Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), the Most Revd. Nicholas Okoh, has berated Christian clerics who abhor being posted to villages or rural areas, saying such pastors have betrayed their calling.
Primate Okoh said it was disheartening to hear that some people were rejecting their posting to rural areas, 100 years after the missionaries had come to Nigeria, then a rural area, and even died for the gospel.
To him, there is no justification for rejecting the rural areas, “when there is no village in Nigeria today that is bad and inaccessible.”
The Primate made these observations recently at an event held at the Basilica of Grace Church Apo, Abuja.
“The incarnation of Jesus Christ who came from heaven in human form has made Him the first missionary, just like the early missionaries who left the United Kingdom, U.S.A. and Europe and came to Africa, to Nigeria.
“They (the missionaries) left all the comforts of developed countries and lived with people in the developing countries, their mode of transport was the boat just as Ajayi Crowther did, and many died on the high seas, unmarried; they left the glory of their place to display the principle of incarnation. They left the glory of their place to suffer for the gospel,” Okoh recalled.
The Primate said if people who claimed that they “are born again” are also influencing their posting or rejecting being sent to remote areas to propagate the gospel, “then, they are fake Christians and pretenders.”
He said the Church must not be static, it should be a moving stream; hence every man, every woman must move, go forward, not being stagnant in one place.
He added that the ministry of preaching the gospel is a risky one, a ministry of service, but that people have deemphasised service because of so many attachments and have thus become vain in many ways.
He also observed that “despite the heavy dancing and music enjoyment and celebration in the Church, evil is still growing, because the mind of the people has not been captured.”
He said it was not surprising, therefore, that when people leave the church, they commit atrocities with impunity, adding, “The dancing has taken away the reality of the faith.
He warned Christians that they cannot double cross God, by stealing church money, telling lies and doing funny things with Church projects and they say that they are rich.
He warned also, that people should not come to Church to collect curses, because, according to him, after stealing church money, God will come down and visit the people severely.
The Church, he said, is a rescue mission, hence people must rescue others.
Okoh called on people “to deflate themselves for God, to be inflated.” He said the humility of the incarnation of God should be the vision and mission of the Church, because it is a centre of service, a point where servants of God gather to rescue the perishing.
The Primate concluded that “music is not Christianity, but music can serve a purpose in the service of God, and that it must be limited to that service it
renders, as emphasis must be placed on humility, service and rescue mission.”
