'Don't turn churches into commercial ventures'

An Evangelist of the Methodist Church, Charles Mensah, has called on the clergy to refrain from turning churches into commercial entities for personal gains.

He said the clergy should rather focus on their core responsibilities of winning souls for the Kingdom of God.

Lamenting what he described as “the loss of focus by churches and their crave for money and wealth,” during an interview with the Daily Graphic at Jacobu, Evangelist Mensah noted, “although churches are set with the main motive of promoting evangelisation, the current trend where many churches, including the orthodox ones have been transformed into money generation institutions is very alarming”.

“The situation is now defeating the purpose and motive of which the church was established. Due to the high focus on fundraising activities in churches, many people refuse to go to church for fear of being coerced to donate money for one project or another,” he complained.

The evangelist therefore, appealed to heads of all churches in the country to sit up and reflect on the harm being created for the quest of winning souls for the Kingdom of God.

“The crave for money for personal gains at the church is greatly affecting Christendom, the image of the church and the call to win souls for Christ,” he explained during the interview.

Evangelist Mensah, who is also a Financial Controller at the Rural Enterprise Project, challenged churches to strategically invest some of their resources into projects which could fetch them money instead of the current trend of numerous fundraising which affected the congregation.

“It has also become a common practice to see churches embarking on unnecessary competition in the acquisition of buses, instruments, giant buildings which he described as needless, calling it misplaced priorities,” he said.

“Why should groups in the same church have fleet of cars, buses and other properties which are parked and used once in a while when people in rural areas need just a little support to enhance their evangelism drive”? he queried adding that there was the need for all churches in the country to rethink their evangelism drive and review their operations.

“We should put a stop to brick and mortal evangelism and concentrate on pooling resources together to propagate the Gospel as have been commended by the Jesus whom we propose to serve,” he said.

He challenged the Methodist Church to lead the way by investing their resources in the rural areas where evangelism was very weak so they could win more souls for Christ Jesus.

Evangelist Mensah appealed to churches in the country to move a step further in their doings by registering their property or procure land tittle documents to avoid litigation and encroachment due to the inability to challenge people with the proper documents.