Two weeks back I managed to drag myself to church after God knows how many months. I was busy singing my lungs out as I generally love ‘difela’. I was singing so hard to a point whereby I wished the whole service could be just us singing and praising in song as I felt that my sins were being washed away. Don’t get me wrong; as much as I am a sinner, I pray almost every day as I do believe in the higher power.
Now back to issue I want to discuss. There I was after singing, seated and ready for the word of God. Immediately when the preacher opened his mouth, it suddenly clicked why I stopped going to church at the first place. It was during a time when we were supposed to tithe. Before tithing, the preacher gave this sermon about how we are supposed to tithe and how important it is.
See, this little tithing ceremony that happens before the service and solely dedicated to tithing is the one that actually made me give up on today’s churches. I have been to a whole lot of them and they all seem to have adopted the same formula. At this one church that I once went to they had three of their ‘disciples’ telling us about the importance and relevance of tithing and of course when they started my mind was looking for the nearest exit as I was just not interested.
Trust me, I have heard it all with ‘priests need to eat too’ ’we need to fix light bulbs and pay electricity in church’ blah blah blah, which is perfectly understandable. But where I get lost is when we have that special sermon that speaks solely about money, that sermon that makes you feel guilty about having what you have. Can’t a guy just pray and sing to God without being told about money in church?
To distract you a little bit, on my final year of studying Media studies, we once did a case study about a very well-known priest who earned millions from this church that has since become a franchise; a phenomenon that is also in fashion in most Johannesburg churches, your typical God First, Rivers church, LGTG etc.
Now my question is: to what point to we stop commercialisation of churches? What is the real reason behind this tithing sermon that forms the central part of the overall sermon? When I was growing up, I used to think that preaching was actually a calling, is it now a career? And the franchising part: is church as a career now a booming business? (Bear in mind the breakaway churches such as Shembe and the influence behind such breakaways and don’t get me started on the Pastor Joshua, pastor James, pastor Peter et al that sprouted like mushrooms around Braamfontein and the JHB CBD).
I was lucky enough that my mother was the one who actually made me to look at churches this way. Her exact words ‘nna le modimo waka re sharp, bo mme ba merapelo le baroti , ke batho fela’.