by Fowowe Damilola

We understand. Yes! Church has to be fun!!! Yes! We don’t serve a boring God (like God said he was fun to be with). I serve a lively God (never said he was dead).  My God is a God of fun (Wawu!!!!) and all manner of things you hear. But in our quest for delivering fun- stuff in church, it seems we have lost our way. There’s this nice saying those grey-headed men in my church always say.

“The church is entering the world and the world is entering the church” (or how do they say it? Old people and their sayings, sha). Apparently, Church has taken fun-stuff to a new level.

There’s a church in the Gbagada district of Lagos (the church AC na die). The youth wing recently organised a youth hangout called Jesus Pool party (you wee not belivit). Maybe the Lord decided His Jordan experience wasn’t enough (gosh!!! That sounded like blasphemy), so we his followers have to re-create the experience. God knows what happened there but I’m sure the dress code wasn’t winter clothing and definitely Nathianiel Bassey couldn’t have been on repeat.

Another Church too in the (won’t mention the location) thought it was best, in the spirit of love and getting the members together, to organise JESUS ASUN NIGHT (Lord gracious father). And as you know Asun can get a bit peppery, so some form of ‘spirit’, maybe 5% below or above as the case may be, would serve as good accompaniment. At least Paul told Timothy to take wine for His Ulcers (and just maybe some of the members too are in a similar situation).

The one that gets me the most is when we decide to bring in comedians (you have to use your talent for the Lord, somehow). Now I have no issues with that. But comedians make fun of things- that’s their calling (what a nice calling, by the way). So we start hearing things like AREA!!!! WARRI!!! in church.  But what do I know?  It’s just holy comedy. They just wanna make fun of the Pastor’s bald head (they could have tried that with Bros Elisha) or the manner he speaks in tongue (yes I noticed my pastor likes the ‘maschikapa’ line when he prays in tongues (geez am guilty of the same thing), or how his voice changes when its offering time.

But moving on recently, I noticed I started hearing some Harry song tunes in church. Apparently a popular Gospel-fuji (what kind of genre is that?) artiste decided it was time he did a remix of the gala song. So since Morire was a hit, then just remove gala and cue in Jesus and Voila, one new hit song (thumbs up bro, you would soon become a brand ambassador).

So just a suggestion maybe the Church needs a re-orientation that it ought to set the bar and the world follows but it seems we are comfortable with the other way round.

Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Op-ed Editor