31 December Watch Night –The Market is on for the Largest Crowd

By: Kwabena Brako-Powers

With just ten (10) clear days to the end of the year, as would be expected, churches are intensifying their commercials to attract large crowd for that eve. Both local and international churches are involved in this craze for more population. The use of high-rising billboards, posters, radio/TV spots, flyers, banners, and stickers with screaming invitation, often annoying, are in vogue in this scramble. Some of these communication channels have the faces of the founders of those churches on them, as though doing that would give them an added advantage. And yes they do – in a country where the faces of founders have become synonymous to the names of their churches, it is, however, common to attract lovers through this means quantitatively.

Dominant churches in Ghana such as Action Chapel International (founded by Archbishop Duncan William), International Central Gospel Church - ICGC (founded by Dr. Mensa Otabil), Lighthouse Chapel International - LCI (founded by Bishop Dag Heward-Mills) and formerly Word Miracle International, and now Perez Chapel International (founded by Bishop Agyin Asare) are reputed to command large crowd in the nation. Research has it that the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) commands the widest and largest crowd during this period in Ghana due largely to its presence in every inconceivable corner in the country. Another research pegged the number to between 8,000 – 10, 000+ audiences on a night. One other fascinating factor is that the name Dr. Mensa Otabil continues to receive enthusiastic audience from both Ghanaians and foreigners because of his reputation for ‘connecting distressed souls through his comforting words’.

Another personality worth hearing in Ghana is Archbishop Duncan William, a man accredited for training men of God such as Bishop Dag Heward-Mills, and Bishop Agyin Asare among others who are now playing instrumental roles in the business of preaching the message of Jesus Christ. Archbishop is estimated to attract between 9, 000+ audiences on such a night. It came as little surprise when word has it that the two dominating men of God, Dr. Mensa Otabil and Archbishop Duncan William, contest each other in the use of the Accra Sports Stadium and the Independence Square now Black Star Square as the venue for their watch night services because of the crowd they could attract. As expected in a political volatile nation as ours, these men of God, who are required to remain neutral, are linked to the two dominating parties in Ghana to which end nobody could say. However, it is worth remarking that their import in the nation and the sustenance of national cohesion is such critical to be sacrificed on the altar of petty political squabbles persisting in the nation’s political terrain.

So who pays for such needless spending on advertisement for the 31 December watch Night service? Couldn’t such amount be helpful somewhere?

This propensity to play host to large crowd, and not necessarily changing hearts of unbelievers (including unbelieving Christians), is fast becoming an exclusive club reserved for the large dominating churches in the nation. Punctuated by competing names, a function of capitalist competition, are offered to the public to choose from. Such names as Crossover, Watch Night Service, Passover, and Virgil Night are sold to the public in a fashion reserved for commercial marketing. This therefore begs the question: what is the underlying motive for the big spending by these churches?

Perhaps, we could do what many nations are scared of doing – we should begin to tax these churches and/or audit their accounts to monitor the use of these funds which are public funds --in the sense of the word public. These noble endeavors should not be discredited for the sake of religious fanaticism as some are in the habit of doing, but rather on the basis of strong rational, and empirically verified test case across the world. Doing this will help us to address some of the levers to poverty in the country.