The God of Chosen Answers Prayers (part 1)

I attempted attending the Lord's Chosen. Here's what I learnt.

Last year, I wrote a much abused review of CCI. I had a lot of fun writing it, and decided that I would make it a thing. The readers of this Substack chose The Lord’s Chosen as the next church for me, and I obliged. I even thought it was going to be convenient writing the review as I believed that there was a Lord’s Chosen church near my house. So I wore my fine native and off I went. Here’s the product of my attendance.

A Table For An Altar

The first thing I noticed about this church was how different the aesthetics were to other churches. First of all, it had about seven flags of different countries outside the premises. I didn’t know of any church that did that, but that was only the beginning. Instead of a regular altar, this church had a roundtable. There was an altar, and on the altar there was a huge table with about five chairs surrounding it in a semi circle facing the congregation. The table was strewn with papers and documents like you would have in a regular boardroom meeting, and at the middle of the table sat the pastor, who was dressed like a priest and carried an actual wand.

During the course of the service, the pastor’s phone rang and he gave someone sitting at the table to go and answer it outside. He didn’t even have the decency to put off his phone during a church service! The whole thing was so incredibly informal that I struggled to close my mouth. The pastor didn’t even speak English — he was talking in pidgin, despite the church looking, from the outside at least, prestigious. It was incredible. The church had the aesthetics of a boardroom but the pastor behaved like he was talking to a bunch of market women.

The music was, well, bad. I tried to rationalize it but I couldn’t. The acoustics were horrible, the choir sang off key, and the drummer was visibly dying, and everything just sounded really bad. It was a huge contrast to the last church I attended, but it somehow felt more wholesome and authentic. These were people just doing their best to praise God, no matter how it sounded. It felt real.

“I be deaconess nobi by mouth or to come sit down for chair — you’re on a category”

I would like to note that for some reason the church didn’t call for first timers. The last church I attended gave me Fanta because I was a first timer. This church didn’t even acknowledge the possibility of a first timer despite the church being so scanty relative to its size. I don’t think we were up to 150 people in spite of the fact that the church could easily take double our number. Demographic collapse is going through Nigerian old churches like the HIV pandemic in the 80s, and it is astonishing to see.

If all of this sounds incredible to you, imagine how wide-eyed I was. The church also has a weird rule; people are not allowed to enter when the opening prayer is being said. I went late that Sunday, so I was stuck outside while the prayer was being offered. Aside from the boardroom nature of the altar, there was nothing too different about the church. They had drums, a choir dressed in robes, and men and women sat down together. In fact, I was about to be lulled into the assumption that this would just be a regular church with regular doctrine. But I should never have thought that. Or maybe this is just what Christian doctrine is nowadays. You decide.

What’s In A Doctrine?

It is difficult to talk about doctrine in Nigerian Pentecostal churches because half of them have none. A pastor could climb the pulpit on one Sunday and argue that Jesus and God and the Holy spirit are one, and the next Sunday argue that they aren’t one. On one Sunday, wearing jeans would take you to hell, and on another Sunday what really matters is what is your heart. Your pastor could tell you that the Devil is so scared of the name of Jesus that just one mention would rid you of evil spirits, and in the very next breathe try to deliver a sister with a stubborn evil spirit that will not flee unless she gives foolishly. And what of the ones who insist that prayer is the master key — and the next day the master key changes to praise. And then the next Sunday, there’s really no master key and God just blesses who he wants. After all, didn’t he say I’ll have mercy upon who I’ll have mercy upon?

How about the prophets who never actually do this but please God says you should come out if you have ten million naira to contribute to the church project. Okay, if you don’t have ten million, God says five million will do. Okay, God just changed his mind — if you have one million, come out. Wow, God is so merciful — he wants to give even people with only hundred thousand a chance to share in this blessing. Okay, even fifty thousand naira come out. Just so that the money can be complete and God can be glorified — come out with your ten thousand. Okay, bring whatever you have. And remember, God is no different from a tax collector on the corner — if you give to him, he will give to you. This is just a business transaction after all. Business is business, guys. How about the ones who lecture you about the importance of prosperity today, and tomorrow tell you to take heart — all your treasure is in heaven.

“Promote Jesus In Your office and you will get a promotion!”

They flip flop so much that any serious Christian would be better off just reading Church fathers for doctrine and going to church for worship and community. The pastor at this church must have spoken for an hour, and half of the time, he was just calling out his church members for being too poor. I’m not exaggerating! He complained about the church being empty, and said that people who missed church for work had to make up for it by paying an extra offering. His argument was that if work was so important for you to miss church for, you have to make sure the church feels the benefit of your work. I mean that makes sense in a crude way, but saying that from the altar boardroom desk is just really tacky.

“In my former station, before I came here, before the day of harvest I already knew the result. You know why? I have done my homework. And we had times four of their previous record. With God all things are possible. And if you say it’s not possible for you, nah you sabi”

Throughout the one church service I attended, I felt like the doctrine was just money. Money, money, money. Even before the preaching, the pastor spent around thirty minutes telling people to get ready for a harvest that was coming up soon. And by get ready, he clearly meant get money ready. He called out all the church groups — elders, men, women, and youth — and asked them if they were ready to give foolishly for God. And they replied that they were. I don’t think they had much of a choice.

“We also have invitation cards for VIPs. One person should be able to invite 5-50 Persons”

And when it got to the preaching part, it was just more admonition to give to the church. The title of the sermon was Acceptable Sacrifice, and it went as well as you’d imagine. It was essentially a give-Jesus-money gospel on steroids. The point of the preaching was that sacrifice wasn’t really sacrifice but a way to get some reward. The pastor argued that the bigger your sacrifice, the bigger your reward. By sacrificing, you are essentially entering into a trade by barter contract with God. I’m not up to date on Christian theology, but that sounds a little bit false. However, it got worse, if you can believe it.

