Paulina Opoku-Gyimah says: I’ve been afraid to publically confess this …but I’m slowly
going off sooo called ‘Black’ churches ---and I’m now visiting a local COE –with
a small congregation in northwest London…
I miss African gospel music and the colours of said
churches and often visit my own church in Wood Green at times… but I don’t like
entering a church and being made to sit right at the front- when I’m with my
son and he might want to truly relax at the back and also enjoy the sermon before
going to Sunday school.
Also unlike COE churches where you can sit anywhere you
like, I don’t like being ushered and packed like sardines in an overcrowded
church –where an individual walks around counting the amount of people in
attendance ---and many walk about with walkie-talkies… When did churches become
businesses????
Paying tithes is also not a problem to me especially as I
believe in the wonderful concept of store rooms/houses –see Malachi 3:10 ESV
“Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may
be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if
I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing
until there is no more need.”
The only thing is ----many of these churches don’t
understand what a storehouse is ---thus don’t use it to feed their poor!!! May
God have mercy on all of us….
I also don’t mind giving an offering (I am very aware of
the cost of lighting, water, cleaners in churches etc) but can’t quiet work out
why –when I have given an offering, and say ---there is a visiting pastor
---why I have to offer again and again….and again…
The following Text is written by pastor Conrad Mbewe of Kabwata
Baptist Church (http://www.conradmbewe.com/) in Lusaka, Zambia and makes for very insightful
reading.. I pray that this message was
and is received in the spirit and manner that it was intended ---as the truth
to set us all free!!!
Note, he might be talking about [some] Nigerian priests/prophets/whatevers
---but I don’t think Ghanaian soooo called MEN OF GOD should read this and
think it doesn’t concern them –because it does.
Whilst there are some true servants of our Lord and
Saviour Christ Jesus in Ghana, –there are also many demon possessed individuals
masquerading as prophets –stealing from their poor congregation and heading
towards HELL…
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits... So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit…Thus you will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:15-20).
I begin this blog by
apologising to all my Nigerian brothers and sisters for its title. At first
sight it is rather offensive, but I hope that as you read on you will see why I
elected to still use it as a title. As nations or tribes or social groupings we
take on a certain characteristic that is not true about each person in the group
but which we come to be identified with. Hence, Paul could write, “One of the
Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts,
lazy gluttons.’ This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they
may be sound in the faith” (Titus 1:12-13). In the same way, we tend to (rightly
or wrongly) identify Americans with arrogance, Kenyans with marathon running
prowess, West Africans with fraudulent activities, Afrikaners with racism,
etc.
I have just returned from a
consultative meeting in South Africa where the first day was spent surveying the
spiritual state of the countries in the southern African sub-region. Central to
all this was the state of evangelicalism in all these countries. Nation after
nation reported on the arrival of “Nigerian religious junk” that was changing
the landscape of what there once was of evangelicalism. One or two of the
countries were blessed exceptions. Evidently, this junk originated from
mega-churches in the USA and then found ready soil in West Africa, and
especially in Nigeria. Having given it an African flavour, it is now being
exported across Africa at a phenomenal rate.
I feel very sad to write about this, but by “Nigerian religious junk” I mean the phenomenon of churches that are personal-to-holder. They exalt the personality of their founding father, who is still alive somewhere in Nigeria (or elsewhere) and is treated with the aura of a state president or paramount chief. It does not matter which country you go to, the bill boards of these churches do not have the faces of the local pastors of the congregations in those towns but of the founding father in Nigeria—or wherever he has since relocated. It is all about image and power. This “man of God” claims to hear the voice of God and proceeds to minister to you accordingly. If you do not obey him you are resisting the ministry of God into your life. So, the churches are often called “ministries” rather than churches. And to make them even more impressive, the term “international” is often added to their name.
The Africanisation of this religious junk is primarily in the way it has been made to appeal to African spirituality. The pastor is the modern witchdoctor calling all and sundry to come to him for “deliverance”. Just as the witchdoctor appealed to us by inviting us to see him for spiritual protection or when we were struggling with bad luck, childlessness, joblessness, illness, failure to attract a suitor for marriage or to rise in a job or get a contract, etc., these pastors do precisely the same thing. So-called prophetic utterances are made which explain why all this is happening, holy water or oil is prayed over and dispensed, and some money is extracted from the persons seeking help. Thus their churches attract thousands of people who are there for purely selfish reasons. The motivating factor is not reconciliation with God through Christ but rather “deliverance” from perceived evil and to be blessed through the supernatural powers that “the man of God” possesses. Let’s face it: this is our African traditional religions coming into the church through the back door.
