My Frustrations with the Pentecostal Enterprise

To set the record straight, I am a Pentecostal. I believe in the ideals of the Pentecostal movement. I believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I believe the supernatural is still very much with us. I believe in healing, miracles and the likes. I am a believer but I get frustrated with so many of the Pentecostal practices I see around!

Why have we reduced God to a vending machine? Where you slot in your coins and out come a “miracle;” where you use God to meet your needs, kill your enemies, and so on; where prayers become a tool to satisfy your carnal lust; where the anointing oil is turned to a magical commodity; where handkerchief becomes a magician wand; where speaking in tongue becomes a language to whip your enemy; where prayer meetings have become a cry to God to “bless me, kill my enemies and make me number one.” And the list goes on and on.

What is actually the essence of the Pentecostal experience? Is it just about the signs and blunders being peddled around? Is it about all the drama we see in Pentecostal gatherings these days? Is it all the entertainment we witness in many a Pentecostal service today? Is it all about making pledges and vows to compel an unwilling God to act?

Would God reduce the personality of His third person only to a subject of so much ridicule and charade we see in our days? Would this kind of entertainment have wowed the three thousand that came to know Christ on the day of Pentecost? Are we not doing more harm than good to the cause of Christ? Why have we become environmental nuisance through our incessant noise and pollution? Why are there so much proliferations and duplications? Why have we become objects of ridicule among the unbelievers? Why would there be three different churches at every level of a two-storey building? At times two different churches sharing the same floor! What’s wrong with us for God’s sake? Why can’t we get our acts right?

Where is the evidence of changed lives that accompanied encounter with Christ? Why have our people become more worldly in their orientation? Why have we become increasingly greedy in attempt to show that we are the “king’s kid or kingdom citizens?” Would Jesus have suffered so much only to make us to be worldly focused and lascivious?

Is our spirituality measured only by all these acquisitions and flamboyance? Where are all the sacrifices, self-denials and cross carrying that Jesus demanded of would be followers? Why have we become a selfish bunch who only wants to be blessed so that we can consume it on our lusts? Why have all our prayers become transactional? (See earlier post on this blog).

Is this all that Christianity offer? Is this all there is about the Pentecostal experience? Is it just to feel good, live big and enjoy life? If we continue this way, what are we going to handover to the upcoming generations? Is this the way the apostles of Christ that passed the Gospel to us lived?

Honestly speaking, I’m fed up!

Is the “man of God” only about collecting envelopes and enjoying “bow the knees” everywhere he goes? Why have we become traditional and cultural lords over God’s heritage? How do you correct your daddy or papa when it is so obvious he’s going the way of Judas?

For God’s sake, which version of the Holy Bible are we reading? Is it King Solomon version or the Gospel of Judas?

What I see around has a great potential to make the church goes into extinction than any Buhari may want to do as some people want us to believe. What is going to kill the church is not external. It is intrinsic. It is right with us. What I see around has a close resemblance to the picture the Lord painted of the Laodicean church which thinks she’s so rich and increased with goods whereas she’s wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked (Rev. 3:17).

Sincerely, the church needs a new orientation—a paradigm shift! This mess gotta stop! We cannot afford to continue like this and expect our world to be any different. In fact, we are fast becoming more worldly than the world. The dancing style I see in church these days is not any different from the world. I had to unfriend a sister from my Facebook page a moment ago. We cannot continue like this. Can somebody call “us” to order pleeeeeease! 

Lord, save your church!