church. Entrepreneurial spirit is needed in the business aspect of the ministry. Every ministry should be able to look into the areas money can be generated to fund the work of God. There are some churches that have been in existence for years, but have no records of their Sermon CDs. They don’t have bookshop. Their members buy Bible and other books from outside their church. In the course of buying their Bibles, books and other spiritual literatures from other churches, you are diverting their hearts to the pastors of those ministries where they buy their Bibles, books and spiritual materials. Before you know it your ministry membership is declining when some of your members are now migrating to other churches from which they buy their Bibles and the books of their pastors. The spirit of entrepreneurship helps you to build school. It helps you to establish a bookshop. It helps you to write books. It helps you to record your sermons in CDs for sale. The spirit of entrepreneurship helps you to go into several other business opportunities that will help you in generating funds for the running of the church.
Few years ago you raised a platform to build a new generation of successful entrepreneurs through your mentoring. Tell us what informed that platform.
If you look at most ministries in the past, you will notice a lot of people who had so much to offer but have gone without leaving anything behind. It is recent times that one sees a lot of pastors now writing books. For instance, Kathryn Khulman was such a great and powerful woman of God who did great works in her healing ministry. Unfortunately, she didn’t write any book about her ministry. It was after her demise that some people started looking for patches of her sermons to write books. And those patches of information they put together to write such books on her and her ministry cannot be accurate. Even today you stumble on some great ministries only to discover that the great pastor behind such ministries have not written any book. I don’t know the number of books that Baba Sadela wrote before he passed on as the oldest man in Nigeria. I don’t know where I can find his works in written forms or CDs from his times with the late Apostle Ayodele Babalola. Where are even the books of Ayodele Babalola for us to read? Where are his CDs that could have been impacting people from generation to generation for their benefits even long after his passage? Now, we are still around and writing books. By the grace of God I have written 32 books in my ministry. There must be people that must be drinking from my spirit both in entrepreneurship and ministry. I must ensure they drink from my wealth of experience and achievements both in business and ministry. That was what informed the setting us of the Business Class platform to build a new generation of highly successful young entrepreneurs. So many young people are running around in business without guidance in business. Presently we have close to 2000 entrepreneurs in the Business Class. Most of them have signed under me to be my mentees. I mentor them every third Saturday of the month. I pour myself into them in that class. They learn from me how I was able to build my business conglomerate with just N600 and got to where I’m now. There are lots of young people who have great potentials and all they need is someone that will fire them up by what other people have achieved in business or ministry by the little resources with which they started their businesses. Just one word may transform the lives of many people. In most of the books we read it may just be one word that will change the lives of some people.