The self-centredness of all this is seen in the worship. Churches are being turned into entertainment centres instead of edification centres. People come to church to be entertained, healed and blessed. The fact that professionals, who engage their brains when working with their hands five to six days a week, stop thinking and just dance and laugh in worship is extremely sad, in the light of the demand of God that we are to love him with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength. It has been the failure of Christians to think through the implications of their Christian faith on the whole of life that has left Africa filled with Christian churches and lack of development at the same time. Surely, if these professionals were thinking they would have added up one-plus-one by now and seen why their pastors have become stinking rich. It is not their faith but the money of their congregants, whom they cheat with promises, that makes them buy expensive cars and clothes and put up mansions. If one thousand individuals are “sowing the seed” every week to be blessed by the man of God, of course the man of God will get very rich while they will get poorer. That is simple common sense.
Yet another characteristic of
this phenomenon which is particularly African is the craze for titles. We
Africans love titles! Once upon a time, evangelical pastors were content to
simply be called pastors. Terms like “bishop” were left to those who had an
Episcopalian system of church government, which was a formal structure that rose
to national and global level. Alas, that has now changed! With the advent of
this Nigerian religious junk, it is titles galore! You now have bishops,
arch-bishops, prophets, apostles, chief apostles, etc. Some are not even content
with that and so have combinations like, “chief apostle prophet doctor
so-and-so.” This is certainly very different from the teaching and personal
lifestyle of the Lord Jesus Christ whom they claim to serve.
Many of these churches have
since been discovered to be nothing more than fund-raising outfits, with sole
proprietorship maintained by the pastor and his wife. The pattern seems to be:
start a church and then milk the congregation. The pastors basically prey on the
vulnerable and gullible. They are crooks and conmen. In a number of the southern
African countries represented at the consultation, governments have sent these
pastors packing upon finding undeniable proof that large stashes of money were
being milked out of their citizens and being shipped to West Africa. This has
made these governments very suspicious of anyone coming from any other African
country as a missionary into their country. They now think that all African
missionaries are just mercenaries.
Yet, the saddest part of all
this has been the loss of the gospel. Once upon a time, you could go to any
church that purported to be evangelical and once you survived what was called
worship, you would hear a sermon that finally pointed you to Christ and him
crucified for pardon from sin. That is now largely an exception, and is as rare
as my great grandfather’s teeth. What you hear now are calls for “deliverance”,
and you experience this by coming forward to be prayed for. Inevitably, once you
lose the gospel, you lose true spirituality and morality. Christianity becomes a
thin veneer of respectability but inside there is total corruption and decay.
The church becomes a wardrobe full of skeletons. Or, to borrow a more biblical
expression, the church is filled with white-washed tombs.
This explains why, although
Nigeria is packed with such mega-churches (and is now exporting them across the
continent), it is still the most corrupt nation on the continent. If church
leaders are milking the people like this, what hope is there to correct things
among the politicians and the civil servants? It is impossible! You cannot grow
true spirituality where the cross of Christ and the Christ of the cross is
absent. We must insist that the Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit. Where
holiness is conspicuous by its absence, we should never attribute what is
happening there to God’s Spirit because he is a spirit of holiness. Crowds and
people falling backwards upon being touched prove nothing if holiness of life is
missing. Jesus said, “You will recognise them by their fruits.”
In this
blog I have avoided naming names. This is because the consultation I have just
come from did not name names. However, all I can say is, “If the hat fits you,
put it on!” Anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear knows what I am talking
about. Let me end by once again apologising to any genuine and sincere Nigerian
pastors who distance themselves from all this junk. Just as I know a number of
sweet American folks who are very humble, Kenyans who cannot run halfway around
a football ground, and Afrikaners who are colour blind, I am sure there must be
many West African pastors—and Nigerians for that matter—who will have nothing to
do with this spiritual corruption. I only wish they were more vocal in
condemning this religious junk being exported from their country!
****Paulina says: Please visit the above link and read the comments…. They are truly heartfelt ---as we all want the truth in all nations….
More info:
Conrad Mbewe
[Updated October 2011] I worked as a Mining Engineer in
Zambia before answering God's call into the pastoral ministry. I have been the
pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church (KBC) in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, since 1987.
KBC is presently overseeing the establishment of about twenty new Reformed
Baptist churches in Zambia and its neighbouring countries. I also maintain a
full itinerant preaching ministry in different countries around the world. I
love writing. Hence, I am the editor of Reformation Zambia magazine and
presently write a column in one weekly national newspaper. I have written many
booklets in my own country and have two books on the international
market—Maintaining Sexual Purity (RSA, 2009), and Foundations for the Flock
(USA, 2011). I have also contributed to a number of books, including Dear
Timothy—Letters on Pastoral Ministry (USA, 2004). I was until recently the
principal of the Reformed Baptist Preachers College in Zambia. I volunteer with
the YMCA, providing vocational training to the many unemployed youths in our
community. I am married to Felistas, and we have been wonderfully blessed with
three children plus two foster daughters.
2 Corinthians 9:7 English Standard Version (ESV)
“Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not
reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
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