The founder of Perez Chapel International, Bishop Charles Agyinasare, has said Ghana would be something else if there were no weekday church services to give hope to the horde of unemployed graduates and the youth in the country since they find refuge and hope in house of the Lord at such services.

Ghana’s Parliament recently demanded that there be legislation against weekday church services, especially by one-man churches, since, according to the lawmaking chamber, those churches prey on the gullibility of the unsuspecting public.

The lawmakers argued in the chamber on Wednesday, 29 May 2019 that the state must step in to clamp down on what they see as the abuse of the congregants by those churches.

The Speaker of Parliament, Prof Aaron Mike Oquaye, gave the joint committees of Youth, Sports and Culture as well as the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee a one-month ultimatum to investigate and report back to the house about how best to regulate the activities of churches in the country.

Prof Oquaye also frowned on the holding of church services during working hours, when, in his view, that can be done on Saturdays and Sundays.

He said: “It is dishonest that someone employs you and then you use the hours he pays you for, to go somewhere else, whether it’s a church or otherwise, to go and worship. There are times to worship, Saturdays and Sundays are there, evenings are there but definitely not man hours otherwise we cannot develop as a people…

Delivering his sermon at the second service on Sunday, 2 June 2019 at the Perez Dome, Dzorwulu, Bishop Agyinasare wondered: “How many of the serious one-man churches do you see their pastors showing cars on social media”.

“Those showing their cars on social media, don’t they know them?” he asked.

“Those showing the USD500, 000 cars and the USD400, 000 cars, don’t they see them? So why do you want to target the ones who are doing some work, who are planting churches?” he quizzed.

Bishop Agyinasare said weekday church services are a great source of hope for the teeming youth, some of whom are in abject despair and desperation due to the lack of jobs to absorb them.

“They say that churches that do services on weekdays those churches must be stopped. If we were not doing churches on weekdays, for the young men and women who belong to the unemployed graduates association, who have been to university and have come out and don’t have a job and they’re disappointed and hopeless, if we were not giving them hope to come to church and pray and seek the face of God, like this nation will be something else.”