Two years ago I visited my best buddy at Adenta, a surburb of Accra. This time I was lucky. I was with his houseboy who knew the area very well. He was driving so I didn't have to worry about getting lost. On the way towards Adenta Down, there was a very big uncompleted building. It was filled with people, mostly women and a few men. I remember vividly that the time was 9:30Am and the day was Wednesday. I asked the houseboy what the people in the uncompleted building were doing at that time of day. He stated that the building was a church and that the people were there to pray and worship. He lamented that his master, my best friend, even asked him the same question the other day when they drove past the same building on the way to the house. Another friend, who is a senior manager in Tema told me that he gave an assignment to one his staff. The staff member didn't complete the assignment but came in to work the day the report was due with blood shot eyes. My friend stated that he called the staff member to his office and asked why the work was not completed. The staff member answered that he attended an all night prayer session and had very little sleep before coming to work in the morning. My friend told him that if he were to fire him, he as manager, couldn't live with his conscience. My friend advised the staff member that to purposely neglect a deadline for the submission of the report and choosing instead to attend an all night prayer session was totally unacceptable. He warned him to get his priorities right. He further advised him to get his work done before attending any all night prayer session. In addition, my friend told the staffer unequivocally that if he pulled anything like that again, he as the manager, would have no choice but to fire him. My friend told the young staffer that if he were to fire him, the pastor of the church where the staffer attended the all night session would not look kindly on the staff member because the staff member would not be able to make his financial contribution to the church. This caused me to ask again why many Ghanaians are so precoccupied with spirituality that most tend to neglect their daily work.

I don't want anybody to get me wrong. I believe in God and also believe in the power of prayer. The question is this: do Ghanaians have to go to church everyday and night to pray a million times and neglect their jobs? I am equally interested in salvation but I would not lose sight of the fact that without a job many of us may find it difficult to pay the bills. The bible states that man must make a living by the sweat of his work. This to me, means that one can still devote time to serve God and at the same time work hard on the job. This reminds me of the popular saying that there is time for everything and that total devotion to spirituality and the neglect of things which make our physical existence possible is perhaps not what God expects from us. There is nothing wrong with being a believer and attending church regularly including all night prayer sessions. But to do so at the expense of one's job or family relations to me is setting wrong priorities. I won't force anybody to choose between praying or going to work. However, our obsession with seeking only salvation at the expense of efficiency on the job is taking one's beliefs a little too far. We must give unto Ceaser what is Ceaser's. If you are getting paid to do eight hours of work, you must be willing to put in the full eight hours on the job. It is wrong and totally unacceptable to negelct one's duty on the job, and fall asleep simply because one chose to attend an all night prayer session while one has to be at work the following morning.

To me, the main purpose of going to church is to share fellowship with other believers, nothing more and nothing less. I wish somebody to convince me otherwise. The bible clearly states that in the end, we are going to be judged by our deeds. The story of the good Samaritan is a clear case in point. How many times we prayed or went to church wouldn't determine whether we went to heaven or not. After all, the good book also states that when one or two people are met in his name, he (the spirit) is right in our mist. Why our obsession with so many prayer groups and all night sessions? I can't give all the reasons for such devotion but it might be a way of proving that one is perhaps more spiritual and holy than the rest of society. This reminds me of the Pharasees who took every opportunity to demonstrate that they knew the scriptures more than anybodyelse. Their deeds showed that in truth, most were simply hollow. Their intention was to boast, brag,intimidate, bully and above all, show off their wealth and knowledge. Ha ha, this is what could be referred to as first class pomposity. This form of attitude among some within the early church is still happening today. The likes of Ananias and his wife,Sapphira (Acts 5:1), who hid part of the proceeds, and lied to God in the process are prevalent in our churches today. I hope these sinners who are always within the sight of God promptly confess and change fast enough to avoid the same fate as Ananias and his wife. Those who test the Spirit of the Lord would equally perish as Ananias and Saphhira. God hates liers and cheaters.

