I have listened to most pastors who seem to show a lot of concern for the youth in Churches. I love their passion and how enthusiastic they take action to bring young people together. In most cases, such pastors will do a lot to make sure that the youths are kept in Churches and never wonder out there in pubs, the likes of Carnivore (Nairobi) and others that give these youths fun.
The Churches on their part have developed and are still developing new strategies that ensure “young people”, as they are called, get fun in the Church and not outside. This is quite protective and good for young people, the youth. It means that if they were to go for dances outside there, the church on its part will organize dances (alternative) for them and "gospel artists" invited to 'changamsha vijani na midundo yao' (to excite the youth with their beats).
Most of these gospel artists know it all, when it comes to music. They have learnt the skills that keep their funs in flames of love to music, and music alone. Actually, cheers to our local artists in this. But here arises the challenge, the music have no gospel at all. A lot of the music is simply rhythmic words coated with a few Jesus-words inside. And sometimes even the Name Jesus is mentioned only in vain.
When you search between the lines of the songs, you get nothing. However, the beats are nice and take youth crazy. I am sure that many will not agree with me here, but truth be said, what gospel are we getting in the current gospel music we listen to these days, played by Kenyan artists borrowing from the streets of United States?
This is just one part of the alternatives that the youths have been given which they partake of. Most youths, for sure, love music and not the gospel. They go to Carnivore to listen to artists playing. Many times, they do not go there to drink, but only to see a popular artist, who has become a celebrity, doing what he knows best. Once they are there, they get tempted to drink and find themselves messing up. They first get drunk with music, before turning to hard drinks (simply the opposite of soft drinks).
Ask yourself a question, what if they were listening to the artist playing in their local Church. The environment may not be conducive for drinking alcohol, except for some rogues who still come with these drinks to church compound and end up leaving that place staggering. The biggest challenge is that when people are drunk with bad music, they end up doing bad things no matter the environment.
Some of the dances in Churches have attracted bad things in the past, and even today continues to do so. Condoms have been found littered in Church compounds. Someone would wonder how the Church turned to Carnivore Restaurant where Condoms are allowed and even used. This is a big problem that Church leaders, so called youth pastors cannot explain away.
Did this form of alternative help your youths? Some, having moral conscience and who are superstitious can avoid doing such unspeakable things in the Church compound. But they avoid simply because of morally and superstitiously influenced conscience and not because they love Jesus. They were told by their parents and they also heard of it from pastors that the compound is a holy ground where unholy things must never be done, at least by us.
I want to believe with all of the same minds that our youths do not need an alternative. They need a solution and the solution cannot be found in an alternative. If you are sick you need a doctor, but a good alternative to the pains you are feeling is basically pain killers. However, pain killers are not any close to a solution. If it is a cut, the solution is that the doctor should dress up the wounds after injections to inoculate you against tetanus, and other dangers. That is a solution to your problem; it will sort out the pains ultimately by healing the wound.
In Christianity, Jesus Christ is the solution and not an alternative. Church is not an alternative to going to the pubs, but those who have found Jesus and trusted in his name gather in Church to fellowship with brethren. Youths can continue their hideous ways, but when they get Jesus who is the solution, they change. The old ways will be gone and the new will have come. Christ is the savior of them who believe that he is the son of God who takes away their sin (The Gospel of John puts it well, please read it). Finding faith in Christ is finding life and life eternal.
Now what the youths should get therefore is nothing close to an alternative, but they need Christ, the life giver. They need the Holy Ghost who convicts us to righteousness and who counsels those who believe. When gospel artists give them music coated with a few Jesus-words, they are simply rendering the youths an alternative which has totally no positive impact. When they are drunk with this alternative, they will easily turn to alcohol, sex and other illicit things that are simply complimentary to the alternative. These things, like the Kenyan "Gospel music" just sooths young people with nice beats.
How can these youths get the real solution? We need preachers, therefore to preach the Good News of the Kingdom. Honestly, Good News will never be good to a non-regenerated heart. It will always be opposed by them; people will turn to pubs and leave the Church. Should this be the preachers' worry and therefore stop preaching the true gospel and turns to entertainment simply because he or she wants to keep many in Church? Or should the preacher continue to preach the Good News to all who remain in Church trusting God to increase the number and even bring back those who have run away? I wonder.
Most Churches are currently working hard to see how they can achieve the goal of entertaining everyone. The true Gospel is not entertaining, but drives people to true repentance. This is what we need to be right with God. When we go for entertainment, we are simply going for what our hearts desire, yet the heart of a man cannot be trusted because it is always desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9).
