It was offertory time. And before a song was raised for us to dance and give out our monies, the pastor read out some information.
It was a breakdown of our offerings for each month from the various local assemblies. Apparently, he was pleased with the figures, adding that he didn’t want members to become complacent and that he longs to see the sums constantly on the rise.
One old man beside me murmured, “Find jobs for the unemployed youth in the church and see if offerings won’t automatically go up. If church members don’t have jobs, where do you expect them to get offerings from? “
I listened to the old man with interest. I wondered what happened to the old generation of pastors we used to have. Pastors who were interested in the well-being of members: where they slept, what work they did, how they raised money to finance their families and why they had stopped coming to church entirely.
These new, young pastors of these days, many don’t seem to know how to relate with church members, how to connect. They hardly visit their members to find out the conditions under which they live and come to church.
If they knew the things many of their members go through, they would reduce the financial demands made on members: contributions for funerals, contributions to support the christening of a baby, contributions to pay for transport to a ceremony in another part of town.
Sometimes when announcement is made for contributions towards some petty issue like a light bulb or wire that has to be changed in the chapel, you ask yourself what the offerings we’ve been giving out throughout the year was used for. And if you have the courage to ask the leadership, they always have a convincing answer ready.
The most annoying part of church service was the extension of the closing time. They say church starts at 8:30am – 11:30am. Sometimes it’s almost 1pm and we’re still seated listening to one announcement after the other. And yet before we close, one elder reminds the congregation to come to church early the following week so we can close on time.
If the leadership does not demonstrate punctuality by coming to church on time and ensuring that we close on time, how can the members be expected to be punctual?
But just before we stood up for the benediction, there’s an interesting announcement. A herbal doctor will be speaking to the church on Wednesday.
To be frank, of late, the leadership of the church have been doing commendable things. They’re demonstrating that they want members to grow in their professions, and not only in spiritual matters.
Last month, it was an agent from an insurance company that came to speak to us about the need to ensure one’s education, one’s family, and save towards a happy retirement. One could start with as low as 10 cedis.
The part that made me and other members sign up was that, whenever we wanted to end dealings with the insurance company, there were no complications, no long precedures. All the principal plus the interest is given to the insured.
I was in high school then, but I signed up because I found the monthly contributions low enough for me to be consistent with my payments. I could starve myself once in a while to save so long as I see a bright financial future ahead.
And I remember when I started saving, I started dreaming of the house and cars I wished to own when my money grew into a giant money tree from which I could harvest. Little did I know that a lot goes into becoming a billionaire aside saving.
Then came the D-day, a Wednesday evening.
The church auditorium was packed. The guest was renowned for his herbal practices that has brought many back from the brink of death.
His name was Gyan K. O.
I remember the joy with which he was welcomed. For many of the people who had benefited from his practices were in that auditorium. The elder who introduced him to the congregation was an old man, a lover of traditional African medicine, food and lifestyle. Even his robust structure despite his age was testament to that. And he couldn’t resist the temptation of telling us some secrets his grandma told him regarding the medicinal properties of certain herbs.
Finally Mr. Gyan the invited guest mounted the pulpit. He spoke of the high rates of cancer diagnosis, diabetes, hypertension and fibroid which he said were rare among Africans, showing us old newspapers and articles written many years ago by white journalist who studied Africans and their lifestyle.
Mr. Gyan then went on to show us obituaries of Africans who have lived slightly over 150 years, a reminder that the deaths we are recording among young people in their twenties and thirties isn’t normal.
“These days, diseases that used to be symptoms of old age are affecting young people and people in their mid forties.
Fibroid was rare among our women, but today, we have fibroid cases among teenagers which is very abnormal. All these stem from the food we eat.
We have left our rich, indigenous African foods and we’re importing junk food from overseas. Why won’t we be sick and die prematurely? ” Mr. Gyan continued his long sermon.
