“My fee is One Million Naira for your two-hour session of worship. This amounts to a service charge of N500,000 per hour of worship. Any additional worship will require you to top up my fees. Your invoice will be issued by my manager”. How much lower can a minister of God fall? At the root of this pollution in the body of Christ in Nigeria is the emergence of a new generation of Praise and Worship “dealers” whose practices strike very close resemblance to those of the biblical, “Hophni and Phinehas”, the two sons of Eli whom God judged for their attitudes towards His sacred Altar. In 1 Samuel 2:17, the bible says, “The sin of the sons of Eli was extremely serious in the Lord’s sight, because they treated the offerings to the Lord with such disrespect”.
It has never been this bad. In fact, many of these worship dealers are living very adulterous lifestyles, the very reason they need to sustain their “Worship for a Fee” practices. I was privileged to know the Lord in the early 80s. There was no time in the history of the Church, until this season, that the offering of praise and worship became a commercialized venture for branding and marketing purposes. Today, it is an industry of proud, arrogant, greedy, and ego-centric people, many of whom are not really saved, much less being broken.
We have lost it completely in this aspect of our service to God, and the earlier the fathers in the land stand up to this menace, the better for the next generation. Who are these worship dealers? They are many of our brothers and sisters whose faces adorn fliers and posters in our conferences and meetings. They are the products of our churches. Sadly, many of them have turned their backs at God, blatantly violating the tenets of His word as a minister of Christ that they all claim to be. It is a generation populated by plenty of unsaved people and carnal worship “dealers”, all of whom have found a safe haven to market their singing skills to the highest bidder. Yes, it is about the highest bidder. It is not about the desire to advance the gospel of Christ, but to build image empires and global brands for themselves that will ultimately convert to financial gains for them. They may deny it, but that is the plain truth. The love of God has died in our hearts.
Root causes
But what is the root cause of this problem? The Church, our fathers and the society at large are responsible for this menace. First, there is a dearth of genuine disciples in the church. A lot of the people parading themselves as Christians are either unsaved or extremely carnal people. Also, many of the “superstar” worship dealers that are grinding the noses of pastors on the ground in Nigeria with their “pay me my fees before I lead worship” practices were actually influenced by some of our fathers. My conversation with worship leaders in Nigeria, coupled with my many years of experience in the Church prove to me beyond all doubts that this menace has its roots, firmly entrenched in the values and practices of many of our church leaders. Here are my findings from my research on this subject matter. These music ministers said the following things to me.
“Many of our church leaders publicly boast and brag about their global influence; they spread branches all across the globe and gather in funds in their billions on a regular basis; they come to the church on Sundays and speak glowingly about how much money they’ve got; they boast about the experience of their family and children in their last holidays to the Bahamas and to Hawaii; they revel in their acquisition of state of the art automobiles and choice properties; they invite pastors from other parts of the world and pay them fortunes”.
According to our discussions, these praise and worship leaders also told me that aside from the sacrifices of these pastors, which they acknowledge, their own labor and sacrifices as worship leaders also contribute to the growth of their churches. They told me that as they seat in church every Sunday to listen to the mouth-watering financial success of the pastor and the church, they feel used and abandoned. We’ve got families too, they told me. We studied music in school and hold music as our major calling in life. Consequently, Satan hijacks the process and pushes these young, talented worship leaders to rebel against the system, “Me too will make money with my skills and talents, anyhow, anywhere”. And to make matters worse, when the pastor invites a “superstar” worship dealer with a large following to his convention with mouth-watering reception and a red carpet to match, the faithful worship leaders in the church become frustrated and influenced to toe the same path, “Me too must become a superstar”, “Me too must be received at the airport with a red carpet”.
And then the cycle of desecration and corruption continues. Further to this is the role of our declining culture. Nigeria is a nation deeply rooted in the culture and value of greed and waste, ably promoted by world class corrupt politicians, impoverished population, and massive unemployment. A lot of pastors regularly patronize politicians and vice versa, while many are big time businessmen with business interests in several segments of the society. Consequently, there is no excuse for not taking good care of us, according to the words of these ministers I spoke to. Thus, these socio-economic factors, coupled with the role and practices of some of the fathers constantly sweeten the narrative, “There is no other means of paying my bills If I don’t charge fees prior to accepting invitations?” Consequently, each generation is getting worse than the previous, and no one dares to stand up to correct this decline in virtues and values in the church.
What are the remedies to this crisis? Join me later today as I discuss some of the remedies and interventions that will help our brethren that are caught up in this menace to repent and find their ways back to Christ. I will also address the issues related to the wellbeing of full-time worship leaders as well as the aspects that relate to the roles and responsibilities of pastors in our Churches.
Akerele, is a Leadership and System Development Strategist, and Minister of the word. He writes in from Canada; E-mail: [email protected].
