Is the church conforming to the patterns of the world?
I attended a church service in one of the ‘big’ assemblies in Nairobi and my experience there has contributed a lot to this article.
The church is meant to be a house of prayer and fellowship. But it has become a house of players with fellow sheep.
We have built big sanctuaries with empty congregants. Religion has never and will never be a box ticking activity which many churches have turned it to be. These days it’s all about attending church services on Sunday and back to the Mon-Fri hustle and bustle. The original reason to be in church is no longer a vital reason for many churchgoers of this time. The current reasons for some range between ignorance and insanity.
Church has become a fashion contest. You want to know the new fashion trends come to church. The new styles make a debut on Sunday before going viral. Back to my church visit.

I get to church with a friend, and seated waiting for the service to start. Then comes this lady, she has what we used to call “The Cross in Trouble”. She has her cleavage all up for sale. With a rosary plunged in between with the hands preventing further deepening. It is really uncomfortable for me and this friend of mine who is my dad’s age. The five old men seated across start murmuring. I couldn’t stop imagining what could have been going through their minds. The lady is really unsettled or she has a doctorate in church advertising. She comes in and leaves so many times in fifteen minutes.

This only took the congregations attention for a short while, until this other lady came in. She was slender dressed to kill. Both herself and other congregants.  With a beige free flowing dress (put night before dress). The blend with the skin tone was just amazing. This dress could only get to 8 inches above the knee. It was a see through dress. The congregants got the curiosity to thoroughly see through.  The praise and worship got complicated when it was time to lift hands and give a shout of praise. The dress left too little for imagination. Her dress followed the raising instructions. The congregants could hardly make a shout of praise. Some tongues tied too hard, other too wet to make any noise. You would easily think some of these  people entered the church by mistake. A night club having been their destination.“Why should he be concerned about other people’s dressing?” Some are asking.

Being a church service, people came to be fed with the word of God. But rarely and barely does it happen. . Why? There are all groups of people in church. From the Old men and women who see this as an abomination and their minds and spirits will not be settled throughout the service. Those others who feel they are being challenged and cannot concentrate thinking of how they will hit the week looking through all the Moi Avenue Stalls and (or) in all Eastleigh building to remain on the game.

What about the young men whose hormones have not found rest. Just by sight gear one is activated. Both mentally and physically. What about children, who are quick to pick role models from ‘safe’ religious places. What mentorship is being cultured?  How would you convince a six year old girl on decent dressing when she can object with examples?

These distractions are enough to sway two thirds of the congregants. This ratio would worsen drastically if the person of reference holds a position in the ‘ministry’. Some of the worship/ choir members and pastors’ wives are in the MINI-stry. Some not only try to outshine one another in ministry but even in their minis try to.

In a church service I attended a while back, testimony time had been converted to the taste-money time of attesting money activities. It is not bad to attest success, but it is wicked to glorify money at the expense of the gospel.

Money has become the driving force of very many churches. They have forsaken the word of God for money. The Prosperity gospel, Nooo…. prosperity ghost-spell is the driving force for many congregations. A lot of preachers, pastors and the so called, bishops and self proclaimed prophets have abandoned preaching of the Heavenly realm and the Narrow gate, to preach on blessing and blessing and blessings. It’s all about how He will shower us with His blessings. They forget to tell us that He curses and reprimands. That the nations of old who had the behaviours we have now adopted were destroyed.

This is because these ‘shepherds’ fear, being condemned, being referred as too harsh and most of all, losing the congregation numbers. No … No… It is losing the money they are afraid of.  For they need to fuel the flashy lifestyle they have embraced.

The debauchery in our churches is very wanting. It is worth a Sodom destruction.  Teenage pregnancies are part and parcel of our churches. Fornication is no longer a ‘sin’. It has become normal. That we have to be silent to avoid ‘judging’ other and to be political and socially correct. A sin that even in our traditions was a taboo has crouched into the church. Justification or silence about sin doesn’t make holy.

Morals are now an endangered species. With most of the morality inducing institutions have fallen to the pressure of being like the corporate majority and enjoying political and societal correctness.

This is not to mean there are no upright churches remaining. There are so many of them. But they have been outnumbered by those that are not. Naturally the bad outshines the good. But that does not make all good bad.

A radical change in the church standings on morality will be critical. It will be really important in ensuring that we have a future to ourselves and a moral standing to be proud of. Or else nudity will be adorable and (or) twelve- thirteen year old parents will be acceptable.

Has the church completely lost its morality?

Is the situation reversible?