Drowning In A Sea Of Churches in Ghana

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There are too many churches. There, I said it. There are just too many people building churches in every part in the city. Churches have basically become Starbucks in Ghana. At every corner, in almost every neighbor, there’s a church.

First of, let me state that I have no problem with churches in general. My problem is that there are far too many people, building too many churches and to be honest, it doesn’t really seem like it’s for worshipping purposes. Building a church these days feels more like setting up a business and your congregation are the customers. 

From what I’ve observed from my surroundings, we don’t need more churches springing up. We actually need more community centers and more entertainment centers. We need places where people can go watch movies, lounge around with their friends, play basketball or other sports activities or just chill and relax (drinking spots and chop bars don’t count).

Instead of having those type of places in our surroundings, we’re instead bombarded with churches where all night services take place, music from loud speakers pump out into the night, disturbing the neighborhood and keeping people awake. 

We don’t need that. People need other stuff to keep them preoccupied. Seriously, this is a must. Have you been to Accra? Spending a few months here and you’ll realize that it’s boring as hell. People go to the mall just to loiter because at least it’s better than staying at home.

Our “parks” aren’t really good or even safe to take your kids. There’s no “fun” places for the teenagers to go. All my friends just stay in house on weekends and basically do nothing. (Or maybe I need to find new friends to replace my boring one)

You would think the more religious a country, with it’s ever growing population of church buildings, the more moral standards that country would possess. Well, it seems to be the opposite around here.

People seem more apathetic, corruption appears to be the norm, and the churches themselves more or less seem to be the epitome of hypocrisy. I don’t know how many stories I’ve heard of pastors taking advantage of married women or stealing from the congregation, but there’s always a headline in the papers about it.

This is not to say that churches are bad for the society. Churches go good things. They organize community events, donate to the needy, help build schools and other great things. My argument is that there needs to be something else to compliment the church. Hence the need for other things like parks, community centers and entertainment centers. If land keeps going to churches, we’re all going to be up late at night, struggling to sleep thanks to all these all night services.

Churches are always going to be there. But not everyone can be at church all the time. Sometimes too much of something is not good. In this case, it’s churches. 

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