A letter to the Reverend

Dear Rev. 

May the peace and blessings of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you as you find time to read this missive of mine. I pray that God will give you the shrewdness to understand my missive the way I wanted it to be understood.

I have always wanted to express my observations and sentiments to you but I guess I do not feel much inspired to do what I had to do until this fateful day, when I can’t resist the overwhelming urge to let you know the problems I have been troubling my mind with.

As an integral member of this church who has been admonished to go the way my ‘fathers’ went, I have had no choice than to be here all my life, and this letter is necessitated by the fact that I am a gate-keeper for the Lord and cannot see the Church drift into an abyss.

First of all, I think the assembly has lost its sense of appreciation and openness that characterized the church in the days of old and I need you to observe keenly, since you do not really have time in-between counseling, teaching, meetings times and your own family life. There is no sense of humility among the members because pride and ego has taken over their sense of appreciation and that in itself is segregating the flock instead of congregating them.

On the periphery, I overheard the other day from a reliable source that the church was getting prepared to pitch stocks, and it amazes me how our sense of purpose has eluded us. There’s only one cardinal reason to enlist on the stock market and that is to make profit; to amass wealth and prudently manage our assets. It is an undeniable fact that the administration of the church thrives on finances but don’t you think that getting out there with our monetary issue is pushing our secularism too far and begging the question of the church now venturing into profit making?

I beg to differ but it has become evident that some of the clergy are not here for the flourishing of the gospel and the Church but for their selfish gains and that in itself is defeating the preamble of the Christian faith. They throw dust in the eyes of the people just to have their ways. They mask their intents with the growth of the church when their main job is to pull the church down.

Consequently, the flock is straying because the shepherds have reneged on their calling. It is convenient to state that the shepherds have to know that, their calling is first and foremost a duty and not an avenue to attract gullible members who have a blind allegiance to all their initiatives without a scintilla of doubt or inquiry. They finally succeed at dragging some fanatics into their fray as they all bear stones to rain on the biblical Stephens and some of these acts are brewing apathy towards the church.

Rev. Fr, I would also like to know why the church has stop evangelizing to the lost souls out there.  If the church was supposed to be turning people away from their sinful ways and making them face and love God, why then are we sending people out of the church to rather indulge in more sinful ways?

 Is the church no more an avenue to seek solace from all the confusion in the outside world out there?

It is disheartening to note that, some new converts are simply turned away because they are shabbily dressed and others too, for spotting weird hairstyles, especially that of the Rasta fraternity per the doctrines of the Church. Is God going to judge us by the purity of our hearts and the effect we have had in the lives of others or by simply looking at a catalogue of the various hairdos we’ve spotted during the days of our lives?

Why do you allow Church members wearing transparent clothes and looking semi-nude to fill the auditorium while you allow thieves to parade in the church, just because their contributions are needed to do the work of God? And it is also evident that married men and women are committing adultery and the youth agog with fornication without any one chastising them. I just wonder what Jesus Christ, our figure head would have done in these circumstances.

My last but not the least of my enumerated concerns is to bring to your notice the degree of opulence in the church. If pastors can adorn themselves with expensive cloths which they practically pride themselves with and ready to enlist the array of technological toys they have at the expense of some Church members who cannot even feed for a day, then something is amiss. It is even appalling when some of the clergy goes ahead to tout the expensiveness of even the perfume they use and I don’t think it is Christ-like to revele in vanities especially by the vessels of God.

Finally, finally, why is that transgression and vices seemed to be growing exponentially in the face of proliferation of Churches? Does that mean the Church has failed to pursue its mission, since it has become less powerful in the fight to instill and sustain morality? 

I really do not know how far you will side with me on my concerns, but I still have a duty as a church member to write to you. You have just finished reading and that alone in itself is enough to make my soul rest for now as I await the reformation that is yet to hit the Church.

Dear Rev, if it suits you and in the spirit of the Church gaining its grounds and doing the will of God and pursuing it purpose of the institution, then I crave your indulgence to address the issues expediently and drastically before the seams are split-opened.

Yours in the Lord,

Agbodeka James.