Today's Church

The church was simply built to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to strengthen individuals and families by encouraging them to study the scriptures, obey the commandments, to receive the essential ordinances and to keep the related covenants. 

Gradually, and in line with the progressive stride and impact they have made, they needed to evangelize the word of God for others outside the church to receive their share of salvation and this gave rise to the building of more churches, parishes, schools and colleges which happens to be the thrust of my write-up.

Thus the church became synonymous with building and administering of schools while the government also concentrated on his governance but now it appears the church has shunned all responsibilities for the government of the day thus losing their integral role they used to play in educational matters.

The mission schools did well by inculcating discipline into the students which is a pre-requisite to learning anything meaningful and also groomed them to become better men and women of the society. It was even a pride to have attended a mission school. The mere mention of a mission school placed you above someone who attended state-run schools. It also came with freebies and more advantages. 

With time, the results from the mission schools became overwhelming that some parents in some areas even had to start attending church or in some instances, allowed their children to be baptized in the hope of doing the will of God.

The schools gained fame and became attractive to even the faithless which gave rise to the relaxation of the admission rules and then the schools became secular and that was one of the many straws that broke the camel’s back and that brought about a paradigm shift in how the church operated.

Since the church was hitherto churning out people who evangelized and carried on with the works of the church and contributed to its building, the new faithless breed started going away with all the benefits they derived from the church without contributing any quota. The influx of the faithless made the church to gradually start losing its ethos and doctrines.

And consequently, the church stopped paying or subsidizing the schools because it turned out that, most of the teachers and students belonged to other faiths and the rest, none.

Fast forwarded to this day, the church is now into branding, to determine which is superior and this has sent many a convent away to where they came from or to other churches, which they perceive are better. The older folks happen to still be in the churches out of loyalty and because they have nothing much to do as they await their time.

This involution has forever changed the church. The church now takes from the people it was supposed to be giving and this does not really speak of the churches readiness for the future. Some of the schools are still managed by the churches but what they do is to charge exorbitant fees from both the church members who also double as students and the secular students alike, when one should think that the church members who also double as students will be given preferential treatments or anything that will make them serve and grow the church afterwards. It is also noteworthy to state that the Churches’ colleges have increased in numbers probably because it has become a money making venture rather than their core essence of salvaging lost souls.

Sometimes, it beats me, to think that folks go to church to pay all the by-force tithes which was supposed to be between the individual and their God. Some churches even make you fill a form and force some members to pledge their quota at all cost to the extent that some even have past dues.

A visit to a modern church where they make alter calls would make you check your whereabouts again to ascertain if you are not at any fund-raising dinner or gala. Some of the churches can ask about hundred members to donate ten thousand Ghana cedis to the chagrin of the others who cannot afford and this has practically sent many out of the church because of employment, unethical issues and worse of all monetary factors. How then, does the church does expects the next generation of workforce to continue from where the predecessors left off?

Some of the Churches also pair singles and organize all sort of singles’ summit for the youth to mingle and asks them to stay off sex. Methinks, the church should rather caution the youth against that because I don’t see how you can light a match stick into petrol and expect it not to catch fire. Just Maybe, they have mechanisms that guide and guard against those excesses. 

My write-up seeks to ask the church what they are doing to mitigate some of these anomalies and canker they have allowed to eat into the heart of the church.

Secondly, why have they made money the over-riding factor around which the church revolves even though they need some money to take care of day-to-day administration just like the Levites?

Thirdly, why is the average Pastor who doesn’t toil from morning to evening like the church members are richer than almost all of them? How do they make all of that money as they ride in the very latest cars and visit all the exotic places at the expense of their members?

Fourthly, if these Reverends and Pastors are doing the work of God and so believes in him and also believe in the scripture that states that, none shall touch or harm them, why do they go around the place with armed bodyguards? Do they believe in violence to allow arm-wielding people who do not even believe in God and hardly are church members to guide them; against death? Thought they will be headed straight to heaven?

Lastly, why have they shifted from salvation preaching to amassing wealth as if the church was a firm and yet do not want to have anything to do with taxes? Are they cheating the state or they have since forgotten that Jesus Christ also stated that, they should give unto Caesar what’s his while they give what belongs to God?