“God Is Spirit, Worship Him In Spirit And Truth!”

“God Is Spirit, Worship Him In Spirit And Truth!”(Jn.4:19-30).
I should have been a Catholic. I attended the Catholic primary school, Buea Road Mutengene from class three till I passed to class seven; then I went back to Bali. While in the school I enrolled for catechumen classes. At the end I wasn’t baptised because I could not pay the required money for cards etc. Upon my return to Bali I enrolled in Catholic school Bali and also registered for catechumen classes. Again on the day of baptism I was left out.
When as an adult I decided on my own, I started attending the Full Gospel Church at Mbadmandet, Bali. One day, Sunny Foncha, my brother and friend in the quarter who was a Presbyterian asked me, “Why would you bypass water to go and fetch water somewhere else? The Presbyterian Church Ntaiton is just next door to you, why leave and go to the Full Gospel at Mbadmandet? Come with me to PC Ntaiton.” I heard him and joined PC Ntaiton, a congregation which at the time was under Njenka parish. This is how I went on a certain Friday and asked the pastor to baptize me which he did on Sunday in December 1986. Then I entered the Presbyterian theological Seminary in 1988. Of course, most of you know the story of the rest of the journey till date!
While studying in UKZN, Pietermartzburg, South Africa, I rented a room in a house belonging to a South African lecturer in my university. When I told her where I came from, she considered the distance covered and she was like, “Babila, this does not make sense! You say you are reading African theology – the African version of contextual theology. – Why would you not do that in your country where you have to apply that learning in context?” I see that she was right!
Last year I fell our with a South African Social Media friend who wanted me at all cost to connect her with a Cameroonian prophet in Buea. I refused and told her there are many prophets in South Africa who have the same ability and capability to do the same things my Buea prophet is doing. I told her the grass on the other hill looks seemingly greener than your own pasture.
Tele-evangelism has become one of the sources of aggravating poverty within the African continent as the poor and gullible waste money flying from their countries to other countries where they think they will meet wo/men of God who have the solution to their material and financial upliftment, and their health challenges.
Jesus the Christ told the Samaritan woman, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know, we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
My friend, as believers, we worship God on a daily basis in our bedrooms for individual prayers, in our parlours for family prayers, in our quarters for small Christian community prayers and in our Church houses for collective fellowships. If you do not find God in these places you won’t find him overseas. God is spirit
and his worshippers must worship him in spirit and truth, irrespective of the place of worship.
There is no need becoming a Christian prostitute moving from one denomination to the other! Seek the LORD while he is to be found – wherever you are – but do so in spirit and in truth! The Holy Spirit has come to enlighten us on these things.
Pentecost prayer: Holy Spirit inspire us to worship God in spirit and in truth; irrespective of place. Amen!
Have a blessed day and happy Pentecost Whit Monday! Peace be with you!
Rev Babila Fochang.