Ch-ch-ch-church time!

(Corinne-Swiss buddy who arrived on the same flight, Kauna-gracious mentor about culture and shopping, and Shannon-fellow US of A native who is sadly only here for 3 more weeks...I love these women!)

A post about church experiences has been in order for a while. Today was the first time since I arrived that I haven't been to a new church. I wanted to get a taste of various congregations before I settled on one. The thing is...when you're a visitor at a church here in Nigeria, it's not just a matter of being asked to fill out a visitor card or something. No, no. I've had to stand up, get sang to, introduce myself and why I'm here in Jos, be asked to come down front so the entire church could come shake my hand, and pretty much be welcomed in ways that would scare the majority of first-time church visitors in the states to death. Over all, I really dig church here.

Right now, I'm shamelessly going to allow a dear partner in crime over here, Shannon, to tell the story of our church experience last week. It took me several days to sit down and journal about it and since Shannon described it so well, why make a futile attempt to do better?

"Another really bizarre experience I had this week was attending an African Pentecostal church, which was called, ahem, Church of God Mission International Inc. Solution House. The name "Solution House" gives you an idea of what kind of church it was, the whole sermon was a litany of prosperity theology, the preacher loudly proclaiming that if you can just earn "divine approval" you will achieve "open heaven" and you won't have to pursue miracles, your miracles will pursue you! Amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord. Basically, the gist of it was that if you can just situate yourself properly with God, he will give you anything you want, whether it's a promotion, a good marriage, a child, a new car, a boat, a cell phone network that actually works, whatever it is, God is all about giving it to you. But the fundamental problem with that kind of message is that no anointing is going to force God's hand into giving us what we want. The whole point of Christianity, from my perspective is "Thy will be done," not "MY will be done." But part of the reason that the Pentecostal church is one of the fastest growing denominations in the Southern church is because many of them preach exactly that.

But even if the sermon wasn't problematic enough, I was also disturbed by the degree of control that the preacher had over the congregation. The volume and demonstrativeness of their response was basically directly proportioned to his shouting and vehemence on the stage. After the sermon he actually had us all standing with our hands folded on top of our heads and our mouths open! I'm sure if he asked everyone in the church to stand on their heads they all would have been bottom up in a blink. He actually said if you don't do it exactly the way the "man of God" tells you, you will not get "the result." But it was by these bizarre poses that he was trying to spread his anointing to as many in the church as possible. Not satisfied with the number that were slain in the Spirit on their own, he actually went through the church knocking people over himself. Then, to ice this cake, he actually had every one who had been brought to the altar stand to their feet and a little clump while all the ushers stood around them like a human barricade. Then he waved his suit jacket over them and made a popping noise into his microphone and every last one of them went down. But just when I really thought that I had fallen completely off the map of sense and comprehension, he told us that he was trying to raise money for a plane ticket and if those in the congregation would come to the front and give him money, they could step in the anointing oil that he had poured on the floor and he would pray for them to receive the same anointing that he had. I am telling you, I have never before witnessed the kinds of things that I saw at that church. Which, for me, begs the question, how many more are there even just in this city that are just like it? I really honestly shudder to think. "

More on other church times later...stay tuned!

Word of the day: koyi = learn