Fr. Richard OMOLADE

Granted I grew up being told to go to Church. Granted, many mothers would take the cane out to get their children to go for religious education, granted that sometimes, many of us went to Church so we could meet up with our friends and sometimes use the reason to play. These are essential details of the memoirs of our youthful age. Now that we are old, why do we go to Church?

Yes, You too! Why do you go to Church? It is not unthinkable that many do not know why they go to Church other than it is Sunday and the commandments require us to keep Holy the Sabbath. If you do not have a reason for doing what you are doing, then anything will become the reason and many reasons leave you in the shadows of death and boredom.

As religion takes the back bench in many people’s life, as technology become common place and able to solve many problems, as social media fulfil many of our dreams, such as knowledge acquisition, motivational impetus, social connection and emotional upliftment, religion is gradually becoming ordinary for many people and unable to answer as quickly as many would want the many questions of life that AI readily provides.

Who needs religion in this environment? No wonder many people go to Church out of duty sake more than for any spiritual connection or spiritual enlightenment. Yes, certain books inspire me, some songs fill me with nostalgia, but singing them in an atmosphere of worship with other co-sojourner is a completely different experience. Staying in my room all by myself and not talking to anyone is satisfying sometimes, but being alone with God, with no worries and not crippling thought is transformative and liberative.

Granted that God is everywhere, but the encounter with Him in the midst of my brothers and sisters fills me with a new kind of energy that makes me forget myself and long to be absorbed by the one who is the essence of my life. I am therefore in Church not for any fashion purposes, but I must dress decently. I am not in Church because I am looking for business opportunity, if it comes out of my fellowship encounter with other believers, I am grateful to God for that. I am not in Church because I am looking for a spouse, yes if God plans that the Church is the means of that contact with one’s soul mate, which opportunity must not be taken lightly. But to go to Church purposely because you are looking for a life-partners is an inordinate ambition.

The Church is not a conveyor belt for ready-to- be spouses where you can make your choice, sometimes, the Church is a hospital for the sick and the wounded, for the lonely and the unloved. Are you ready to nurse these to health and see if they will be good spouses? So why do some people go to Church because they are looking for something, when Church as a sacred place is preeminently a place of encounter with the divine and many of us have not done enough to truly encounter God and be transformed by Him.

 

Our Church experiences will continue to be shaped by charlatans who are interested in our purses rather than in our souls.  If Churches are only places to go to for material blessings, then something is wrong with the Church attendance in Africa. With what Africans have “done” for God through Church attendance alone, wealth should be running after us not away from us. This is so because Church is not primarily in the business of making people rich but bringing them into contact with God. Hence, since this goal is not being preached loudly, the loving gaze of God continues to elude many.

I go to Church because God’s love draws me to Him, I am seeking Him because His love is pulling me to the centre of my being. When I fail to respond appropriately, then my life becomes meaningless and the encounter I seek is not possible. This is the problem with many today, they are not in Church for God but for themselves. I am not in Church to feel “high”. God is not a drug! I am in Church so that God can lift me on high. I am not in Church to know the priest, but to know God and the priest can be a guide along that journey. Today, many of us know the priest but not the real shepherd. Daddy GO is given a free rein and God is kept at bay. This is not right at all.

God is looking for you and you will find him only if you truly yearn for him. Your heart must be broken to find him, otherwise your life will remain broken and unhealed even when the divine healer is within reach. I am broken and lost, and I know God will find me and heal me if I stay long in his presence and focus on Him instead of the myriads of distraction flying in my face each time I come to Church. I go to Church for God and for me, a sinner in need of a saviour, and if you are like me, we shall delight in our experience when we truly find God, not in the human recognition and awards we buy with money.