Church splits are not only bad, but also expose Christians to ridicule from unbelievers, founder of Perez Chapel International, Bishop Charles Agyin Asare, has admonished.
Teaching his congregation about the ‘Spirit of Absalom’ at the Perez Dome on Sunday, 26 February, Bishop Agyin Asare said breakups in churches also create confusion among Christians, thus causing some of them to go astray.
He said it is the spirit of Absalom that causes leaders in any congregation to start nursing desires of breaking away to form rival churches to their parent establishment.
“The person is a departmental head, he is a cell leader, he is a leader of the choir, prayer warrior, whatever, gradually when the spirit of Absalom begins to manifest, he comes to a place and now says that: ‘The ultimate end is that I should be the leader’, so, they either split and start a church or they break a church apart and then the people scatter,” Bishop Agyin Asare illustrated.
There are times, Bishop Agyin Asare said, when “you see people leave the church and when you look at the leadership, those who led them to leave the church, you get amazed, they don’t care what happens to the other people, they don’t care about the feedback that go through town”.
“And listen to me, church splits are not a pleasant thing. What happens about church splits is that the unbelievers, the world, begin to wonder: ‘They say they are one people but why is it that they are doing different things?’” he added.
“I remember one time there was this pastor who said he wanted to start a church and I asked him: ‘What do you want to start that you can’t do in Perez Chapel or Word Miracle? … So, if what you are going to do will not be different, what is the use? If there was something unique you were going to do which we are not doing, it’s a different thing. Unbelievers don’t look at it like that; for the unbelievers, they think that there are so many churches and the sad part is that when churches split, there are some people who backslide, they stay at home, they don’t want to go to church again, they just sit at home, they feel so disappointed, they feel so shattered, they don’t want to go to church again and then when the church splits, some are on this side, some are on that side; in fact when they meet, it’s like they are enemies but wolves don’t consider that.”
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