Hunger in God’s house: Recession moves into churches

It would be stating the obvious that Nigeria’s current economic state leaves much to the negative imagination. Interestingly, the church has not been exempted. Rita Okonoboh reports the gnawing experiences of churches and their various enduring strategies.

For the special church programme coming up on the third Sunday of March, all men are expected to pay N3,500, while women are expected to pay N2,500 and youths will pay N1,000.”

At that instant, Mr Oluwadamilare Abiodun’s imagination began to run wild. While the announcer droned on, Abiodun’s mind was making calculations. He had a balance of N3,200 to pay up for his child’s school fee and the headmistress had promised to send the child back on Monday if the balance wasn’t paid up. She had lamented the fact that too many parents owed and she had yet to pay February salary.

For the next two Sundays afterwards, Abiodun simply skipped church. 19th of March came and went and he refused still to attend church. When asked why he had missed church services over the past weeks, after minutes of uncomfortable silence, he finally opened up. He was up to his neck in bills and debts, he had yet to be paid for the past four months and for him, contributing N6,000 for himself and his wife for a special church programme was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Not when his wife was recently delivered of their third child.

Another member of a new generation church, who simply gave her name as Mrs Joy, narrated her situation to TribuneChurch.

“In recent times, it would seem that the pastor of my church has focused more on giving sacrificially, with the hope in God that there will be a turnaround. A few weeks ago, envelopes for a special programme and each person’s name was taken down with the number of envelopes each person collected. I have distributed mine but people have not responded with money in the envelopes. It is a burden to attend church now because my pastor always tells those who have not submitted their envelopes to stand up in the church. It can be quite embarrassing,” she stated.

The above statements were the accounts of church members, who narrated to TribuneChurch how the recession had ultimately affected their recent activities in their various churches. The story is not, very different in other churches. From decreased ‘income,’ to reduction in financial support from members and even drop in attendance, in spite of some stories of God’s miraculous wonder in some congregations, for others, it is stories of lamentation, as narrated by clerics to TribuneChurch.

 

Although income has been affected, we still pay salaries promptly —Archbishop Fape

Archbishop of the Ecclesiastical Province of Lagos, Most Reverend Michael Fape, in an interaction with TribuneChurch, stated that “The church is in the society and whatever happens in the society equally affects the church. There is no doubt that the people have been feeling the pain. As if we knew what would happen, in Remo in particular, we declared 2017 as the Year of Divine Provision, and in spite of the recession, the Lord has been so faithful.

“That is not to say the church is not feeling it in terms of income. However, our joy is that tough times do not last but tough people do. It is a matter of time. We will get over it. We also minister to the people and keep praying for them, telling them that although we know things may be difficult now, tomorrow would be better. There is no doubt that the economy is biting very hard but we believe that with the little we have, it will multiply and we will have overflow. We are providing encouragement to our members. As far as salaries are concerned, we are still able to pay our workers as at when due because God is faithful and continues to be faithful.”

 

We encourage people not to abandon hope —Archbishop Stephen

Archbishop of Ibadan, Methodist Church Nigeria (MCN), Most Reverend Kehinde Stephen, in his reaction, while noting that the church was not exempted from the realities of the recession since church membership was drawn from the community at large, noted that “a large percentage of our membership, especially in Oyo State, is drawn from the civil service. If for instance, they don’t get paid, how do you expect them to support and fund church activities?

The church bears the negative impact of the present economic realities. A lot of young people, who are unemployed, are also affected and this has affected their activities in the church. This places a great deal of responsibility on the church and its leadership to try and find other ways of being there for the people.

“The church has been impacted negatively and what has been sustaining the church is the hold onto hope, represented in our spiritual faith and beliefs which encourage us not to abandon hope. We know that God will not abandon His people.”

In his statement on how the state of the economy had further affected the church, he stated that “With dwindling income and resources and investments not yielding the expected results, obviously one would face the challenge of making ends meet. Be that as it may, we experience such hardship. However, for the church we are set out to exercise compassion. We are taking measures to ameliorate the situation. We keep assuring workers so that they would know that we have good intentions and that we cannot owe them. The good thing about the workers is that they understand because we are very transparent. We have had to direct our teaching so that the people would rely on divine intervention. At the leadership level, we are providing empowerment schemes to invest in the people. In Oyo State, for instance, we have invested in agriculture to support the people. We are providing practical ways to enable the church weather through.”

 

‘The church owes its ministers four months’ salaries’

Another bishop with an orthodox church, who preferred to speak on the condition of anonymity, stated that “the recession in town now is a very serious one. In the areas of giving, that has gone down drastically. It has also affected membership and giving, even to the poor. It has affected the financial activities of the church. The church has also helped its members who have found it challenging to feed. We share foodstuffs such as rice, and other staples to support members during recession. It has even affected payment of salaries as majority of ministers are being owed up to four months’ salaries.”