TOWARDS BUILDING A NEW NIGERIA

Pastor Sunday Adelaja

...Our pulpit must stop talking about miracles and breakthroughs because the message our youth are hearing is that through miracles and breakthroughs, you can get something out of nothing. What they are hearing is that it is possible to reap where you have not sowed. The national psyche of Nigerians today is more like “if it is good for me now, it doesn’t matter what happens later.”
If truth be told, our churches have largely contributed to this. Our messages of instant gratification have led to a whole generation of people who only want to see instant results, immediate relief and a painless profit. This is not the natural course of nature. For our youth to change, our messages must change. For our nation to change, our pulpit must change. We must begin to deliver relevant messages which are capable of building a healthy nation and future. Instead of messages that are only promising blessings, miracles, breakthroughs and wonders. We must replace these messages with preaching on virtues such as hard work, creativity, dedication, commitment, perseverance, diligence, responsibility, etc.
We must stop glorifying people who became wealthy from unexplainable sources. The brother who became a millionaire because he simply sowed a seed, either to the pastor or to the church should no longer be those who are testifying in our churches. We should be giving the microphone to the hard workers who have, through a lifetime of perseverance, diligence and dignity of labor, attained true success. Until we do this, our churches and nation will keep on celebrating symbols of instant success like the “yahoo yahoo” boys, the scammers, the 419’s, Banker thieves and MMMs.
Unfortunately, as of today, these are the only type of success stories our messages are capable of producing. If we are to produce quality youth and future leaders, we must begin to invite to our pulpits people who attained their success and wealth through biblical principles of hard work, faithfulness and diligence. We have to downplay the roles of sowing and reaping for prosperity. It is time to begin to emphasize principles of wealth creation and production of goods and services.
Instead of teaching in our churches every Sunday, “give and it shall be given to you”, our messages must change to teaching principles like: planning, critical thinking, analysis, strategy, visibility plans, system building, market and customer analysis, process of production of goods and services, etc. This is how noble people are produced, not by what is being propagated by our pulpits today.
With the messages we have today in our churches and society at large, it is no wonder that these young people now act as if God is a rewarder of laziness and mediocrity.

Please! Please!! Please!!!

I want to use this avenue to appeal to my fellow pastors in ministry. Let’s stop preaching the pseudo gospel, and begin to preach the real gospel of the kingdom.
Our youth must know that Christianity is not magic. We must tell them that because somebody is making pronunciations doesn’t mean that those pronunciations are godly. We must let them know that they don’t need a pastor’s blessing to make it in life. We must let our young people know that the shout of “I receive it!” alone is not enough to be blessed for that week. We must open their eyes to realize that the shout of “Amen!” no matter how loud, doesn’t make God to fulfill all their wishes. Our nation needs to be delivered from religious superstitions, and real Christianity must be introduced afresh...