ICGC special offering -It is incidents like this that provoke realists in the likes of musician A-Plus.
After news broke that congregants of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) are sowing seeds as much as 5,000 dollars in order to receive a miracle or favor from God, social media has been awash with mixed reactions regarding the issue.
ICGC owned by the prestigious Pastor, Otabil Mensah recently held a church conference dubbed Greater Works Conference 2017. A segment of the program tagged the ‘special offering’ required congregants to pay huge sums of money for answered prayers from God.
See Also: Kwame A Plus Calls Those Who Pay Tithes In Churches Fools
These prayer points were categorized into different amounts of money, both in dollars and Ghana cedis as seen below. The Special Offering notice, which promised different rewards for specified monetary offering, went viral amid heated debate over its appropriateness.
Beaming from LED screens at the Greater Works conference, the notice promised “Millionaire Status” for anyone who gave an offering of $5,000 or GHC21,500. For “100% Life Improvement” believers would have to make an offering of $100 or GHC425.
The church also provided account numbers where these payments can be made.
As expected, a lot of people are against the exercise which has been regarded as an avenue to extort money from individuals. Many have found it absurd and have begun wondering if prayers are for sale. Twitter awash with tongue-lashings against Otabil for making payment a mandatory requirement for getting answers from God in heaven.
Part of the blame has also been put on the church members, for yielding to the cunning strategies by pastors aimed at extorting money from them.
Pastor Mensah Otabil has cautioned believers at the Greater Works conference against applying logic to matters of faith. In response to the accusations leveled against him and his church, Otabil said that the Christian faith should not be questioned with human logic.
Belief, he said, can make all things possible. The pastor was speaking at ICGC’s Christ Temple on July 27, 2017, when he made these remarks. The 2016 Ghana’s most influential backed his arguments with some biblical references.
Belief will tell you that if you have five loafs of bread you can feed five thousand; that is not logical.
Financial transactions such as these were what caused musician A Plus to descend heavily on churches for devising techniques for money extortion from ignorant members. A Plus in a Facebook post blasted church goers who pay tithes to their pastors, describing them as fools. Though he acknowledged the existence of God, the musician opposed the idolization of individuals in the name of religion.
Many have been of the opinion that Pastor Otabil having criticized some unpopular actions of other clergies should not be entangled in such issues relating to fraud. But the Pastor has given some explanation for his actions.
Pastor Otabil is a highly respected man who is placed on a very high pedestal. The great man of God known for his unparalleled wits and counsels, won the prestigious Ghana Most Influential award, for the 2016 edition.
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