Popular Nigerian Pastor, Dr. Sunday Adelaja, who is based in Ukraine has lambasted men of God and churches that encouraged their members to invest in Mavrodi Mondial Movement, MMM.
In an article he wrote, Adelaja said it was unfortunate that some clerics took the scheme to the church without doing adequate research.
He said now that MMM seems to have crashed, reputation of those who openly and secretly promoted the scheme was at stake.
Part of the article reads: “Let me give you a list of consequences that I believe will be detrimental to any church that allows the activities of MMM in their church or among their members.”
1. When, not if, this scheme collapses, the first ripple effect is that a large amount of money has been withdrawn from church members. As a result, the churches will become poorer.
2. The people who participate in these schemes are actually taking either their extra money out to these platforms or they are using their tithe and offerings which equals to fleecing the church one way or another.
3. After the collapse of MMM, pastors will discover that church members would rather use their money to clean up the mess of paying their debt or returning money to their creditors, etc. rather than paying their tithe and offering to the church and this could go on for a long time.
4. There is going to be a lot of strife among church members. People will begin to point accusing fingers at each other for getting them involved in the business which will lead to a lot of conflict within the church.
5. If the network was sanctioned by the leadership of any church even though not directly, the church will still be blamed while all the previous good works of the church will be quickly forgotten.
6. A lot of the culprits will suddenly disappear only to resurface in places like London and Paris, but the churches will have nowhere to run to. They will have to remain to clean up the mess. It could get to the point where the church might have to empty its coffers just to help members put food on their table.
7. Some faint hearted church members who don’t have anywhere to run to could end up committing suicide. Believe me, the media and the unbelieving world will jump on that and try to crucify the church for it.
8. Church members will begin to doubt the authority and validity of the church leadership. Some will even say if the General overseer or pastor is a true man of God, why didn’t he see it coming? Why didn’t God reveal to him that this business was going to collapse?
9. I know this is unlikely to happen in Nigeria but in Europe here, what I had to face is that since I am the senior pastor of the church, a law suit was raised against me, accusing me of being the mastermind of the so called scheme. I doubt this will happen in Nigeria because of the respect for our religious institutions and leaders, but you must still know that the danger is there.
10. Due to the loss of the church’s credibility, it will be followed by the mass loss in church members, which would be exploited by the enemies of Christ and His church.
“Due to all the above mentioned points, I therefore wish to appeal to my fellow pastors and colleagues in ministry to do all they can to begin a campaign that will stop the continuous propaganda and infiltration of MMM and other such groups into their congregations.”
