The astonishing growth of number of Christian A churches in this part of the world has left employers with no choice than to stoop as low as seeking the services of untrained ministers and worse still baby Christians to oversee affairs. The growth has occurred so rapidly that formal training institutions like Universities and Seminaries are never able to train enough pastors to shepherd these churches. Researchers have observed that there are over two million preachers in pulpits every -Sunday who have never had any Theological training whatsoever. The lack of training among Pentecostal ministers and pastors has greatly contributed to the failure and moral decay in several churches. It obviously surprises anyone that the more the increase in Christian population the less absolute moral standards are upheld. While lamenting this delusive demoralizing decadence eroding our part of the world, larger churches have not repented from breeding a horrifically cultural and doctrinal crossfire. Whereas the uncompromising word of God had earlier counselled everyone saying: “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needed not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:5)
Most Western Christians would not attend a church with a pastor who has never been to the Seminary, much less a pastor who has never been to a high school. But in our part of the world, believers may not have the privilege of making that choice. Most of our churches are in “Sa\e-Our-Souls” situations. Those suffering from mental instability are rarely told to seek professional help and are instead ‘counselled’ by untrained and unqualified pastors who usually make problems worse and oftentimes cause more spark volatile situations. The depressed are left untreated and many common psychological ailments are treated as the work of ‘demons’ subject only to prayers and anointing. This explains vividly how the Church has lost purpose and vitality of the Bible as against Paul’s prayers in Ephesians 3:18-19: “May be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breath and length and depth and heights. And to know the love of Christ which passed knowledge that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.”
It is a tragedy to appoint a leader over a congregation who has not been rebranded. The apparition of thinking that a leader who has not been rebranded could be used for re branding other persons is one commonplace tragedy of handing the steering wheel of our churches to untrained pastors.
If many people in ministry leadership do not have a well-grounded biblical doctrine of how to change and grow; if they have not worked that through themselves; then what does that mean for the kind of things they are teaching to their people. Some members of their congregations are more versed in the scriptures than they. These unscrupulous pastors are in the continuous habit of turning the Bible upside and when some of them make doctrinal mistakes, they gas it out in their communicative oratorical junk. For instance, some of them would ask the congregation to turn to the book of Joshua – good and fine! All of a sudden, you hear them following that with book of Moses; book of Jacob and so on. You would hear things like when Jonah swallows the fish; then the shadow of Jesus healed the epileptic; when Herod killed Peter then he reached out to take James; so, Balaam hired Balak to curse the children of Israel and so on so forth. These are the kind of garbage their congregations are being fed with.
It is a tragedy to see the bearer of the message simply carrying no message. Some of them preach repeated sermons; others preach from Christian magazines, while yet others simply do not have any message, forgetting that today’s Church is composed a number of persons that know the message so well. Worse still, some of them mime senior pastors’ accents and body movement. Of course, they cannot be themselves because they have nothing so unique to offer. They even go as low as copying senior pastors’ tongues sounding “gazar gazar, debunk Jarda, edubooo” and all what not. It is a tragedy! While delivering a sermon, they would read a portion of the Bible and start explaining a different thing altogether. Some others would read and simply not say anything about the portion they have read only to jump into unverified and unrelated stories and thereafter, you hear them bringing the sermon to a close. Well, who would call that a sermon anyway?
Untrained pastors are the candidates we have in the school of ministerial failure. They are the bona fide candidates of this school because of their zeal without knowledge. They pursue – numerical growth and leave out the spiritual growth of their pitiful members. In the wake of this delusion, they end up rocking the boat without taking time to sound the water. Some of them use money to beg members to come to their church. Occasionally, they would descend as low as sleeping with members of their congregations.
In the name of inter-personal relationship, they get themselves entangled in immorality. In the attempt to lay down their lives for the sheep, they have corrupted the altar. Members now have no regards for men of God, because some other so-called men of God have had affairs with them or with their daughters and/or have probably defrauded them. It is a tragedy! They go after fashion and the latest smart-phones, if-pads and computers. They promote godless members to high positions in order to get money from them. Their members cannot even keep the doctrine of the mother-church, because their untrained pastors have no respect for values. If they were trained, they would appreciate the cast of value that defines the harbinger of an omen of success surrounding the pulpit. Instead, they go about propagating false doctrines that have no scriptural backing; saying that three days dry fasting is equivalent to one vigil.
Where is it in the Bible? They would tell you that heaven helps those who help themselves; and confuse expressions by saying “I brought witchcraft message, instead of a message on Witchcraft”. They hardly quote scriptures while praying. They form alliance with witchcraft, marine and occult powers, and consult herbalists because they do not believe in the power of the word. In the first place, how can they believe in the word that is not in them?
Many of them contend that anointing is all that matters. They claim that they can operate in whatever way they choose for as long as they have been called by God or by whatever voice spoke to them. They have not read in their Bible that men who had unusual calls in the time of old still took it upon themselves to be trained. Saul of Tarsus for instance, went through three years intensive training in Egypt after his call. The Lord had trained Moses by himself on Mount Sinai and wrote for him on a tablet of stone. Therefore, a minister of God ought to be thoroughly trained in the exposition of the word. It is this kind of training that is generally advocated in Bible colleges and Seminaries.
The whole Seminary curriculum is designed to educate faithful and able preachers of God’s word. The Church has understood the scripture so well that they now require ministers that would handle the world effectively; to teach the truth with all implications and to reflect errors of all kinds. The Church now requires men who would like Ezra seek to be trained before assuming ministerial duties. “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgment” (Ezra 7:10). Are you a minister already? You definitely need to attend a Bible College. Beloved! Think on these things!
Pst Ernest Abinokhauno
