So, church is back in business after months of closure. Did you go? How did you make the cut because as you know, this business of welcoming any and everybody to ‘God’s House’ is pretty much over and church authorities must be agonising over who to let in, or are they? With only limited numbers allowed, I wonder if prayer requests submitted with a sizeable donation will now be prioritised and preference given to those who bring something to the ‘Lord’s House’ — much like the best seats have always been reserved for the most generous benefactors anyway, as opposed to those who walk in seeking help because even places of worship have bills and salaries to pay.

I’ve been to many churches where the pastor didn’t shy away from asking the faithful to pay their dues. Since they’ve been on "forced” leave from conducting God’s work, I’m sure they’ve been working on their sermons so expect cherry-picked hints like ‘Give and it shall be given unto you,” "It’s more blessed to give than to receive,” "God loves a cheerful giver” and so on. Loosely translated? Pay your tithe and offering or else you might have to settle for those streamed services for a while longer! You have to give it to all the financially aggressive men and women of "Gad” out there though who don’t play when it comes to milking the congregation.

I say that well aware that there are many well-intentioned churches that put that money to good use through their various community outreach programmes and helping those in need. But there are also some self-serving business people disguised as preachers who go as far as looking up their church members’ earnings. They’ll have all these projections based on people’s incomes and where you have gullible congregants desperate for miracles, they’ll pounce and that’s why you see all these people buying private jets or building mansions seemingly overnight and hardly anyone holds them to account so they just keep taking if you let them.

Quick question. If you were down to your very last provisions, would you give them up for anyone? Like that widow in the Bible who used her last handful of flour to bake the Prophet Elijah some bread and he in turn blessed her so she never lacked again. Wish I had that faith because best believe if I were down to my last scoop of anything, there’s no way I’d give it up for anybody!  Someone also joked about God being great at this whole social distancing thing but it’s true with Him all the way in Heaven and we mortals stuck down here. He watches us from a safe distance and may touch our hearts but not in a physical sense and maybe that’s something anyone obsessed with laying hands should try!