Today, Monday 1st April, 2024, makes it officially four years of running The Comms Avenue vision. As we celebrate this very important milestone, I am documenting the journey and lessons I have learnt from building this vision with God. This is the first part of a four-part series I have decided to call, ‘Building With God’.
It was February 2020. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard His voice. I remember because I was doing the Hosting the Presence course and we had been learning how to understand the way God speaks to us and lean in when He does.
It wasn’t a loud voice that I heard. I hardly ever hear a loud voice. It was a small but compelling voice that also came with this strong sense of knowing. And the instruction was simple – bring together Communications professionals to learn and grow together.
In my limited understanding, I interpreted that to mean bring them together for an event and that’s what I ran with. I put a post on LinkedIn, people showed interested and things began to happen rather quickly. There was a volunteer team that came on board to support with the planning of what was called The Comms Brunch and payment for the event started to come in.
The event was meant to take place in March but there were indications that there would be a lockdown. When it became clear that we couldn’t hold the event, I went back to God and this is when He gave the download. It was clear that God wanted me to build a community of Communications professionals. Honestly, I didn’t feel like the most qualified person to do this because ‘community’ wasn’t my thing at this point. But I was learning to trust God and walk on water with Him.
I wrote down what God said about this community and what needed to be done. When it was time to come up with a name, I knew in my spirit that the name needed to capture a sense of location. I finally settled on The Comms Avenue after several iterations. Now the big part – execution.
I said to Abba, “I do not want to do this alone. I am not interested in doing this alone.” I had run an agency for three years as a solo Founder and some parts of that business suffered because I did not have someone to balance out my weaknesses.
So for this new assignment, I was very clear that I didn’t want to go solo. God highlighted my Co-Founder and brought the founding team and together, we kicked off The Comms Avenue vision on the 1st of April, 2020.
There were a lot of things to figure out before we launched on the 1st of April. I knew we were building a community but what kind of community did God want us to build? Should we charge a subscription fee? The team felt it should only be free for the first three months and then we charge a fee. I wasn’t too sure.
Since I had never done this before, I decided to read as much as I could and learn. I spoke to a Founder of a strong community for women to understand her model. I did countless research and got tired. So I went back to God – what kind of community do you want us to build? I don’t know why I didn’t ask Him first. He answered and I told the team, “This community will be open to all Communications professionals. We are not to charge a fee to be a member.”
Even though I had my doubts and I was walking in uncertain terrain, I appreciate the fact that the team trusted me. When it was time to work on the launch plan, this time I went to God first. How do we publicise this community? What should our engagement look like in the first three months? Yet again, Abba gave specific instructions and that’s what formed the foundation of our launch and engagement strategy.
And truly, that was how the building work started. Hearing from God, staying in the place of obedience and walking on water. Because you see, when God shows you what He wants you to build, He has a ‘how to build’ manual that is very often different from the conventional way we build things as human beings. Also, sometimes He shows you in part. So what you see in the beginning is just a minute part of what He is calling you to build. I have always wondered about why God does that. But with four years of building The Comms Avenue vision, I get it.
In 2020, I knew we were building a community for Communications professionals in Africa but let me be honest, that seemed a bit vague in my mind. Actually, my concept of Africa was a bit skewed. Way smaller than what God intended. We started the community with 50 members in Nigeria and I think a part of me just thought we would have members from a few more African countries. I definitely didn’t think we would have a footprint in 25 African countries! And can I just say, I would have run away if God showed me the big picture back then in 2020.
So, how did we get from 50 members to over 1400 members from 25 African countries in our Telegram group? And over 10,000 professionals following us on LinkedIn? I will share this in the next post which is about working with the blueprint.
Permit me to share some lessons to ponder on:
- God doesn’t need your qualifications – He needs your heart and your yes. The qualifications and everything else you need will be sorted out after your yes.
- If you want to do big things for God, He must trust you. Will you obey even when you look foolish? Will you do His will even when it will cost you?
- God can do a lot with a mustard seed. That seemingly small seed that you are planting today, you have no idea how big it can become. Just allow God to breathe on it and walk with Him to nurture that seed.
- When God calls you, it really isn’t about you. There is always a bigger picture – lives to touch and nations to transform.
- God is absolutely capable of taking care of you. He is also more than able to bring that vision to life. Again, trust Him and don’t try to use human wisdom to build a God-vision.
Watch out for the next post in this series!
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