The President, Association of Missionaries in Nigeria, Evangelist Oscar Amaechina, has called for the declaration of a state of emergency on churches to allow for the actualisation of the fulfillment of church mandates.
Amaechina was speaking at a ministers’ conference organised by the Afri-Mission and Evangelism Network in Abuja on Saturday in Abuja.
The theme of the conference is “The Antichrist’s Mandate and its effects on the Ministers of the Gospel and the Mandate of the Great Commission”.
He noted that the emergence of new generational churches was responsible for most of the problems of insecurity encountered as a country, saying that misplaced priorities have been replaced with the message of Christ.
“Our inability to reach the unreached with the gospel and love of Christ is responsible for insurgency and terrorism in our country.
“What is happening in Nigerian churches demand for state of emergency. When you look at the ways things are going on in this country, you will notice that the church has derailed,” he said.
He said that he made mention of it based on the survey carried out concerning the great commission.
“We discovered that over 73 per cent of Christians claimed that they have not heard about the great commission.
“And, if we do not know the meaning of the commission, I want to ask what the base of our salvation is and when you look at it, you discovered why the state of emergency is necessary.
“This is because the church is supposed to be a rehabilitation place, a place where people run to and they are saved, where characters are completely changed.
“But you discovered that the church is doing more harm than good by projecting mammon instead of Christ for worship,’’ he said.
The cleric noted that there was the need for the government to make a legislation that would govern and monitor the activities of the church toward the full realisation of its mandate.
“So many churches have made it in such a way that nobody is talking about the cross and a cross less Christianity, I will always say is a spiritual pandemic worse than COVID-19.
“Because of this, I think that we should change the narrative, the government should really do something.
“If we continue doing it the way we are doing it, the church is taking so many people to hell fire, the worship of mammon is taking its place in our churches.
“And I think it is something that must be corrected. So, we need legislation, we need the government to make a pronouncement.
“If we fail to follow what Christ has told us to do, the tendency for law to prevail should be there,” he said.
He, therefore, called for missionary’s intervention as a mandatory obligation which Christians must imbibe for peace to be restored to the country.
Pastor Josephine Amaechina of the Antioch Mission Centre urged pastors not to abandon their primary responsibilities of reaching out and bringing to the knowledge of Christ the hard to reach citizens.
Amaechina, who was represented by Mrs Uche Chiedu, Head, Training and Capacity Building of the centre, said doing this would drive transformation to the body of Christ and the country at large.
She added that Christians’ negligence toward the great commission had contributed immensely to the challenges of insecurity the country had been faced with
“This programme is mainly designed for pastors. We realised that the mandate of the great commission has been neglected by pastors and believers generally so we designed it for pastors to enlighten them and to come back to do the needful.
“We realised that the gospel has not reached so many people and we have not obeyed our masters’ command and we are waiting for his second coming.
“When you preach the gospels, social vices will not be there, they will be controlled by the spirit of the living God and we will leave at peace,” she said
Also, Evangelist Emmanuel Akpo, a student of the School of Advance Theology, Antioch Christian Centre, said there was need for the church to emphasise more on preaching than prosperity making of the church.
“The teaching has quite changed my mentality totally and talking about the conference we are having today, my knowledge in this conference when I go back to my ministry will change a lot of things,” he said.
In the same vein, Mr Onyechachi Amaechi, a participant at the conference, said he would begin to work on the experiences gathered from the conference to teach Nigerians especially Christians about the great commission.
“I must appreciate God for being part of this programme and I have benefitted a lot from changing the narrative.
“I believe initially in what Christianity was all about, but coming here today, I have come to understand that we are called to concentrate on souls, to win souls for Jesus Christ to expand the kingdom.
“I have learnt a lot, leaving this place today, I think I have that burden that I can’t pass anyone without really unveiling the love of Jesus Christ to such individual”.
