5 New Practices In Today's Churches That Should Be Stopped

Take a minute to compare the church of the past to what we have in today's world. What level of change do you notice? I am certain that you are bound to come across some changes that shows how far the church has veered from morality to the point of it looking as if it doesn't belong to God anymore. Below are a few of the ones I noticed.

1. Random sitting arrangement

In the 80's and early 90's, churches had a very modest sitting arrangement that distinguished males from females. The males sat in the rows of seats on the right while the females sat on those on the left. This pattern was also seen in the children's section of the church. But the same can't be said of today's churches. Everyone sits randomly. As a man, you can have a young lady sit beside you in church during service. That's enough distraction especially in this crazy modern world of ours where ladies wear all sorts of skimpy and revealing attires which are now condoned by churches who choose to look the other way cos they don't want to lose a potential tithe payer. A lady's exposed thighs might get a guy's mind off the sermon being preached. If he decides to go ease himself or something, he will have to squeeze through the seats while brushing his legs against the thighs of ladies, both married and unmarried. What about during dancing time? A lady seated directly in front of a guy while wiggling her waist in dance motion can cause to sin.



2. Females not covering hair in church

Nigerian churches that use to be closer to the truth in discipline have now been Americanised. Ladies are now allowed to go against the words of the Bible by not covering their hair while praying or prophesying in church. 1 Corinthians 11:13 says: "judge among yourselves. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered?". You can read 1 Corinthians 11:3-15 for full details on women and hair covering while praying or prophesying in church. Christians boys now go to church with dreadlocks, mohican haircuts and all sorts of crazy hairstyles you can think of. No one cautions them, so they think it's cool. Both males and females in this kind of habit have been fooled to believe that it is the content of their heart that God is after. Yes, indeed! But what content can be found in the heart of a person who wears his hair like a Rastafarian? What can be found in the heart of a lady who finds it difficult to tie a headscarf for just few hours of worship? It's simple- pride and show off. Psalm 66:18 says "if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me".





3. Disco lights

Every church is now trying to meet up to standard. Whose standard,may I ask? They build large auditoriums, have massive choirs, bands and ushers(who sometimes double as bodyguards). To put the icing on the cake, they decorate the church with beautiful lights of different colours. Gone are the days when churches depended on God's sunlight which shines into church buildings through the open windows. These days, the buildings hardly have windows, so they mount expensive lights almost equivalent to what you can find in topnotch night clubs.

4. Rock music

Rock music in this sense refers to the use of drum set, guitar, keyboard, etc. Combining all these together can never restrict a church to just one so-called holy pattern of music for God. That is why we hear different new genres being played even in the church e.g gospel hip-hop, gospel reggae, gospel rock n roll, gospel Fuji etc. Christians now believe that once they add gospel to anything it now becomes Christianized. They make it seem like God is too desperate for music that he now borrows from the dark kingdom. If you see the band put together by some churches, you will almost think you are at a U2 or a Maroon5 rock and roll concert. Many Christians will say "but we do this to praise God". If we Christians know the level of task given to us, we won't be thinking about mounting up music instruments and dancing. It is obvious we have abandoned the task. Why do you think Christians are no more or hardly persecuted like in the days of the early disciples and apostles? That's because the Church has gone into the world and the world has come into the church. The early believers didn't do things the way the world did its own, that's why the world persecuted, beheaded, crucified and jailed many of them. But since today's churches conform to the standard of the world i.e are like the world, the world sees no reason to persecute them anymore. Do you think you would have time to go about dancing and wiggling to music if some set of people are out to cut off your head for believing in the Messiah?

5. Large TV screens

I was opportune to step into a church few Sundays ago. The church had different large TV screens on its walls which projected the image of the pastor so that those members seated at the back could have a glimpse of the preachers face. These TV sets are also used to project Bible text that the preacher might be reading. When Christ preached to the multitude numbering over 5000, it is possible that majority couldn't see his face even though they could see him from afar. What was important to them was the message he brought which they went home with. There was no way they could have gone home with his face. In as much as we might try not to see any harm in churches mounting huge screens, we should also know that all the devil needs is just a little space to sit then plan his move to depose you off the seat. That can be seen from what these large screen TVs are now being used for in churches these days. It was once said that a very popular pastor ordered that a football junior World Cup final match involving Nigeria should be shown on his church's large screens cos the kick off time coincided with the church's Sunday service. Below is a poster advertising the premiere of a movie with the venue being the building of a popular church in Lagos. Is the movie a Christian one? No! Then why turn a church into a cinema hall? This is a movie that shows the wonders of science in curing and chasing out Ebola from Nigeria under 93days. This popular church chooses to celebrate the wonderful hard work of doctors in curing and eradicating Ebola. Since churches have abandoned the quest for miraculous healing powers and embarked on mounting large TV screens, then it is only possible that they will use those TV screens to show the work of doctors, actors and other activities unrelated to what they claimed they originally mounted them for.



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Written by Adewole Segun