A video of Reverend Eastwood Anaba preaching about the fixation on entertainment in churches has surfaced online.
In the video, the Founder of the Eastwood Anaba Ministries is heard expressing worry about the Church’s wanton love for entertainment at the expense of the core purpose of the church – listening to the word of God.
“When you go to these our churches, sometimes I just imagine. If there is no drum, there is no organist, there is no guitarist and you take away all the music and the entertainment, many of our churches will die.
I mean, you remove that, it will be like the oxygen support has been removed and that is because the entertainment in our churches, sometimes, I think is too much,” he said.
He further stated that a pastor is invited to a convention to speak and about over two hours, there will be “one song after the other, one dance after the other, choreography and somersaulting and all that.”
Citing kiosks, mosques, lorry stations and chop bars as examples, he said each of these places has its purpose and wouldn’t trade that for any thing else.
“I’ve never entered a ‘chop bar’ and they said ‘praise and worship’ before the food is brought. They know exactly why they exist so as soon as you sit down, they come to you with a menu. They want to know what you want to eat because the purpose there is eating,” Reverend Anaba noted.
He, therefore, stressed that the purpose of the Church is not entertainment yet “you see a lot of the singing but the singing is not for worship. The singing is actually for entertainment and there is nothing wrong with that. But when the harp, and the viol, and the tabret and the pipe and the wine are in their feast but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operations of his hands.”
Explaining further, he said it means the churches have followed the entertainment until they have lost the power.
“How many pastors walk into church on Sunday and their aim is that today there is a leper in my church he should be cleansed, if a dead person is there he should be raised, if there is a cripple the person should walk?,” he asked.
Reverend Anaba said the main preoccupation of most of these pastors is providing entertainment, delivering nice sermons and taking their offertory.
He concluded that there must be a change in the operations of the church, reiterating that it focuses more on healing and salvation than merely entertaining people.
It is not clear when exactly this sermon was recorded by Reverend Eastwood Anaba but some has suggested the video will stir a debate that will possibly bring a change in the church’s modus operandi.
Others have also intimated that music and entertainment have special psychological and spiritual healing effects that cannot be glossed over or downplayed.