Mega Church Lapses

I want us to look at you today, you who was raised in those deplorable and backward places where nothing worked, but who later, due to education, position, or profit relocated to the big city.

I especially want to speak to you who was raised in that humdrum church in those places who has finally found your ‘rest’ in a mega church and completely forgotten where he came from because it even appears shameful to be associated with such small beginnings.

I do not know whether you realise that that offering you give in that city mega church can comfortably and sufficiently support a pastor of that small church you now despise. That the small offering the big church does not really appreciate can make a huge difference in that church that made you who you are spiritually. That the church that raised you has stagnated because you have decided to effectively forget her existence, at least in your giving.

I do not know whether you realise that probably the reason the church is still backward is because you renounced it when you ‘made it’ in life.

I do not know whether you know that nothing is working in that village church because you have concentrated all your effort, experience and resources on a church that needs you for the money and expertise you give than the person you are.

And to be as crude as many are, do you realise that when you die it is that neglected village church that will carry the bulk of the burden of burying you?

Why am I writing this?

Tithe peddlers always remind the ones they are fleecing to take their money where they are fed, meaning where they are entertained or pampered.

But why do they not speak about remembering where they were breastfed?

That is the purpose of this message.

You are who you are because someone nurtured you from birth.

And it is not much different in the spiritual.

That Sunday school that taught you songs you did not understand has had a much greater influence on your spirituality than that comedic pastor who commands you to possess and claim.

The clearest you will find this is in one’s understanding of sin and the holy place.

That is why some are blatant sinners while others are very ashamed if they are caught. That is why you see some who do not have issues stealing or misusing church resources even as others would rather that their resources are swallowed up instead of touching church things.

The building blocks of your spiritual foundations are the reason you are the way you are.

That is the foundation I want us to remember.

Allow me to demonstrate the truth that the megachurch is only interested in what it can get from you, very simply.

How does it deal with sin?

Do you realise that most of these stinky and corrupt politicians that are morally decadent even if we used secular standards are members of these megachurches? The simple reason is those fat envelopes they give.

But I suspect you fled the village church because you know they will not be scared of your money and be scared of rebuking your sin. They would rather ‘starve’ than compromise their revelation.

But not many fled the village church because of sin.

Many did it because they got scared of giving, thinking that the village church is composed of beggars.

They therefore fled to the city where they are being milked dry by the educated smooth talkers.

They are giving much more in churches that use their money badly because they are scared of giving it to a church where they can trace the last coin.

They are giving their money to take their smooth-talking fraudsters for cruises and holidays when the same money could have sorted the roofing of their village church.

They are giving so that those comedic ‘pastors’ can buy houses and fuel guzzlers that they will still have to give to maintain when the same money could have installed electricity in that village church.

They are giving their money for mission trips that are mostly holidays when the same money could have bought instruments for that village church.

Do I hate the megachurch?

Of course not.

But I have been in megachurches, even been in leadership and know that for the most part the megachurch is a monster of a structure where spiritual accountability is very difficult to be found.

Ministers who are walking in their calling are too busy doing what they have been called to to think of taking leadership. Meaning that leadership is mostly taken by the wheeler-dealers, spiritual fraudsters, brokers or immature believers.

This means that chances of your giving going to where you intended it rarely, if ever, happens.

Incidentally, even if you get into leadership, you will discover that there are some who have more mouth than others. This means that your input will only be useful if it is in line with them. Otherwise, you may as well go hang.

But the village church is small, just as the village. This means that everybody’s opinion matters, even the ones of those not in leadership.

The other megachurch dynamic you will notice is ministry.

If you are not known, especially if your money is not visible, you may as well forget ministry from the church.

Many people who are not well off who go to a megachurch do so for the purposes of rubbing shoulders with the movers and shakers of society and not ministry. They think that standing side by side with a millionaire in church will somehow transfer the millionaire anointing to them.

It is when a crisis occurs that you realise the superficial nature of the megachurch fellowship. And I have seen enough of those heartbreaks.

But the village church does not operate that way, simply because everybody knows everybody else. And they will do all things together.

Though sin can thrive in a megachurch, it will find it very difficult to do so in a village church unless the same village has wicked foundations that the church is scared to confront. Or the said church was built on a corrupt foundation.

You see, normal is the operating spiritual system a child found.

A child who found obscenity thinks it is the norm and is even surprised to go to a place that lacks it.

The same goes for a child who found deference for the holy place and things, amongst other realities.

There is this person who views not going to church on Sunday the unpardonable sin because that is how he was brought up even as another thinks going to church is enough to bribe God.

I do not know whether we are getting anywhere.

What I am saying is that the village church has contributed more to your spiritual development than that surge of adrenaline you are being fed by that superstar you are calling pastor, bishop, prophet, apostle or any other title.

This means that as part of our appreciation for where God has taken us, we should honour those spiritual foundations with our resources.

Most, probably all megachurches do not know you apart from what they can get from you, from money to the deference your position attracts.

But the village church will treat you as you are without any deference to what you have since it raised you without them anyway. Or you do not remember Jesus in Nazareth?

Yet Jesus did not desert Nazareth, even dying with the name on His epitaph.

That is what I believe we should do with our Nazareth, wherever it is.

Allow me to add another aspect as a footnote to this.

Do you know those ministers who remain hidden most of the time yet are the ones you will always run to when you have a crisis?

Those are the other people you are sinning against God by neglecting in your giving and other support.

You should ask yourself why you will not run to your superstar pastor when you have a crisis yet will always run to him with an envelope when you are celebrating something. You should ask yourself why he never comes to your mind when you get that promotion, job or travel documents to your Canaan. Yet he is the only shoulder you will cry on when your life is a mess. Yet he is the only one you run to when you need counsel. Yet he is the only one you will run to when you need prayers because you know that he will pray.

Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine. For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward. (1Timothy 5: 17, 18)

Second to your village church is therefore the minister who does not remind you to support him or remind you of the many ways he has ministered to you.

Forgetting him is ingratitude of the highest order.

I will also mention the husband.

Many wives will treat their husbands as trash when it comes to spiritual things.

Yet it is this same husband who allows you to not only attend those meetings belittling him, but also funds you to do it, at the very least by reducing his expectation of what you should have done had you not attended those ‘enriching’ sessions.

Wives will leave their homes for days without as much as informing their husbands where they are going yet call him a demon when he takes responsibility for his house by demanding an explanation. Yet the same wives will call him weak if he doesn’t demand it.

Allow me to leave this here as I do not intend to build on it, at least in this post.

It is an addendum to what I am sharing.

I know I have made enough enemies by writing this post. But I would rather be right with God than be relevant to worldly expectations.

In any way, would you please show me where I have gone against scripture?