He then went on to talk about the food we were consuming that were detrimental to our health. Noodles, sausages, canned foods, white sugar… And the list went on and on.
Many of them were foods I loved dearly. I felt sad. In my mind, I was blacklisting foods I won’t touch ever again in my life. But as Mr. Gyan’s list of evil foods went on and on, it seems water was the only thing I shall be drinking for the rest of my life.
Even that, I had no guarantee that water would remain on my list for long. For now, he was saying that due to illegal mining, most of our water bodies were polluted. And that the water processing companies didn’t have the machinery that took out mercury, a substance used by illigal gold miners, from the water we drank.
He also said that water in sachets sold exposed to the scotchy African sun melted certain chemicals into the water. And that those who sold such water should simply do so from an ice chest or fridge.
Some church members who sat around me murmured that it was only in the village that one could practice all of the things Mr. Gyan spoke about. And that in the cities, it was difficult to avoid eating junk when you have no place to sleep and are constantly looking for money to send home to your family.
But things were going to get darker in the coming days. For Mr. Gyan had thousands of African traditional herbs that cured many illnesses doctors had no answers to.
And day by day, his patients were growing. He had to hire more staff and expand his little clinic. Sometimes I wondered if he exaggerated some of the health issues in the country because it brought him more customers, or genuinely he cared about people’s health.
He was backed by one of the richest men in the country so he needn’t worry about threats from pharmaceutical companies. The day he came to our church to give a talk, he came with police escort.
But there was a problem.
Our church, since its inception has had tough financial times. The church was only concentrated in Ghana. Today, the church has branches on every continent and in nearly every country on the globe. All thanks to generous donors within it, many of whom were selling drugs in backpacks from house to house in the heat of the African sun, and today, God has blessed them with huge pharmaceutical companies of their own that deliver drugs to even neighboring countries.
The church itself has a hospital and it is these generous donors who supply some of their drugs for free to the hospitals.
Now, the church was giving platform in many of its districts to a herbal doctor who was promoting herbal medicine and condemning orthodox medicine, the bulk of medicines sold by the financiers of the church.
Trouble was boiling. And we all hoped there will be no explosions.
There were even extremists in our church who spoke of divine healing. They said they never went to hospital and never took drugs. God always healed them whenever they were sick. To them, that was a level of faith the rest of us baby Christians hadn’t yet attained. And their numbers too were growing.
So now the church was being slowly divided into three factions, the fourth being the neutral group who took herbal medicines if that was what was available, or went to the hospital if they needed a surgery, or prayed to God for healing when neither herbal doctors nor medical doctors had answers to their illness.
A new Chairman was elected into office to oversee all the affairs of the church, locally and internationally. He was aware of the growing divisions in the church. Everyone waited eagerly to hear his take on the problem and what he intends to do about it.
The church had already suffered some blows from prominent people within it who left because of doctrinal disputes.
Some too had started prayer centers on their own and because they were church members, the church’s name was used as a form of marketing for their prayer ministries. And as the numbers were growing in these prayer centers, there was disagreement over who keeps what percentage of offerings and generous donations from attendees who were grateful to God for their healing and the answering of their prayer requests. What percentage should go to the church and what should remain at the prayer center? How much had the church contributed to the establishment of these centers that made it merit a percentage? These were the questions circulating.
There were rumors that aside the money issues, at some of these prayer centers, attendees were asked to do things the leadership of the mother church considered unbiblical. Yet, the prayer warriors at these centers insisted they were being led by God to give out these instructions to their followers.
And so the new Chairman had to be careful how he addressed the problems of the church, especially those centered on money and doctrines.
No wonder it’s been three months since he was inducted into office and yet he hadn’t come out with any official circular letter to our churches worldwide.
He had only asked for more time to put a number of things in place before officially addressing the many concerns on his table.
He will soon realize that the seat of the Chairman was not a soft one though it had cushions on it.
Mowabites Worldwide 