Andrew
BARELY had we driven a kilometre from the premises of a city Pentecostal church, after a Sunday service, when my nephew started complaining that he could not find his trendy phone.
His friend could also not locate his Bible, leaving us with no option, but to turn back and look for these items.
On arrival, we were shocked to hear many of the congregants had lost tambourines, wristwatches, handbags and wallets.
What was supposed to be a blessed day for us ended up miserable, as we discovered that churches have now been turned into dens of robbers and crooks.
There are a lot of despicable things happening at churches nowadays. One, thus, ends up wondering whether or not the spirit of God is still present at these places of worship.
It is now not unusual to walk into a church yard after a service and see people crying after losing money, Bibles, hymn books and cellphones to thieves who pounce on unsuspecting worshippers.
It can even be worse for those who worship barefooted, as they sometimes fail to find their shoes on preparing to make their way home.
As I commit pen to paper, gentle reader, churches are no longer as safe as they ought to be, because they have been turned into marketplaces for various things, including cars, hence the presence of conmen.
“I heard that you are struggling to sell your car? No problem. Just attend our church service next Sunday and we will certainly get buyers for you. There will be a lot of people around and they will obviously buy it as long as you are prepared to negotiate the price downwards,” I heard a pastor telling someone in the capital recently.
He said, because everyone associated the church with holiness, no one would suspect they will be buying a bedraggled vehicle as long as the deal was done in church.
Grocery items and beauty products are also exchanging hands at the expense of worshipping Yahweh at churches.
“I no longer struggle selling cooking oil, rice, spaghetti and beauty products that I smuggle from Botswana. People want to look chic and be known to be living the life, so I just take these things to church and they will sell fast like hot cakes,” I heard a workmate saying shamelessly last weekend.
Gentle reader, if you want to see sin in its rightful colours, visit a church near you.
Apart from helping themselves to tithes, some pastors, deacons and other people with positions of influence at churches will be selling clothes in the church yard.
Some will even be selling beer to youths in the yard.
I feel sorry for those who are single and searching, because they can be driven by pastors and elders of dubious backgrounds into marrying retired commercial sex workers in exchange for freebies or money.
Girls desperate for marriage are not spared.
They are prone to abuse, being made to do laundry and household chores for families of boys who do not even care for them. Kungoshandiswa.
Loan sharks are also offering their services at churches.
All they do is offer a distressed worshipper a shoulder to cry on. They offer them loans at exorbitant interest rates.
There are countless characters who have lost houses, vehicles, furniture and other valuables to fellow worshippers after being forced to swallow sugared pills disguised as soft loans.
Human traffickers are also frequenting churches, where they lure unsuspecting young girls with promises of better lives overseas. They simply appear to be doing everything in the name of God.
Sex and prostitution rings have taken root at some churches because these thrive where there are lots of people.
Gentle reader, it is one thing to go to church and quite the other to worship God in the real sense.
Inotambika mughetto.
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Bongani Ndlovu