This is part of a series of articles, here at African Christian, that profile African Churches that are working to fight poverty in Africa. We believe the hope of Africa is the local church and prayer for more leaders and churches to be raised up who will lead the way in Africa and world in showcasing how local churches and care for and alleviate local poverty.
Wealthy Preachers and Poverty in Africa
It is not unusual to get to church and notice only one very expensive vehicle on the parking lot. On inquiry you will be told that the vehicle belongs to the pastor of the church and none of his members can afford one but through their contributions of tithe, offerings and other contributions with the promises of becoming prosperous, they finance a larger than life lifestyle for their pastor, Bishop, Apostle or other name that they would call their spiritual leader. There has been concern over this state of affairs considering the levels of poverty in Africa and the stress the members of congregation go through to raise money to finance their pastors’ lifestyle. In Kenya there was a case of a man who sold family property and took all the proceeds to a famous preacher for prosperity. The man died and that is when the family discovered that he had sold everything.
The prosperity gospel
The message in most of the Pentecostal churches is about God making everyone prosperous especially if they give to the church. This message has been preached so much in Africa which has so many poor people struggling to meet their needs. This people are asked to contribute to the welfare of the church and of the pastors to their further detriment with promises of prosperity despite the level of poverty in Africa. This question has raised so many questions and the church has also come forward to criticize some of these activities by some churches. It is not unusual to build the pastor a house, buy him a vehicle and in recent times and especially in Nigeria, buy him a private jet. With the poverty that is ravaging most parts of Africa, most see this as unnecessary extravagance at the expense of the members of the church and the general public. At least five pastors of leading churches in Nigeria are listed in top research magazine for the wealthy Forbes! How do they make money? Well there is a story of churches charging gate fees of up to N 1000 for an evening service and those who cannot afford the fees are simply turned away! For a 25000 seat church this would translate to N25, 000,000 (US$ 170,000) in one night! Most of these churches don’t have any structured method of giving back to the community and the church and the founder are seen as one and the same thing. The in thing is pastors telling their faithfuls to plant a seed.
The faithful believers
Church goers who attend the Pentecostal churches where they are required to give a lot of money mostly take their church leaders to be the custodians of the truth of salvation without question. With this state of affairs, there have been incidents where the believers have simply been taken advantage of by the preacher, leading to most of them getting deeper into poverty. One of the leading preacher in Nigeria was holding a rally where 500,000 people were in attendance. Getting to the venue was a nightmare and some who were attending the function spent over 10 hours in traffic. The argument from some of them is that God must have blessed that for staying in traffic for so long to listen to the man of God. There have been strong feelings that the churches should do more and have a practical solution to the issue of poverty in Africa.
We’d love to hear the story of how your church is working to end poverty in your community – Make a comment below or email us your thoughts.
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Dokiso Munthali says
Our church is Seventh Day Baptists here in Malawi. It has very few members as compared to many churches around our area. The church has taken a role in reducing poverty through the establishment of orphan groups which give room to any member of our community to support. We have a garden where we grow various crops after sells, we buy some basic needs for widows, vulnerables orphans, sick and the aged. We are paying school fees for 4 orphans at high school though they are many who are dropping out due to fees problem which is not welcome idea but we dont have resources to cartter for the 312 school going students registered. Our church try its best and its our wish to help others. Visit us we can share experiences.