I have been speaking about this issue on social media for some time now and I know a lot of people always take it the wrong way.
Before I go any further, let me state something, I am a christian, I believe in God and I believe and have accepted Jesus Christ as my Lords and personal savior. That said, it means i don’t have any issues with Christianity or against Christianity in anyway.
I have been pushed to write this article because this issue has happened on many occasions and just getting out of hand. This morning, I happened to be on facebook and read the status of Mentor 2 and Project Fame runner-up, Nii Soul.
He had a simple message, “Churches are attacking and avoiding me for featuring Edem on my new song ‘Love”– Nii Soul.
The first question I asked myself was, why will the church attack a believer for featuring a secular artiste on his song??? Is the secular artiste condemned? shouldn’t the church use the opportunity to bring the person closer to God?? Dancehall artiste Kaakie suffered this same fate of discrimination when she was dropped from the church choir for singing secular music.
Many musicians in interviews have indicated that they either can’t go to church because people keep staring and passing comments or they are simply not accepted like other members and for that reason they have stopped going to church.
The church these days has become a place run on something very different from the principles of Christ. What is the role of a church?? A church is supposed to bring people to the Lord. The church is supposed to be a place where the unbeliever can come and find solace, security and a feel of the presence of God but what do we see, the church now judges its members and visitors, ushers can sack a member for not dressing well, the church decides who is qualified to worship and who doesn’t.
Why will anyone have issues with Nii Soul featuring Edem on a gospel and inspirational song? Is Edem a demon or a devil worshipper???? The fact he does secular rap music doesn’t make him a bad or evil person and who are we to even judge whether someone is worthy to be in the church or not?
Even if Edem is a non-believer, is it not the duty of the church to convert him for Christ, is this not an opportunity for them to bring him closer to God and to support Nii for bringing Edem to the house of God?? But rather they are castigating him for featuring the guy on his song.
Whiles Christ was bringing people to himself and his father, we are rather sacking them from the church. Are there not girls in the church who dress and behave worse than Kaakie??? Are there not people in the church who drink and smoke and chase women like unbelievers???
I was very happy when a few weeks ago, Pastor Otabil stated that it’s ok for girls to bring mini skirts to church. I was like, its about time. Why will you prevent someone from coming to the house of God with a mini skirt when serious Christians wear these mini skirts in their houses and in town. Nobody should give me that “this is the house of God comment”, because the person is first coming to worship God. If their mode of dressing is not appropriate, it’s up to the leaders to counsel and advice the person so the next time they don’t come to church wearing the same clothes, but to ask them to go home and change tha’ts too bad.
What if on their way home, they get knocked down by a car or they faint and die?? Have we thought about the fact that we would have been the impediment in that person converting and accepting Christ? Have we read what the bible says about that??
Christians should understand that we are not saints, the fact that we attend church doesn’t make us better than anybody. It’s our duty to get closer to people who are not in Christ and bring them to him.
The church is beginning to forget the fact that the church belongs to Christ and who ever comes to the church comes because of God and not any other thing, therefore if you prevent that person, you are impeding their repentance and God will not be happy with you.
Luke 5:32 says; I came not to call the righteous but the sinners to repentance. This was Jesus speaking. The Bible also says, thou shall not judge.
Lets not be hypocritical by trying to imply that we are more righteous than others. Romans 3:10 says, none is righteous, no not one, so who are you to place yourself above someone?? There are times you hear Christians go like, “as for this person when he dies, he’s going straight to hell”. Who made us judges of who is saved and who is not?
Shouldn’t we even jubilate that a non-believer has decided to come to church, shouldn’t we counsel and teach such a person about Christ and ensure that they are saved?? Why then do we push such people away?
We make it look like certain people are beyond being saved, we feel their sins are too enormous yet we forget that we also sin. The small small lies we tell everyday are sins, the insults we say everyday are sins. There is no where in the bible where sin has been graded and classified, infact the bible rates all sins as the same.
If we don’t change this attitude, we will end up pushing people away from God and into eternal damnation and on the day of judgement, we will account for it.
God bless, nothing less. See you another time.
Quaci Kyei.
