Kate (not real name) sat close to a table where five middle-aged men got talking about the income realised after the last revival service each held. One of them, Pastor Femi Daramola (not real name), was surprised that the guest speaker at the revival service could beat his expectation by stirring the church members to respond to the call for meaningful donations and vows. This to him is why he chose to re-invite the guest speaker for the church’s forth coming crusade, in order to realise more money. While Rev. Kirk Moore (not real name) who sat with Daramola on the hand got infuriated by the minister he invited, reason being that he told his congregation that he the host (Daramola) asked him to raise funds for the church, so they can choose to give or not.
Kate was left with amazement and kept pondering on what today’s church has become. She questioned within herself if churches should be organising programmes to make money or out of compassion to reach the unsaved souls? As if her first experience was not enough, a friend who works as a staff of her church narrated to her how a guest minister refused to accept the honorarium he was given on the basis that he helped the church raised much money in the cause of his ministration.
It is stating the obvious to say that some churches are founded to satisfy the bellies of those that have founded them not because they care to win souls, this some observers link to the many evils that is being heard in places of worship.
“We are meant to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. There is darkness in the world and the mind of people in every sphere of life is filled with darkness. Don’t forget that as a nation is so is the church. They have made the church a yardstick by which they can measure. When a nation is corrupt the church definitely will be corrupt and vice versa. The nation mirrors who the church is.
“We pursue prosperity and materialism to an extreme. Prosperity is good because God promised to give us prosperity and wealth but that is not supposed to be our pursuit. Our pursuit should be God and righteousness. The kingdom of God should be our major pursuit. Christianity is beyond praying that our enemies should die and for God to fill our house with riches.
“Nobody chases money that doesn’t fall into temptation because the love of money is the root of all evil. When the church began to pursue prosperity, we had no choice than to abandon our major calling which is evangelism. We are called to promote the virtues of righteousness, holiness and the fear of God. It is in history that when the church pursues prosperity to the extreme, Satan is happy,” Olaleye said.
The cleric berates the thought that the only thing that matters anymore is prosperity neglecting the mandate by God to all Christians.
“Our churches are prosperous, we have millionaires in churches and we often think that the only thing that matters is our churches filled to the brim. We have forgotten the global mandate given to us by Jesus Christ to go into the world and win souls for him. I think the church responded negatively to what I can call our perennial challenges as a nation and a society. Everybody is running helter skelter to earn their means of livelihood just to shake off the dust of poverty.
“Many people often forget that this God who saved us, sanctified us, justified us and died for us on the Cross of Calvary didn’t only died for us by paying the penalty for our sins; he gave us the necessary things to keep body and soul together. There is denying of that fact. When we now pursue material things to the neglect of our core as Christians that is when we have errors,” he voiced.
In curbing this trend, he advised that it is high time people knew that what Jesus obtained on the cross is salvation of our soul, spiritual well-being and physical wellbeing, also that the life of a man does not consist in the abundance of his possession as the scripture explains that there is danger in pursuing pleasures and craving for things.
Venerable Funsho Awe, an archdeacon in the Anglican Diocese of Lagos West, in his view said the Bible tells in several places the dangers of magnifying money over eternity. He pointed that churches should be awakened to know the perils of organising programmes for the sake of enriching the church’s purse was to a large extent affects the truth.
He insisted that no preacher who has money on his mind will preach the undiluted truth of the gospel. Adding that such will make churches accept stolen money, money made from prostitution, money from drug etc which are part of monies that should not be accepted in churches.
He also narrated how the Anglican Church of Ascension, Opebi, Ikeja, rejected a tithe of N25million (cheque) being that they know the person to be a fraudster. Awe added that one of the ways honesty can return to the church is when clerics preach the truth and not chasing after money.
In his view, Rev. Dr. Joy Orji urged church leaders to look beyond prosperity, promotion, positions and protection to preaching messages that will save armed robbers, drug barons, prostitutes and others who engage in one form of criminal activities or the other.
She said judgment awaits everyone especially leaders who know the truth but choose to go their own ways because of the cares of the world.
“Where are we taking money to? It all ends here on earth so churches should stop this strange culture of holding programmes to realise funds. God is not poor and knows how well to support his work, so we should seek first God’s kingdom and not money for the love of money is the root of all evils that we see in the society and in churches as well,” Orji said.
Archbishop Magnus Atilade, Chairman Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), South West, opined that such practice in churches should discontinue.
“I will like to tell church leaders to be careful of the monies they collect especially from those who live questionable lives. This is not to be judgmental to begin to say or think that people who give money in the church are thieves or made their wealth through ill means.
“Churches should also be careful of tasking members to bring money or give several offerings in any service. Doing any of these drives people away from church. There was a time when I instructed churches not to have more than two offerings during services, that is tithes and general offerings.
“At most the third offering should be for building or evangelism. On no occasion should the offerings be more than three. It is also important that priests or clerics do not convert to their personal purses the money meant for the church or for a particular project. Imagine a person giving out of the little he or she has and at the end of the day, the pastor of the church converts the money realised for his personal use. So the underlining word here should be caution, that is as clerics we must be cautious of how we handle God’s work and the money that belongs to God, we must adhere to the ethics of our calling that church money should not be for personal use and we should not organise programmes to make money.”
Dr. Francis Bola Akin-John in relation to the abuse of money in some of today’s churches and how some individuals have made money their god, he therefore charged ministers to be careful of not falling victims. Here reads his comment: “Sadly, majority of the information we have in the church concerning money were those supplied to us by motivational, secular and prosperity preachers, which had led to many money abuses in our churches today.
Once your attitude to money is not right, your ministry and life will never be right. Or put it another way: once your attitude to money is wrong, your ministry and life will ever be wrong, irrespective of what you say or do!
“A friend told a story of how money as a spirit (mammon) went to God and told Him, ‘Although you are my creator, but I am more popular than you among the generation of mankind”.
The preacher preached “The manifestation of manna”. Everybody’s expectation was on the outpouring of money. The service that was scheduled to close by 12.00 noon, never close until 6.00pm, yet people were patiently waiting.
“This story reveals the extent to which money has proved itself as another god that people worshipped globally today. Jesus our Lord never left us in the dark about the important place money occupies in the life of every person, including God’s servants. Unfortunately many ministers are completely in the dark about money. The more reason many ministers live in poverty, while others have become slaves of money. Many ministers have divine assignment but lack divine consignment. Great vision but little or no provision. And those who by chance have the provision lack vision. There are several abuse of money among God’s servants. Many atrocities going on in the church today are founded and fueled by lack of understanding of the complex nature of money. It is my prayer that the God of all mercies will open our spiritual eyes and ears and clear out of our minds whatsoever is not of God, for us to become the ministers who are qualified to handle divine resources that are divinely ordained for God’s servants. Remain blessed. Remember, money is either our master or our slave.”
