WHY ARE FAMILY, FRIENDS AND CHURCH FOLKS SO NOSY?

I just need to vent this morning.

It all started when I was single, the question always was “when are you getting married?” “Hope you are not brushing off men because you are not getting any younger?” So because of all these questions and accusations I got involved in relationships I didn’t have business getting into just because I wanted to get married before it’s too late [ I don’t know who told me it’s ever too late with God].

Now I am married and it’s now questions again but on another scale this time – “Are you pregnant?” or even better “Congratulations!!!!” I wondered what I was being congratulated for until it dawned on me that due to my bloated stomach [it was my time of the month] one genius deduced that I was pregnant and started congratulating me. Sometimes these questions get me so depressed [sometimes I don't even want to get out of bed on Sundays] the next thing will be to start a quarrel with my husband who [God bless him] always insists that when it’s time God will bless us with children. He has always been a source of encouragement to me on this issue.

People we need to be more sensitive to other people’s feelings especially when it comes to getting married or having children. God’s time is always the best. So many impressionable young and not so young people have gotten into situations that right now they are praying everyday for God’s deliverance just because nosy people won't mind their business. If you don’t have any encouraging words to say to someone in those situations, the best thing is “SHUT UP” and keep praying for God’s intervention in their lives.

Most of all these accusing questions come from our families, friends, brethren in the church. Some even start prophelying [if there is such a word] and call it prophesying. Please all these needs to stop. I can’t count how many people have gotten into deep trouble due to all these prophesies because they want to make something happen and not wait for God’s timing.

While single, I was introduced to all sorts of men, physically or through the internet who were anxious to get an American green card and will say all sorts of sweet words to get here, thank God for deliverances from such ones. How about the ones who were already here in the States but just needed a “Sugar mummy” who will take care of them and their families back home or a sex buddy. It takes the grace of God to swift the wheat from the chaff and when it was time God brought my husband into my life and I have no regrets.

God already told me the amount of children I am going to have and I stand on His promises. He even gave me their names so I know in His Time even if it takes years [if Jesus tarries], the children will come and I am not going to second guess or try to make it happen in my own way and timing so please people asking me if I am pregnant. I have always had big tummy, anyone who knew me years ago will testify because it runs in our family and I have tried various exercises to no avail and spent money on body suits, shapewears, spanx, Dr Rey etc still no improvement. I do know when I become pregnant, it will be apparent to everyone so I beg you by the mercies of God, stop the inquisition and just continue to thank God for my children.

Pray and thank God continuously for those waiting for the manifestation of God’s promises in their lives and stop your accusing questions, the last time I checked the accuser of the brethren is still the devil and I don’t think you want to be associated with him in any shape or form.

God bless you as you receive this admonition in love and make corrections where necessary.

Shalom!!!

WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!

The spate of things happening in the christian world these days are really troubling. Things are truly getting out of hand, was just reading today about a pastor in Australia who got men in his church to swear an oath of total devotion to him and him alone forsaking their families for him. They are to seek his permission and decision about their daily lives, they are to acknowledge him everywhere they go. They must be in attendance in every meeting where he is ministering, sitting as close to him as possible and give him the necessary props he needs. They must never disagree with him or confront him when he is doing something wrong, his word must be the law at all times.

I understand loyalty to your pastor but not to the tune of elevating him/her to God's level. We are to follow our pastors as he/she follows Christ, they are never to take the place of Christ or to be idolized in such a way that we swallow everything they say, hook, line and sinker. Test every spirit and pray for discernment. There is need to search the Word of God for yourselves and see if what is being preached is in line with God's Word. I thank God for pastors in my life that emphasize studying and meditating on the Word of God. Respect and acknowledge the anointing upon the lives of your pastors but don't place them on a pedestal because a wise man of God once told me, "Men of God are still men at their very best" I pray we don't have another Jim Jones situation in our hands one of these days.

The Elements of Worship Leading.

It's being a while since I posted, it's been a busy time at work, working with a non profit is really tasking especially during the holidays because that is our busy season and every hands are on deck to ensure we maximize our presence in our community.

I have been a praise worship leader since 1993 and I just want to share a little about what motivates me while before and during worship. At the beginning of my ministry I was fortunate to read a book by the late Pastor Judson Cornwall titled "The Element of Worship". I jotted down some points from the book and I will love to share them with you.