Before he began preaching, the pastor warned — yes, warned — everyone who was yet to redeem their vows to do it quickly or face the wrath of God. Apparently there are monthly dues, and the church had a special financial desk — I mean a literal financial desk that was right in the auditorium and had people sitting on it — where people were supposed to go to fulfil their financial vows. So he pointed to the financial desk and told people to go there to redeem their vows after church if they didn’t want to see the wrath of God.

The thing about this church is that, despite the boardroom aesthetics, it is extremely informal. All the bells and whistles that come with church rituals were missing here. Right there on the pulpit, the pastor was calling out members of the church who were gossiping with him! And he was doing it in pidgin as well! He relayed a story about some woman who had gossiped about another member to him, and how he called the subject of the gossip to explain the matter. Me I no dey talk person matter for back oh, he said. You have to remember, guys. This is a fairly large church. It is a storey building with an upstairs auditorium that could house at least three hundred people. And yet.

Ironically, despite focusing so much on money and giving, the church didn’t look rich. The sound was horrible, the chairs were old, there was no A/C and everyone looked miserable. So why was the money going to? The last church I attended didn’t spend this much time on begging people for money, yet the church looked a lot better. Somebody say glory?

Let’s back to the sermon, because it was a trip. The pastor made sure to warn people that grumbling and complaining while sacrificing — which was basically a euphemism for doing transfer — would render the sacrifice invalid. So not only does Jesus want your money, he doesn’t want to hear any foolish crying while you are doing the transfer. He also made sure to let the poors know that their poverty wasn’t an excuse not to give to the church. I can’t lie, it was a sound argument.

“Country hard, country hard, you no dey chop"?

And remember, you aren’t the only one giving to God. You need to teach your kids how to give as well. Tell them to save from the pocket money you are giving them and make sure they give to the church too. One would think the sacrifice of the father would cover the kids, but that is stingy nonsense. Jesus wants your ten thousand naira and is at the same time observing your kid’s one thousand naira. Money is money. Business is business. Do you want to rob God?

“Wike say if it didn’t dey, it didn’t dey. If a man isn’t excited to give to God, he can’t teach his kids to be excited to give to God”

But come, the fact that you are doing business with God doesn’t mean you should ask for foolish things. You should ask for things that will give him glory. For example, a new Benz. One would wonder how and why a new Benz would give God glory, but I suspect the pastor would say it’s your little faith doubting. Even the songs at the end of service were centered around giving. The whole thing was so shocking, but at least they didn’t have gays and women didn’t preach. I am not sure how Paul would feel about the pastor making the church service a glorified Egbon-Adugbo-taxing-you-scenario, but I certainly know how he would feel if it was a woman doing the taxing or gays being the ones taxed. At least that is what I experienced on the one Sunday I went.

In my last article I made the grave mistake of critiquing the points of doctrine of the church in question and earned a lot of abuse for my efforts. I will not be doing that here. God sees all. You may begin to ponder; oh Elewa, didn’t you say you would go for four services before writing your review? Indeed I did. But I also happen to be quite stupid.

What Are The Odds?

What are the odds that two churches would have very similar names? If you actually attend the real Lord’s Chosen, my description of their doctrine and aesthetics here would be shocking to you. And that’s because I didn’t actually attend the Lord’s Chosen. Instead, I attended a similarly named church called Christ Chosen Church of God International. And yes, the international in the church’s name explains why it had the flags of countries in its premises. Almost all Nigerian mega churches are international churches, so why did this church feel the need to put international in its name? And then I remembered what Tywin Lannister said; any man who must say I’m king is no true king.

I only realized this wasn’t really the Lord’s Chosen half way through the service when the projector brought up the church’s name. It was then I noticed the conspicuous lack of Lord’s Chosen traffic jerseys. It then made all the sense in the world to me. I quickly googled this church and landed on their website. On the website I learned that the head pastor was called a Snr Apostle, and here is how the website described him.

A conference speaker once said “To be unheard of and to exist without any meaningful documentation of your healthy existence is a life without a substance”. The man Apostle David E.O. Unuefe Ikhuiwu has lived being heard by his generation and is worthy of a meaningful documentation. His life is that with a substance qualifiable with the standard rule of indispensability.

There is much to ponder about, but I’ll leave that to you. Before they give me names that my mother didn’t name me.

Please Don’t Crash Out In My Comments

In the last week, I received a few comments on my articles that can only be described as crash outs. One comment was so awful that I can only describe the fellow behind it as someone with a huge homosexual crush on me. I say that because he was, for some reason, imagining the sex I have with women in excruciating detail. I don’t think that’s a very straight thing to do. Another commenter must have commented something like ten times, and all of it was just juiced by her anger that I didn’t put enough respect on her pastor’s name. I remember when I used to feel like that about my pastor, and I have to say such behavior is extraordinarily pathetic. I remember that period now and I feel like dying of cringe.

Let’s be clear; you will not get extra gold plated toilet seats in heaven because you crashed out over someone disrespecting your pastor. And all of this was over my last church review article. If my candid observation upsets you, correct whatever you think I got wrong respectfully and be on your way. Crashing out over an anonymous review online will not make Jesus proud. It also won’t make your church’s doctrine any less dumb as the case may be. Thank you and God bless.

After I learned of my mistake, I decided to find a real Lord’s Chosen church, and it was just as incredible as I expected. While my review isn’t done, I can promise that it will be about next week Monday. It is going to be so good. I feel giddy thinking about it.

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