WHAT PASTORS MUST QUICKLY DO, AS CHURCHES REOPEN

For now the clamour for reopening of worship centres in the country, especially in Akwa Ibom State has died down. Expectations are rife, with many churches preparing their surroundings for exciting reunion after two months of muffled angst on closure of churches, while markets and other essential places, stayed open.

But beyond the excitement of singing, jumping and joyful cheering, as we return to our beloved churches and  savour good homilies from the pulpit, is the question of how we can avoid a replay of the lockdown experience; as Covid19 is still very much present with us. While the CAN guidelines on reopening of Churches cannot really help much,

Bishop Nick Iheanacho, Chairman PFN, Uyo chapter, has an answer to this question.

He said: “We have to humble ourselves before God because we have been too proud and haughty. God says: “The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day,” Isaiah 2:11.

We are so proud and haughty; we do not have regards for humility before God anymore. But the answer is actually in humility. God says: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways;  then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land,” 2 Chronicles 7:14. The prayer here is not more important than humbling ourselves. When King Ahab humbled himself after God had pronounced judgment against him and his household, God changed His mind.

Whenever Israel as a nation went astray and the enemy nation tormented them, God had always intervened once they humbled themselves and returned to Him. 

All of us need to humble ourselves. We are too haughty, there is so much pride in the church. Christ’s church has now become ‘my church,’ if we had allowed the church to be Christ’s own, nobody can shut it down.

The day we humble ourselves and ask forgiveness, the day God will turn His mind and the COVID 19 will disappear from the earth.”