Tuesday 24 June 2014

Church Reforms In Ghana: My Thoughts

This piece is my little contribution to the change process in the country we have all been calling for. In this piece, if I step on any perceived toe from you my reader, I apologize ahead. I have no intentions of that. My intentions and motives are pure. I just want to sound an alarm of a looming danger. 

Image Courtesy wikipedia

As a Christian and a member of the Body of Christ, I cringe with discomfort whenever I hear accusations against the Church and the Body of Christ in general. It gets at me. It hurts. My feelings can be rightly expressed by Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 12:26: “…whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it…” If you are a Christian, and you don’t see anything wrong with the church of our day or the Christianity we are practicing in our country Ghana, then there are a number of possibilities. Either you are spiritually blind, or living in denial, or you are part of the problem or maybe you believe so much in the proverbial adage “never wash your dirty linen in public”. 



That last one made me laugh at myself. You must be kidding me! We (the church) have already been dragged into the mud. We have already lost some level of respect. We have gained notoriety because of unscrupulous elements that have “crept in unawares”. While we were doing church as usual, minding our little world of blessings and prosperity, the enemy silently crept in with Charlatans. 

You might be different; a very honest and genuine Christian, but the fruits of the few bad nuts—are they few? —casts a snare on the testimony of Christ and it affects all of us. Sometime past in this nation, to be a Pastor or Reverend Minister was a “big deal.” It came with its own specially accorded respect. Nowadays, display a little passion and desire for ministry; and you become suspect number one: the general perception is you want quick money. Recently, we have also been charged with laziness and “excessive praying”.

Admittedly, some of these concerns carry weight and makes valid argument. What we are up against as the Body of Christ is what a Ghanaian author Nana Awere Damoah in his book I Speak Of Ghana calls “Ghanamanic gullibility”. His words hits a right chord with what I believe is the true nature of the church and Christianity today in this nation. He wrote: “Unfortunately, the church is not spared this negative tendency [foolish propensity to believe without questioning]. Tune into various radio stations around the country and you will be amazed what is spewed out in the name of Christ and even more shocking is that there are numerous people who heed such spurious calls”.

Sited in some, if not majority of our churches are members who have been raised up on unwholesome doctrine instead of a solid balanced diet of the word of God. No iota of discernment, anything goes! Sensationalism is the order of the day and in the process we see all kinds of abuse oozing out from the church like the stench from an untreated sore (I am getting sensational myself now).

As a member of the body of Christ, I have thought it wise, to, by the grace of God through His eternal and unchanging word, attempt in my little way to contribute some sanity towards the Body. So over the coming days, if you will be interested in following this discourse, I will attempt to put my thoughts across on how we can arrest some of the ills that have bedevilled the Body with the hopes of contributing my quota to the change process being trumpeted in our country, a change process I believe is equally needed in the Church.

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