Okonkwo - Churches Not Doing Enough for Society

The former president of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) and General Overseer of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM), Bishop Mike Okonkwo, has lamented that much as churches in Nigeria were meeting the spiritual needs of their members, they were not doing enough for the society.

Okonkwo stated this while speaking at the commencement of the Albino Foundation's formal advocacy campaign to faith-based organisations.

The purpose of the programme was to mainstream albinism into faith-based institutions. He said: "The church is still not doing what we are supposed to do. The church's real assignment is outside, not inside the church."

According to him, the church must be holistic while carrying out its responsibilities to ensure that people's secular needs were addressed.

Address their problems before preaching to them," Okonkwo advised churches, adding. "That is what Jesus Christ did."

He said when the church leaders traveled abroad, one question they were often asked was why there was so much corruption in Nigeria in spite of the large churches with huge memberships.

The cleric attributed the situation to the fact that the churches were "massaging themselves" rather than addressing the real problems of the society.

Okonkwo's remarks were occasioned by the monumental achievements of the founder of the Albino Foundation, Jake Epelle, in getting not only the Nigerian government to adopt a policy on albinism besides the free treatment of 500 people living with albinism but also got the United Nations to give the condition greater recognition.

The TREM founder said churches should go beyond preparing people for heaven by going into the society to perform secular duties that will bring succour to the needy.

"We are in the redeeming business," Okonkwo noted adding. "We should not be judgmental but redeeming. If people cannot run to the church, where should they run?"

He then urged the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), PFN and their Muslim counterparts to buy into the concept of practicalising their precepts in the larger society.

In a keynote address titled "Egocetric Church vs. Social Church", Prof. Anigbogu of the Institute for National Transformation regetted that the church was "locked within their four walls while the society is sick."

He said if 100 Epelles were in the church instead of pastors playing politics in the church, Nigeria would have been a much better place.

Among the accomplishments of Epelle are getting the relevant bodies to ensure that where normal candidates were sitting for a one hour examination, albinos would be allowed two-and-a-half hours because of their congenital eye defects.

In addition, Epelle said, pupils in primary schools in Nigeria would study albinism as a compulsory subject from September.
BY PATRICK UGEH