Pastors seem to be more obedient to the desires of a man’s heart than what God wants of a man. We all must turn to God in repentance and he will forgive us our sins. John the Baptist did not sooth the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him for baptism, he let them know that they must “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8). This is a requirement for all.
I know that the tares and the wheat left to grow together is a good excuse that many Pastors give for entertaining all evils in Church to retain those they fear would run away back to the world. However, we must also remember that the tares were similar to the wheat in appearance. All are grass family which looks like wheat. Tares also adapted to the environment where wheat was growing.
All who come to Church must adapt to the requirement of church, they must not bring the world with them to Church, neither should we bring to them something that they left out there because by missing them they would go back. The worldly may not be willing to live according to the Gospel requirement, but the Church should not bend the rules to accommodate anyone. Those of Christ will remain in Church and will do the will of God as commanded them.
If tares don’t find the food among the wheat, they wither and for this reason, they have no option but grow in the same soil, produce bad fruit though, and at harvest will be uprooted and thrown outside or burnt with fire. When the tares wilt, it is the joy of the farmer because the real wheat is not the one wilting. This is probably a rough analogy, but anyone who wants to leave like the world should remain in the world and do worldly things out there. Once you join the family of Christ, and repent, you have no option but to keep the fruit of repentance as your daily dedication to serve and worship God.
Anyway, my belief is that the Good News must be preached, no matter what. It is not the work of the preacher to convert any or to keep people from running away from faith. His work is simply one, to preach the word and pray to God to keep his people. God’s people will never be lost. He is able to keep them and no one can snatch them out of His hands (John 10:29). If the youth you are preaching to are of God, they will hear the message and it will change them for good.
By this, they will keep producing fruits of repentance and God himself who has saved them will keep them to the end. This is the promise to all believers and I have never seen anywhere where the preacher is tasked with the work of sustaining the flock of God in faith to the end. Just to preach the word through which they will be really shepherded.
The Gospel demand has been and will remain repentance. We must repent brothers and sisters. We have no option. The Lord will come for a clean and a pure Church, not given to entertainments, but to worship of the Most High God, the Almighty father of all creation. He alone must be worship and none other deserves worship. Jesus Christ who is seated at the right hand of God is interceding for us. Let us go ahead as the called of God to preach the Good News of the Kingdom as unadulterated word of God. Amen.
The Churches on their part have developed and are still developing new strategies that ensure “young people”, as they are called, get fun in the Church and not outside. This is quite protective and good for young people, the youth. It means that if they were to go for dances outside there, the church on its part will organize dances (alternative) for them and "gospel artists" invited to 'changamsha vijani na midundo yao' (to excite the youth with their beats).
Most of these gospel artists know it all, when it comes to music. They have learnt the skills that keep their funs in flames of love to music, and music alone. Actually, cheers to our local artists in this. But here arises the challenge, the music have no gospel at all. A lot of the music is simply rhythmic words coated with a few Jesus-words inside. And sometimes even the Name Jesus is mentioned only in vain.
When you search between the lines of the songs, you get nothing. However, the beats are nice and take youth crazy. I am sure that many will not agree with me here, but truth be said, what gospel are we getting in the current gospel music we listen to these days, played by Kenyan artists borrowing from the streets of United States?
This is just one part of the alternatives that the youths have been given which they partake of. Most youths, for sure, love music and not the gospel. They go to Carnivore to listen to artists playing. Many times, they do not go there to drink, but only to see a popular artist, who has become a celebrity, doing what he knows best. Once they are there, they get tempted to drink and find themselves messing up. They first get drunk with music, before turning to hard drinks (simply the opposite of soft drinks).
Ask yourself a question, what if they were listening to the artist playing in their local Church. The environment may not be conducive for drinking alcohol, except for some rogues who still come with these drinks to church compound and end up leaving that place staggering. The biggest challenge is that when people are drunk with bad music, they end up doing bad things no matter the environment.
Some of the dances in Churches have attracted bad things in the past, and even today continues to do so. Condoms have been found littered in Church compounds. Someone would wonder how the Church turned to Carnivore Restaurant where Condoms are allowed and even used. This is a big problem that Church leaders, so called youth pastors cannot explain away.
Did this form of alternative help your youths? Some, having moral conscience and who are superstitious can avoid doing such unspeakable things in the Church compound. But they avoid simply because of morally and superstitiously influenced conscience and not because they love Jesus. They were told by their parents and they also heard of it from pastors that the compound is a holy ground where unholy things must never be done, at least by us.