Preparing your praise & worship songs is a crucial time to seek His face because there could be a message in those songs for someone in the congregation who desperately need an answer to their prayer or a word from the Lord. The time of praise and worship is not just a time for singing, it's time for healing, deliverance, salvation of souls, releasing of burdens etc and it is sometimes an entryway for the message from the Minister of God. So here goes:

1. Preparation of the leaders heart is necessary.
2. The leader should seek vision or direction for the meeting [Very important]
3. Part of the task is stirring the congregation, physically, vocally, emotionally to praise.
4. A standing congregation is more likely to find full involvement.
5. The leader needs to be relaxed [Very important]
6. Move purposefully from vigorous praise to more personalized worship, moving from the "We" to "I"
7. Have an open heart concerning the flow do not automatically follow a line and procedure that was particularly blessed last time.
8. As the worship becomes more intimate, the leader will become less prominent, mistiming a "breaking in" at a time of intimate worship can be disastrous - [it brings distraction and rather than the people concentrating on worshiping the Lord they are trying to find out what happened to the music or the leader]. So your timing is very important.
9. Realize that worship will ebb and flow, it is good to understand the variety of intensity that enhances the worship time.
10. Encourage the people to avoid "second hand worship" i.e riding on someone else's  experience or inspiration. The hymn and choruses are excellent vehicles to take us into the realm of personal worship.
Above all know the lyrics of the songs you are singing. Practice, practice, practice, practice.

Leading praise worship is more than singing, it's a deep intimate expression of your devotion to God remember He inhabits our praises, see Him wrapping Himself in your praises and worship.

God bless you.

As usual, you are free to comment.

Nigeria"s religious junk - True or false?

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.  You will recognize them by their fruits,  So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit…Thus you will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:15-20).

I begin this blog by apologising to all my Nigerian brothers and sisters for its title. At first sight it is rather offensive, but I hope that as you read on you will see why I elected to still use it as a title. As nations or tribes or social groupings we take on a certain characteristic that is not true about each person in the group but which we come to be identified with. Hence, Paul could write, “One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’ This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” (Titus 1:12-13). In the same way, we tend to (rightly or wrongly) identify Americans with arrogance, Kenyans with marathon running prowess, West Africans with fraudulent activities, Afrikaners with racism, etc.

I have just returned from a consultative meeting in South Africa where the first day was spent surveying the spiritual state of the countries in the southern African sub-region. Central to all this was the state of evangelicalism in all these countries. Nation after nation reported on the arrival of “Nigerian religious junk” that was changing the landscape of what there once was of evangelicalism. One or two of the countries were blessed exceptions. Evidently, this junk originated from mega-churches in the USA and then found ready soil in West Africa, and especially in Nigeria. Having given it an African flavour, it is now being exported across Africa at a phenomenal rate.

I feel very sad to write about this, but by “Nigerian religious junk” I mean the phenomenon of churches that are personal-to-holder. They exalt the personality of their founding father, who is still alive somewhere in Nigeria (or elsewhere) and is treated with the aura of a state president or paramount chief. It does not matter which country you go to, the bill boards of these churches do not have the faces of the local pastors of the congregations in those towns but of the founding father in Nigeria—or wherever he has since relocated. It is all about image and power. This “man of God” claims to hear the voice of God and proceeds to minister to you accordingly. If you do not obey him you are resisting the ministry of God into your life. So, the churches are often called “ministries” rather than churches. And to make them even more impressive, the term “international” is often added to their name.

The Africanisation of this religious junk is primarily in the way it has been made to appeal to African spirituality. The pastor is the modern witchdoctor calling all and sundry to come to him for “deliverance”. Just as the witchdoctor appealed to us by inviting us to see him for spiritual protection or when we were struggling with bad luck, childlessness, joblessness, illness, failure to attract a suitor for marriage or to rise in a job or get a contract, etc., these pastors do precisely the same thing. So-called prophetic utterances are made which explain why all this is happening, holy water or oil is prayed over and dispensed, and some money is extracted from the persons seeking help. Thus their churches attract thousands of people who are there for purely selfish reasons. The motivating factor is not reconciliation with God through Christ but rather “deliverance” from perceived evil and to be blessed through the supernatural powers that “the man of God” possesses. Let’s face it: this is our African traditional religions coming into the church through the back door.
The self-centredness of all this is seen in the worship. Churches are being turned into entertainment centres instead of edification centres. People come to church to be entertained, healed and blessed . The fact that professionals, who engage their brains when working with their hands five to six days a week, stop thinking and just dance and laugh in worship is extremely sad, in the light of the demand of God that we are to love him with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength. It has been the failure of Christians to think through the implications of their Christian faith on the whole of life that has left Africa filled with Christian churches and lack of development at the same time. Surely, if these professionals were thinking they would have added up one-plus-one by now and seen why their pastors have become stinking rich. It is not their faith but the money of their congregants, whom they cheat with promises, that makes them buy expensive cars and clothes and put up mansions. If one thousand individuals are “sowing the seed” every week to be blessed by the man of God, of course the man of God will get very rich while they will get poorer. That is simple common sense.


