From the Monitor:
What is the problem in the church today? Simple. Too many converts who are not ‘discipled’ (the word originates from discipline). After staying in the church for long, but without growth, many start to feel that the long stay translates into an automatic qualification to positions of leadership! And bingo: one such fellow will start to refer to himself or herself as a ”pastor’ — without any preparation or authority above them to oversee his or her activities.
The cycle continues. And before we realise what is going on, the expansion becomes massive and runs out of control! Those who are successful are emulated. And in copying, counterfeits are created. The leadership and expansion model, which Jesus gave to his disciples was not a hierarchy of the military chain of command; from top to bottom. In fact it is the exact opposite; it is from bottom to top. Jesus says that whoever wants to be greater than others has to be the servant (Mathew 20:26-27). So in the corporate world, a janitor is greater than the CEO.
In the church, the homeless and jobless guy with a Shs500 coin ought to get the VIP seat. The expansion model of the church was also designed to multiply — the way living cells multiply; starting off with the smallest cell of two or three people (Mathew 18:20).
It ought to be horizontal growth — i.e. we all have complementary roles: a singer, prophet, teacher, pastor or evangelist should all co-exist in one fellowship (read church). Paul puts it this way: we are all different parts of the same body with Christ as the head of the church (I Corinthians 12:12). From this model it is easy to identify the counterfeit churches.
Yes, there are many born-again in Uganda today: from about 10,000 folks in 1986 to an estimated 6.5million converts today. One would expect corruption to be history. But instead, the con artists have increased in number! This means that the tree is not bearing good fruit (Mathew7:16-20).
“Yes, there are many born-again in Uganda today: from about 10,000 folks in 1986 to an estimated 6.5million converts today. One would expect corruption to be history. But instead, the con artists have increased in number! This means that the tree is not bearing good fruit (Mathew7:16-20).”
Until I read the phrase “…in Uganda today…,” I thought Roger Mugisha was describing ECUSA’s leadership.
But his sentence “…the con artists have increased in number!” does fit many of ECUSA’s leaders.