A video featuring Reverend Eastwood Anaba addressing the prevalent focus on entertainment within churches has surfaced online.
In the video, the founder of Eastwood Anaba Ministries voices concerns about the church’s excessive inclination towards entertainment, emphasising that it often overshadows the fundamental purpose of the church, which is to attentively engage with the word of God.
“When you go to these churches, sometimes I just imagine. If there is no drummer, no organist, and no guitarist, and you take away all the music and entertainment, many of our churches will die.
I mean, if 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 for about two hours, there will be “one song after the other, one dance after the other, choreography and somersaulting and all that.”
Citing kiosks, mosques, truck stations and chop bars as examples, he 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 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, the viol, the tabret, the pipe and the wine are in their feast, they regard not the work of the Lord nor consider the operations of his hands.”
Explaining further, he said it means the churches have followed the entertainment until they have lost 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 pointed out that a significant number of pastors are primarily concerned with offering entertainment, delivering appealing sermons, and collecting offerings.
He emphasised the need for a shift in the church’s approach, highlighting the importance of prioritising healing and salvation over mere entertainment.
The exact date of Reverend Eastwood Anaba’s sermon is unclear, but some speculate that the video may spark a debate leading to potential changes in the church’s operational methods.
On the other hand, some argue that music and entertainment hold unique psychological and spiritual healing effects that should not be overlooked or underestimated.