Church Crawler: The fear of the pastor is the beginning of wisdom

Sometime ago, as I traveled down the Lekki/Epe expressway way past the Molete axis towards Eleko area, out of the corner of my eyes I saw a sign that read ‘Come in for your miracles at the El Shaddai Prophetic Ministries’.

The sign also had the name of the owner of the church splayed emphatically on it: Prophet Solomon Atise.

On Sunday, as I ruminated over which church I would crawl into for my CIA-grade reporting, I decided to pay Prophet Solomon’s miracle church a visit.

Even though I knew just exactly where the sign inviting miracle seekers to the church was, finding the church building through a myriad of interconnected nearly uninhabited streets proved to be a tedious task- but I found the church after following sounds of loud music which I rightly suspected came from the church choir.

My first look at the church structure and I was greatly disappointed. I wanted to turn back and just return home.

The church structure was basically a large clearing covered by a roof which stood over stakes driven firmly into the ground. The floor was covered in concrete though.

At one end of the shanty structure was an elevated pedestal with an upholstered chair which looked like a badly constructed throne to be used in a secondary school stage play.

On the chair sat a man in an almost threadbare and over-sized suit with his tie bulging so hugely at the knot one would think he badly wanted to asphyxiate- I immediately suspected he was Prophet Solomon.

Even though I was beyond disappointed by now, I resolved to not judge a book by its cover and wait for the prophet to speak.

As at when I arrived at the church, the choir was busy doling out songs with sometimes oddly discordant tunes while the members, about a hundred of them, clapped vigorously and swayed in effect.

I felt out-rightly out of place in the church and you could tell every other person right there felt at home- or in a cult (the way I see it).

Throughout the sham of a rendition the choir put up, Prophet Solomon remained in his seat occasionally nodding his head in an important manner whenever he was hit by the discordant melody of his choir’s songs.

One thing that struck me however, despite that I sat at the back of the church, almost on the last row of seats, quite a lot of the church members seemed to be acutely aware of my presence as I could from time to time catch several of them throw curious and inquiring glances my way. I began to feel more uncomfortable and afraid.

Afraid, partly because the church was practically buried in an obscure bush-filled location with just a few habitable house littered around and also because I was starting to feel like I was intruding on a cult meeting which Prophet Solomon was the head of.

If only the members knew what I was there to do.

As the choir sang on, the curious looks kept coming at me till I felt so uncomfortable and unsafe that I had to retreat to the relative safety of my vehicle which was parked behind the only other vehicle anywhere near the church. My guess would be the vehicle belongs to Prophet Solomon.

I didn’t wait to hear him speak though. This is one book I would have to judge from it’s cover if I planned to read other books in subsequent crawling episodes to come.

As I drove out of the church clearing I couldn’t help but wonder the manner of the atmosphere I felt at the church. From the stark poverty of the church structure, the apparent culture of servitude to the throne-sitting Prophet Solomon and probably fear.

If I felt petrified just for being at the church for a short while, I wonder what would really be going on within the ranks and membership of the cult-like miracle church- I don’t however think there is wisdom in my pushing it.

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