The result of this phenomenon of personal-to-holder churches has been the selective nature of church discipline. You do not discipline a Sangoma (i.e. witchdoctor)—or a chief! It is a known fact, even among the church members, that a number of these pastors have serious moral problems. However, “you do not touch the Lord’s anointed” and so they are not disciplined, even when they have impregnated girls in the church. One such anointed one in Zambia changed wives three times through divorce in less than six months and still remains the apostle of his church. To be fair, this man is a Zambian, but he has imbibed this personal-to-holder phenomenon from Nigeria. There must be accountability from everyone in the church—including the church pastor.

Yet another characteristic of this phenomenon which is particularly African is the craze for titles. We Africans love titles! Once upon a time, evangelical pastors were content to simply be called pastors. Terms like “bishop” were left to those who had an Episcopalian system of church government, which was a formal structure that rose to national and global level. Alas, that has now changed! With the advent of this Nigerian religious junk, it is titles galore! You now have bishops, arch-bishops, prophets, apostles, chief apostles, etc. Some are not even content with that and so have combinations like, “chief apostle prophet doctor so-and-so.” This is certainly very different from the teaching and personal lifestyle of the Lord Jesus Christ whom they claim to serve.

Having joy inspite of it all.

It's being a while since I visited due to situations and challenges I have been facing lately. I will like to share one of such incidents to encourage someone out there.

I love connecting people with friends or family they have lost contacts with and I take pleasure when such people are connected to their long lost friends or family and they have such joy getting back together so this past week, I read a comment from someone I just recently befriended on facebook and who is a member of my local church about meeting one of her long time friend's mother and since the lady in question was a former dear neighbour of mine who is such a sweet sweet soul, and also former member of my church, who now worships in another church closer to her house. I felt obligated to help make that connection a reality. So I commented on my new friend's facebook status about helping her connect with the lady and all hell sort of broke loose.

I was going to call this former neighbour to let her know someone wanted to meet with her or speak to her on the phone and to see if it was alright to give her phone number to his new friend of mine but I got sidetracked and forgot but at the back of my mind, I was still going to call her before the end of the week.

So yesterday when I logged on to my facebook page I was dumbfounded by what I read from my former neighbour's daughter who felt I exposed her mum's business on facebook and she also mentioned things I never shared which was disturbing to say the least. The accusations came with such venom, I didn't know what to do but cry at my desk at work that someone could read such bad meanings to my evil intention. Talk about misunderstanding!!!. As soon as she finished sending the email, she defriended me on facebook, which was not a surprise because I was going to do the same thing, with friends like that who needs enemies right? I added this lady because I knew her to be a christian believer and we have mutual friends and I was a guest at her wedding a few years ago.

After shedding a few tears to ease my tension, I called her mother [my former neighbour] whom apparently the daughter have called the previous night and told her all sorts of things that was not even written in the comment I made on my friend's status, I apologized for not calling her before promising to give her number to her daughter's friend and she understood and also stated she told her daughter it was not a big deal but apparently her daughter didn't get that memo because she made a big deal out of the situation. I also sent an email to the friend who wanted to meet her mum to let her know what happened and adviced her to ask the daughter to for her mum's number. My sweet kindhearted former neighbour apologized on behalf of her daughter and we had a pleasant chat, she is such a wonderful gracious lady whom I love chatting with. I have forgiven the lady [neighbour's daughter] because I feel she just misunderstood my intentions and I am trying to forget the incident ever happened as well.

This incident though trivial in other people's opinion could stop me from helping someone else, it robbed me of my joy for a few minutes but I remembered this Ron Kenoly song "I still have joy" and searched for it on youtube, found it and listened to it all day because it was a word from God to me. I just want to encourage anyone who have been misunderstood, who have their good intentions evil spoken of to focus on the joy of the Lord which is our strength, the enemy will come in diverse ways to steal your joy, he might even use someone who you never expected to be the joy robber. Chose to praise God joyfully.

Song: This joy that I have the devil didn't give it to me, the devil didn't give it, the devil can't take it.  This joy that I have Jesus gave it to me, Jesus gave it, the devil can't take it away.

Chose to be joyful regardless of situations or circumstances and you will find out, your life is richer because of it, you are healthy, your facial muscles are relaxed and you look radiant. Happiness is a fleeting emotion but joy is everlasting and the Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Be joyful, God's got all in control.

