By Kingsley Obom-Egbulem
Have you tried asking for a loan from anyone in your church?
Have you tried to get your church to give you a letter of introduction/endorsement for your person, project or business? Have you also given someone a loan in church?
If you have, then I want to assume you have seen the backend of your church. And all you are heading for heaven, right?
Fact is, you really don’t know how you are perceived in your church until you’re in need of a loan or guarantor. You may also not realise that the man you call your pastor is not your pastor, after all(in fact you really don’t have any meaningful relationship with him) until you need him to put pen to paper and vouch for you.
That’s what I call “facing facts.”
If you doubt me, go to church tomorrow and ask for a small loan from those you think know you so well and trust you enough to pay back?
Then you’ll realise whether or not you have a reputation built on integrity.
I’m currently questioning whether there is wisdom in having 30 of you fellowship together – fast, sing praises, quote scriptures, prophesy, evangelize, pray and speak in tongues together but cannot lend each other money or do business together?
And you are all going to heaven?
So, how did you find yourself in a church where no one can stick his or her neck for you? Why would you pastor a group of people you cannot vouch or stick your neck for, yet they serve faithfully as volunteers, give offerings and pay their tithe?
What is the missing link?
These were the questions that kept running in my mind as I head for a church service recently where I was one of the guest speakers.
I was given the freedom to choose what to speak on, so I decided to have a town hall meeting with them on the issue of integrity and how it relates to wealth creation.
“How many people here have given money to someone in this church and had a sour experience that made you vow never to make that mistake again?” I asked the congregation to which several hands went up.
“So, what does it take to borrow money from someone and pay back?”, I asked again.
I wasn’t really waiting for an answer because things could go wrong even when you have sincere intentions. But you still need an antecedent of integrity to withstand the storm when you’re caught right in it and unable to meet your obligations.
“Is it possible for you to borrow money from someone and at the point of borrowing, you know you are not going to pay back?”
The silence in the auditorium was enough response for me on this and a loud invitation to ask more questions.
“Do you know any school that has closed down because parents were owing the school and they refused to pay?
Not many hands went up. So, I ask, “do you know any parent who was owing a school and later moved their children to another school without settling the debts but paid to enroll their kids in the new school?”
I saw several hands up.
“So, why are you surprised that a school could close down because of debts owed the school by parents?”, I asked again.
The silence was even louder this time. So, what are we losing or gaining as a result of integrity or lack of it?
I went to that meeting miffed about something that happened two months ago- something that has kept me speechless and wondering what the hell is really happening to us.
Two people I have known for over a decade needed interest-free loans from a cooperative they have been part of for over five years.
The co-operative had limited funds.
So, to make the loan condition fair and ensure due diligence while making it accessible to as many people as possible, they invited a microfinance bank to be part of the process.
Many of those who needed the loans could not get it.
Some had their applications denied by the cooperative’s finance committee. While others got to the stage where they had to be evaluated by the microfinance bank. Many dropped off at this stage while some were able to scale through.
One of my friends scaled through. She got the loan after a rather long, dramatic process.
It is important to add here that these two people are not just Christians in the real sense of the word, but are faithful volunteers in sensitive departments in their respective local assemblies.
They both had no issues passing the assessment by the cooperative’s finance committee. The team from the microfinance bank were also convinced about their loan application and gave them a nod. But because of the amount they wanted which exceeded the limit approved by the cooperative, the bank insisted they would have to get two letters of introduction from any reputable institution or persons and one guarantor.
On the surface, this looked like an easy hurdle. But it soon became akin to climbing mount Everest when in three weeks none of these two loan seekers could get the institutions they had hoped would give them letters of introduction to issue the letters.
Interestingly, getting a guarantor wasn’t so difficult for them. I guess that attests to their perceived integrity amongst a few other people.
Incidentally, the churches they attend could not help them due to past ugly experiences, they had to come up with a policy that apparently ties the hands of any pastor from making such fundamental albeit institutional endorsement
One of the applicants decided to opt out of the loan application process. Disappointed and disenchanted, he also left his local church.
But my other friend was bent on getting the loan.
She suddenly had a winning idea.