I want to believe with all of the same minds that our youths do not need an alternative. They need a solution and the solution cannot be found in an alternative. If you are sick you need a doctor, but a good alternative to the pains you are feeling is basically pain killers. However, pain killers are not any close to a solution. If it is a cut, the solution is that the doctor should dress up the wounds after injections to inoculate you against tetanus, and other dangers. That is a solution to your problem; it will sort out the pains ultimately by healing the wound.
In Christianity, Jesus Christ is the solution and not an alternative. Church is not an alternative to going to the pubs, but those who have found Jesus and trusted in his name gather in Church to fellowship with brethren. Youths can continue their hideous ways, but when they get Jesus who is the solution, they change. The old ways will be gone and the new will have come. Christ is the savior of them who believe that he is the son of God who takes away their sin (The Gospel of John puts it well, please read it). Finding faith in Christ is finding life and life eternal.
Now what the youths should get therefore is nothing close to an alternative, but they need Christ, the life giver. They need the Holy Ghost who convicts us to righteousness and who counsels those who believe. When gospel artists give them music coated with a few Jesus-words, they are simply rendering the youths an alternative which has totally no positive impact. When they are drunk with this alternative, they will easily turn to alcohol, sex and other illicit things that are simply complimentary to the alternative. These things, like the Kenyan "Gospel music" just sooths young people with nice beats.
How can these youths get the real solution? We need preachers, therefore to preach the Good News of the Kingdom. Honestly, Good News will never be good to a non-regenerated heart. It will always be opposed by them; people will turn to pubs and leave the Church. Should this be the preachers' worry and therefore stop preaching the true gospel and turns to entertainment simply because he or she wants to keep many in Church? Or should the preacher continue to preach the Good News to all who remain in Church trusting God to increase the number and even bring back those who have run away? I wonder.
Most Churches are currently working hard to see how they can achieve the goal of entertaining everyone. The true Gospel is not entertaining, but drives people to true repentance. This is what we need to be right with God. When we go for entertainment, we are simply going for what our hearts desire, yet the heart of a man cannot be trusted because it is always desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9).
Pastors seem to be more obedient to the desires of a man’s heart than what God wants of a man. We all must turn to God in repentance and he will forgive us our sins. John the Baptist did not sooth the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him for baptism, he let them know that they must “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8). This is a requirement for all.
I know that the tares and the wheat left to grow together is a good excuse that many Pastors give for entertaining all evils in Church to retain those they fear would run away back to the world. However, we must also remember that the tares were similar to the wheat in appearance. All are grass family which looks like wheat. Tares also adapted to the environment where wheat was growing.
All who come to Church must adapt to the requirement of church, they must not bring the world with them to Church, neither should we bring to them something that they left out there because by missing them they would go back. The worldly may not be willing to live according to the Gospel requirement, but the Church should not bend the rules to accommodate anyone. Those of Christ will remain in Church and will do the will of God as commanded them.
If tares don’t find the food among the wheat, they wither and for this reason, they have no option but grow in the same soil, produce bad fruit though, and at harvest will be uprooted and thrown outside or burnt with fire. When the tares wilt, it is the joy of the farmer because the real wheat is not the one wilting. This is probably a rough analogy, but anyone who wants to leave like the world should remain in the world and do worldly things out there. Once you join the family of Christ, and repent, you have no option but to keep the fruit of repentance as your daily dedication to serve and worship God.
Anyway, my belief is that the Good News must be preached, no matter what. It is not the work of the preacher to convert any or to keep people from running away from faith. His work is simply one, to preach the word and pray to God to keep his people. God’s people will never be lost. He is able to keep them and no one can snatch them out of His hands (John 10:29). If the youth you are preaching to are of God, they will hear the message and it will change them for good.
By this, they will keep producing fruits of repentance and God himself who has saved them will keep them to the end. This is the promise to all believers and I have never seen anywhere where the preacher is tasked with the work of sustaining the flock of God in faith to the end. Just to preach the word through which they will be really shepherded.
The Gospel demand has been and will remain repentance. We must repent brothers and sisters. We have no option. The Lord will come for a clean and a pure Church, not given to entertainments, but to worship of the Most High God, the Almighty father of all creation. He alone must be worship and none other deserves worship. Jesus Christ who is seated at the right hand of God is interceding for us. Let us go ahead as the called of God to preach the Good News of the Kingdom as unadulterated word of God. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment