It has been a long time coming, and finally, it has arrived in the general public. Reports of abuse of pastors and former bishops of Lighthouse Church have surfaced on TheFourthEstate, and Ghanaian Christendom has been divided on whether to castigate or to defend the church. Many Ghanaian Christians fail to do the hard work of detecting patterns and analyzing church structures to discern if their own churches are susceptible to the same abuses. Perhaps now is the time for me to write about a pattern I discerned a long-time ago about Charismatic Christianity in Ghana, a pattern that should tell many of us busily castigating or defending Lighthouse and Dag Heward-Mills, that maybe this was bound to happen anyways, and is sooner or later going to happen in our own Charismatic church (if it hasn’t already).

Charismatic Church Founders as Entrepreneurs

Their goal is to create a product that people are willing to pay money for. Once the product is launched and money is coming in, they have the starting blocks of a successful business.

Many Charismatic churches in Ghana are run on a lot of the principles of entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur is someone who sets up a business, taking on financial risks in hopes of profit down the line. I’m an entrepreneur myself involved in technology and real estate, so I know how this works.

Entrepreneurship typically begins with having a business idea. The idea may be novel or one that is already known, but the founder feels they can add their own twist to satisfy a target market, and in the process make gains from it. To bring this idea to fruition, an entrepreneur invests their own money and/or raises money from investors and begins the task of trying to bring their idea to market.

Their goal is to create a product that people are willing to pay money for. Once the product is launched and money is coming in, they have the starting blocks of a successful business.

In the case of founders of Charismatic churches, their equivalent of a business idea is “a call from God into ministry”. This “call” cannot be questioned, as nobody was there when God “called” them. In an overly religious country like Ghana, saying you have been “called into the ministry” is all you need to get going. Now the product that they develop is a church. It’s a tried and tested formula, and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to offer that product. Ghanaians are already very religious, so it’s easy to get family and friends to join the startup church as initial customers of the product. The founder then goes about enticing already existing Christians from other churches or “winning souls” – the religious terminology for bringing in new unexposed customers to the product.

Typical of entrepreneurship, the seed funding comes from sacrifices of the founder: their money, their time and effort, are spent with the belief that all will be repaid in leaps and bounds as the church grows bigger. The initial product offering consists of finding a meeting place (called “the church”) which may be paid for via rent or via someone gifting a space, finding a good source of already familiar gospel music, giving a sermon that meets some existential (and especially financial) need of the customers (members), and the collection of revenue (tithes, general and special offerings). 

After the starting blocks have been built then comes the seed stage, and this tends to be the stage where there is much intimacy in the church. Do not be fooled though if you are in the church at this rosy stage. It is still the Charismatic founder’s church. And just like a business entrepreneur, a typical Charismatic church founder’s sacrifices are done with the assumption of profit down the line – profit that is typically labelled “God’s blessings” manifested in material wealth. So, the “intimacy” of the setting is not really the goal: it is simply a means to an end. Growth is where the money is, and to do that, certain approaches are required.

All this while, the founder lives with one insecurity – the fear that another “founder”, whether a long-established one or a new entrepreneur like him – will snatch away his members. Because at this stage there is only one church, this tends to be easy to manage. But this fear and insecurity never goes away

Now to ensure that the product has a sense of permanence, the final block that is needed to complete this seed stage is the acquisition of land and the building of a physical structure with all sorts of fancy names – tabernacle, temple, sanctuary or church. Apparently, the God who created heaven and earth needs a place to live, a place where he can be commanded to meet the customers’ needs. If this part of the product is not yet done, the product is still deficient and hasn’t truly arrived.  

All this while, the founder lives with one insecurity – the fear that another “founder”, whether a long-established one or a new entrepreneur like him – will snatch away his members. Because at this stage there is only one church, this tends to be easy to manage. But this fear and insecurity never goes away, as we will discover below. 

How Charismatic Church Founders Grow Their Churches

In almost all religious circles (not just Charismatics circles alone), success is measured by the ABCs (Attendance, Buildings & Cash). And so, for the founder to feel his business – religiously labelled “his ministry” – is growing, he needs to see an increase in these ABCs. The product is the church, so it needs to multiply into different areas. And they have a religious justification for this – more church members/customers for the product means more “souls” are being won for God. This MUST be pleasing to God. Who cares if the souls are hungry, are homeless or are the best bribe-takers in their offices? So far as the ABCs are on an upward trajectory, it is a sign that God is “blessing the ministry”. 

For a private business founder, it is very clear who the business belongs to – the shareholders. If the business founder believes he needs to grow the business, he simply raises funds (from revenue he has made, a bank loan, from a shareholder or an additional investor), hires additional people and tasks them with selling the product in the new markets he wants to move to. However, the Charismatic founder starts off their initial church creating the impression that this church is “our church”, aka it’s something that he and his “customers” own. This is where the difference begins to emerge between a normal entrepreneur and a church founder. In a private business, the founder (or majority shareholder) can take whatever decisions they feel will bring more money to the business without asking his customers. He is only accountable to shareholders. In the church, the founder cannot be seen to be taking unilateral decisions, since his customers perceive themselves to have a share in this business. So, religious language is deployed to justify a need to expand as part of a drive to “save more souls”. 

Unlike a private business, Charismatic founders cannot simply hire and fire a new pastor to handle the expansion. They need someone they can “trust”, someone who will not attempt to “steal” their church from them. They need someone loyal to the founder’s “ministry”. This fear of treachery exists obviously because this happens to many churches all the time – a pastor is appointed to lead a new branch, and in the eyes of the founder, he “led the people astray”. The reasons why this happens are myriad, and I have no intention of discussing them here. One of the cardinal tools by which many founders (and many other established churches) use to avoid this occurrence is the practice of transfers – a practice the church inherited from the world. Don’t be fooled by all the justifications that churches give for this practice. Transfers are a tool of control.

One of the cardinal tools by which many founders (and many other established churches) use to avoid this occurrence is the practice of transfers – a practice the church inherited from the world. Don’t be fooled by all the justifications that churches give for this practice. Transfers are a tool of control.

Enter the False Teaching of Loyalty

And so, to protect the “ministry” of this entrepreneurial founder from being “derailed by the devil” (in the form of junior pastors stealing churches away), there has always been in existence in many Charismatic churches, teachings in one form or another about loyalty to the “mother ministry” – something that is not needed if this were simply a normal business with a clear founder/CEO who can hire and fire. This stealing away of followers is just stealing away from the founder’s empire they call their “ministry”, but it’s typically couched as being “unfaithful” to God. 

However, nobody has done a better job of clearly making codified teachings out of this than Dag Heward-Mills, the founder of Lighthouse Chapel International, now renamed United Denominations Originating from the Lighthouse Group of Churches (UDOLGC). And he makes it explicit why he codified this teaching in his book “Loyalty and Disloyalty”. If you want a brilliant study in twisting scripture to support empire-building, there is no better book.

So, let’s take a few passages from the horses’ own mouth. Unfortunately, my copy doesn’t have page numbers properly showing, so bear with me for specifying only chapters.

Sadly, by the 2nd page of Chapter 1, the deception begins.

“An inexperienced person would think that a friendly brother would make a good pastor. He may also think that someone with good oratory skills would make the best preacher. Do not make that mistake. The Bible teaches us that the cardinal requirement for leadership is faithfulness and not anything else. “it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful (1 Cor 4:2)” (Chapter 1- Loyalty & Disloyalty)

The question to be asked here is who is Paul referring to when he talks about faithfulness? Is it about being found faithful to Jesus or Dag’s ministry? If you are doubting which one Dag is referring to, hold on to your horses.

“Because of this, anyone who wants to extend his ministry and bear much fruit has to learn to work with many other people. These people are the team that I’m talking

about. However, it would be better to work alone than with a team of disloyal, disgruntled, disunited and dis-affected people.” (Chapter 1- Loyalty & Disloyalty)

So, there’s the answer. It’s about Dag’s ministry (or any other entrepreneurial Charismatic founder’s ministry, for that matter).

As I mentioned before, an entrepreneurial Charismatic founder (and other misguided Christians) measures himself by the size of his church network. And that is no more obvious than when he says this.

“If we want to have a large church, we need to minister with love and with oneness. If we cannot be one, let’s stop pretending. You see, I encourage people to walk out of my church if their hearts are not with me. “He that is not with me is against me.” Matthew 12:30” (Chapter 1- Loyalty & Disloyalty)

Not only does he tell us clearly that the name of the game is “having a large church”, but that he also requires that his pastor’s hearts must be “with him” – not with Jesus. Worst of all, Dag Heward-Mills equates himself to Jesus by repeating the same words as Jesus did, words that apply only to Jesus, not to any human on earth. He is the Son of God, the one to whom all power and authority have been given. He is the only one to whom loyalty is owed, and every other human who demands it is in danger of idolatry.

Loyalty, Every Dictator’s Favorite Word

I cannot count the number of world dictators who have commanded loyalty. And I don’t begrudge them. Loyalty is the way dictators ensure the longevity of their empires, although every empire in the world collapses at some point.

But for Christian leaders to be demanding loyalty? That smacks of idolatry. No scratch that. That IS idolatry.

Loyalty, whether demanded by autocratic politicians and businessmen or Christian leaders always leads to the same thing – abuse. The abuse may not always be widespread, so don’t be surprised if others under such leaders claim they have never experienced it. Many under such leaders will have imbibed this loyalty teaching so deeply that it takes an extremely negative event happening to them before they wake up to the reality of such abuse. Many in the good books of such leaders either do nothing when they see abuse or actively participate in its perpetration, having already religiously justified their behaviour.

Perhaps, this “system” has forgotten that even Jesus knew that Judas was going to betray him, and yet he kept him in his company till the end. And yet mere mortals like Dag and his company of entrepreneurs need – no scratch that – crave loyalty to them, brazenly twisting scripture to pretend that this is about the kingdom of God.

So, I’m not surprised by these reports of abuse. I have personal friends who have shared with me their own experiences of abuse not just from Lighthouse, but from many other Ghanaian churches, whether they explicitly or implicitly teach loyalty. I’m also not surprised by the PR campaigns to save face as well. The system is always more important than the people it hurts, so defence is more important than introspection. Perhaps, this “system” has forgotten that even Jesus knew that Judas was going to betray him, and yet he kept him in his company till the end. And yet mere mortals like Dag and his company of entrepreneurs need – no scratch that – crave loyalty to them, brazenly twisting scripture to pretend that this is about the kingdom of God.

And So What?

Because of how religion and power can so easily blind, there is a reason why the historic, faithful Christian tradition has always emphasized humility and submission to one another, instead of loyalty. In fact, I struggle to find the word “loyalty” in my NIV translation – the word is always faithfulness, and it ALWAYS refers to faithfulness to Jesus and his mission, never to a Christian leader. Humility and submission to one another is the New Testament’s way because humans are broken people, and when elevated to a pedestal, they will hurt fellow humans. Wherever humility and submission to one another are lacking, people will tread over others in pursuit of a leader’s empire agenda. 

Wherever humility and submission to one another are lacking, people will tread over others in pursuit of a leader’s empire agenda. 

And it is in this spirit that one who wants to centre their faith on Jesus – the one who is God incarnate and who shows us what God’s own character is – needs to pay attention, not to books about loyalty but Jesus’s own words. 

“Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—  just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mt 20:25-28)

No matter how “gifted”, no matter how “qualified”, no matter how “called”, no matter how “blessed” a supposed founder or pastor is – it is actually quite easy to see whether his “ministry” is really about Jesus or themselves. 

First, how do they treat those whom they claim are in ministry with them – no matter the levels of maturity or years of service. Do they treat them (not just in words) as co-workers, even the youngest of them, or are they their underlings: to be lorded over, just like “the Gentiles lord it over them” in the name of fulfilling the founder/pastor’s “ministry”? One easy way to discern this is to listen to their “junior pastors” or ordinary church members speak about their founder/pastor. Do they speak of him/her as a co-labourer or as one who “exercises authority” over them?

Secondly, how do they treat their perceived “enemies”, or people who hurt their supposed ministry? Do they curse them, – paradoxically in the name of the one who says to bless our enemies? Or do they forgive them and look forward to a time when they might even work together for the good of the kingdom of God?

Beware therefore that Ghanaian Christianity is made up of many demigods building their entrepreneurial empires, and (despite what it says on the label), many of these church empires have little to do with Jesus and everything to do with religious entrepreneurship.