There is too much entertainment in our churches – Rev Eastwood Anaba 

Renowned Ghanaian clergyman, Rev. Eastwood Anaba, has raised a thought-provoking concern about the increasing prevalence of entertainment in churches.

In the assertion of the founder of Eastwood Anaba Ministries, he contends that there is an excess of entertainment at the expense of the core purpose of the church – listening to the word of God.

The respected Man of God, in a video sighted by Ameyaw Debrah Media argued that the primary purpose of congregational gatherings should be centered on spiritual growth, worship, and the study of sacred scriptures (the bible). However, he has observed a growing trend where churches are investing heavily in entertainment elements such as music, drama, and multimedia presentations to attract and engage the congregation.

“When you go to these 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.

Rev Anaba to a greater extent gave an instance where a man of God is invited to a convention to speak and for about over two hours, there will be “one song after the other, one dance after the other, choreography and somersaulting and all that.”

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Citing kiosks, mosques, lorry stations and chop bars as examples, the clergyman said each of these places has its purpose and wouldn’t trade that for anything else.

“I’ve never entered a ‘chop bar’ and they said ‘praise and worship’ before the food was 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,” he added.

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.”

“How many pastors walk into church on Sunday and their aim is that today is 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.

Rev Anaba 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.