Her mom is a Muslim and a respected women leader in the mosque where she attends. She realised could leverage on her mom’s influence to get a letter of introduction from the Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria (FONWAN) and another reputable mosque in Lagos.
“How come you have a letter of introduction from two Islamic organisations when you stated in your form that you are a Christian?”, she was asked by the bank staff who according to my friend was not only being curious but also amused.
“I wanted to lie to the man” said my friend, but something said: “tell him the truth and if you lose out at this stage then let it be.”
She braced up for the worse narrated the entire drama of how she got the letters.
“I was born a Muslim, but became a Christian while on campus but I always assist my mom whenever she is hosting her women’s group in the mosque, so when you guys asked for a letter of introduction and I couldn’t get one from the church I attend, I had to tell my mom and she was the one who facilitated these letters”, my friend told the bank official who incidentally is a minister in his local assembly and has a trailer load of tales regarding church people and financial misconduct.
Again, this is not about church people vs Muslims or religious people vs nonreligious. This is about #integrity as a scarce or even dead commodity in Nigeria and it touches on every facet of our lives.
I mean every aspect!
Recently, we saw Governor Nyesom Wike on TV kneeling before God in church to worship and thank God for his victory at the polls.
The Vice president also was in church accompanied by many people (and I saw Hon. Rotimi Ameachi in that service) to church for thanksgiving.
And I ask, what is the thanksgiving for? For brazenly rigging an election or for trying to rig and being outrigged? Is it for vote buying, arming thugs to snatch ballot boxes and causing mayhem in which many people lost their lives?
What is the thanksgiving for? And to which God is this worship?
Before we reduce this to another baseless sectarian conversation, we must understand that this is an epidemic eating up all of us and as much as the church is the one on the hot seat today, we all need to look in the mirror and do something about the man /woman we see in it.
More businesses have closed down and more people are indeed poor not as a result of bad economy, lack of winning business strategy or the activities of demonic forces but due to lack of integrity.
Period!
My friend got the loan she applied for. But after intense conversation with her inner self, she thanked the bank official and rejected the loan. Unlike my other friend, she didn’t leave her local church, but this incident has redefined her relationship with her pastors, and other church members. She has been giving out micro loans to those who need it in church, hoping that through trusting people, she can find healing from the disappointment she experienced from her pastors.
By the time I was done analysing this incident, I became even more worried especially seeing the connection between this issue and the poverty we experience in our clime. I saw how your inability to get a recommendation(otherwise) from an institution or a person can make the difference between poverty and wealth for a lot of us.
But more importantly, I have also seen the stark reality of what we call church and those who identify as Christians. I have seen how difficult it is to work in integrity compared to the ease with which we heal the sick and raise the dead.
And I ask, what is the glory of a pastor who has 1000 members in his church but cannot stand as guarantor for more 10 of them? What is your claim if you are the shepherd of a congregation of 5000 who noisily claim to they are on the path to heaven but cannot pass simple integrity test of either standing as guarantor for someone or cannot be vouched for?
I have been troubled lately by these realities. And when I say troubled, I really mean every letter of that word. As in losing my sleep.
But more troubling for me is how nations filled with atheists and worshippers of all manner of gods and idols have very low (if not zero) loan defaulters than in places where the streets are packed and jammed by worshipers of the only true God.
And before you conclude here and start to bash anyone or religion, this is actually a discourse about à culture rather than a religion and the limitation of religion( or should I say Christianity and Islam) in tinkering with a people’s culture worse still when that culture is one that makes money a point of departure even in places of worship.
So, back to the integrity question.
What are the issues underlying our lack of integrity? Why is it so difficult to give people a chance to prove themselves before we conclude about their claim to integrity or lack of it? Why do we have more people who can’t trust anyone on money issues and less people who have pleasant experiences with respect to the role of money in their relationships?
Why do you have pastors who can’t give loans to any church members, yet you want to lead them to heaven?
But most importantly, why is difficult for a church to engender a community of people of character, integrity, accountability where no one would have to watch their back before standing as a guarantor?
If this is a high calling we all consider difficult, isn’t it worth it given how much it can change our economic situation?
However, if this is not achievable, where lies our claim as Christians?
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