A must watch and read. What has the church become?

Please click or copy this link to watch the video. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/unreported-world/4od

Below is a summary of the video.

7.30PM Fri 28 October 2011C4

Miracles, expensive cars, exorcisms and bodyguards: religion is big business in Nigeria. Reporter Seyi Rhodes and director Matt Haan travel to Lagos to reveal the extraordinary world of the millionaire preachers.

By promoting the dream of escaping poverty, they have turned their churches into corporations, which are changing the face of Christianity.

Every Sunday millions of Nigerians crowd into thousands of competing churches. The team visits one church in Lagos run by Dr Sign Fireman, an up-and-coming preacher who is attempting to break into the big time.

They find 2000 people at an event billed as the Burial of Satan. After a rock star entrance, Dr Fireman begins his service by exorcising the demons in his congregation.

Many Nigerian Pentecostal Christians believe that demons are the root cause of their problems in life and come to people like Dr Fireman to get rid of them. Over 20 men and women, including some who worked for Dr Fireman, have the evil spirits inside them expelled.

Sick members of the congregation come forward for miracle healing. Dr Fireman claims to have God-given powers that can change people's lives, from raising people from the dead to curing earache. One man tells the crowd he is crippled and blind. Dr Fireman then channels his powers to help the man walk and see again. Yet, earlier the team has seen the man walking unaided.

At the close of the event the crowd swarms forward and throws money at Dr Fireman's feet. There is so much cash it has to be collected in dustbins. Rhodes talks to one worshipper who says that those who give money are repaid by God with good fortune.

Some Nigerian Pentecostal Christians believe giving 10 per cent of their income will bring God's blessing into their lives, their families and their businesses. With the service over, Dr Fireman leaves in his yellow Hummer 4x4.

Through the marketing of his talents, Dr Fireman has expanded his Perfect Christianity Ministry to 40 branches. Key to this growth is the emphasis on prosperity preaching: teaching that prosperity is a sign of spiritual blessing. The idea is that to become rich, you should give money to the church.

Pentecostal and independent churches in Nigeria tap into the Nigerian dream: the aspiration of having and being seen to have cars, houses, money and power. To get more people to join his church, Dr Fireman believes portraying the right image is essential and shows the trappings of wealth his church has brought him. He travels everywhere with his bodyguards in one of his three yellow luxury cars with a combined worth of more than £150,000.

Dr Fireman's business model is not a new one. Most of the richest pastors in Nigeria use similar methods of expansion. The team meets Pastor Chris Okotie, the fifth richest pastor in the country, who had hits in the 80s with records such as Secret Love and Show Me Your Backside.

His church, House of God, attracts Nigerian film stars, celebrities and musicians. Pastor Okotie has used his power base to run for the last three presidential elections, believing the principles of prosperity preaching will provide a better future for Nigeria.

Local journalist Simon Ateba says it's almost impossible to establish their true wealth. Simon takes the team to the headquarters of Christ Embassy. He claims that two years ago when he tried to take photographs of the building, security guards dragged him inside and beat him until he fainted. Soon after he tells this story, security guards drag Rhodes into the building by his belt. He escapes unscathed.

The team visits Dr Fireman. He's busy in a music studio recording a new song as he expands his business into the music industry. Rhodes asks him how he can square his wealth and celebrity status with the teachings and life of Jesus.

Dr Fireman says that God wants him to be rich and denies that Jesus had a humble life. 'Jesus was rich and had an accountant who followed him around,' he tells Rhodes.

Wisdom from Psalms - Strength in affliction

Psalm 129:2

Many a time have they afflicted me f rom my youth: yet they have not prevailed against me.

 

Saundra was handicapped. Her hands were twisted beyond usefulness, and she had lived with them since birth. They caused her not only physical pain, but emotional anguish as well. Throughout her childhood, cruel children had mocked her. The damage done to her self-esteem was immense, and for a long period she believed that she could never do anything. In college she had met a friend who led her to Christ. In Christ she found a new desire to succeed and beat her affliction. She received a Master's degree in Therapy and Handicapped Services and became national spokeswoman for a handicap-awareness campaign. Though her detractors had always had something to say, Saundra prevailed and rose above her handicap.

 

The Lord gives us all the ability to rise above the things that limit us. If we will only lean upon Him, He will give us the will and drive to succeed in every situation. His power can be our power when we call upon His holy name.

 

Prayer: There are times, dear Lord, when I feel I don't amount to much. My self-image is bruised, and my determination is crushed. Be with me in those times, and lift me up. Amen.