What many Ghanaians are forgetting is that our over obsession with attending all night prayer sessions,etc, and neglecting the jobs we are getting paid to do is causing inefficiency and reducing national productivity. I don't think God wants any "unproductive" souls in his Kingdom. Ghanaians expect miracles from God. This is all well and good but what we forget is that the Almighty God won't ever send his angels down to develop Ghana, clean the gutters, build the roads, etc, and give us everything we ask for if we don't do the physical work required to bring these things about. We must know that God created us in his own image and gave us the same brains as were given to other peoples in the world. We have not made full use of our God given talents but rather we have been looking for miracles whilst others have used the same gifts to develop their lands and people through hard work and dedication. Many may disagree with my assertion that much as there is power in prayer, any request which is not coupled with hard work and deeds would never get us into paradise or get us the salvation we are so thirsty for. The challenge is to have the vision to work very hard and pray that the goals we set can be achieved. With God everything is possible. God's angels are already in Ghana in the form of the almost twenty million Ghanaians. What are we waiting for?

We cannot count on many of the present church leadership in Ghana today to lead the flock to paradise when it comes to nation building. I am referring specifically to many of the leaders within the one man/one woman churches. Most of the so called latter day apostles, elders, bishops,general overseers, wolves in sheep clothing,etc, are worse than satan. Many within this group are using the church to make money for themselves. Many of these so called prophets are not accountable to anybody on this earth. They are using the name of the Lord to cheat, steal, lie, and make themselves rich. I wish there were laws in Ghana to prosecute these blasphamers who are using the name of the Lord in vain to acquire wealth. Their ostentatious tastes and lifestyles are too glaring to be ignored. Many live in masions while majority of their followers live in abject poverty. They are fast becoming the noveau rich in Ghana by just preaching the word of God. Is it not amazing? They may be charismatic in appearance but perhaps not in all their deeds. Many are simply crooks? You be the judge.

What I detest most is the attachment of many top politicians, businessmenwomen, and civil servants to these pretentious pastors. Many among the ruling elite in government and business seek the blessings of these "wonder" pastors to demostrate to society that they are men and women of faith. This more or less makes the pastors untouchables when any serious allegation of impropreity in one form or the other is levelled against any of them from within and outside the church. What happened to the separation of church and state? I bet it is not enshrined in the Ghana constitution. What these officials forget is that again in the end, we are all going to be judged by our deeds and not by how many of these "powerful" evangelists were our friends or prayer group leaders. Signing an unwritten pact with these men/women who are stealing from the poorest in society is shameful. These pastors don't hold the keys to get into heaven. It is only our deeds on earth which would determine whether we go to heaven or not. We are wasting our time serving, worshipping and attempting to please these fake and self appointed men/women of God. We must challenge these so called men/women of God to show us where many of them earned their doctorate degrees and other educational credentials. I would like to read the thesis and or dissertations that these self styled prophets wrote to earn their chain of degrees. The bible says that " judge not lest ye be judged". I don't think that I am going against scripture by demanding openness and accountablity from church leadership in Ghana across the board from the one man/woman church to the main stream churches. Many of our citizens are too poor to be allowed to be flleeced by these self seeking pastors and evangelists.

Please let me make it abudantly clear that not every pastor or evangelist in Ghana is a self seeking entity. However, I am still very suspicious of most of them because when it comes to the one man or woman churches, many are simply not accountable to anybody but to only themselves and their cronies. These pastors formed their own churches so they claim they own them. My understanding from church history is that churches are community properties supposedly owned by the church membership and not by any one man or woman who can use the church as his or her own fiefdom. Now we see how churches are gradually becoming a form of very lucrative business, generating cash flows to their respective owners around the world. God have mercy.

The purpose of this article is not to dissuade genuine people from doing the Lord's work but to ask my fellow Ghananians to look out for the chalatans who are masquarading as prophets and using the name of the Lord in vain to line their pockets.

LORD, I am a sinner and pray for the forgiveness of all my sins. Amen.

Kwabena Osei-Dadzie

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