This is not really to expose the corruption inside the Church – all the monkey business with the Government, Customs, Police and what have you. This is just one of those articles to vent.

I attended the Webex ‘Worship Service’ rerun of the Beloved Executive Minister last April 14. Once again it was over 1 hour long. The previous Executive Minister also had long sermons but they were SPECIAL. If you ever got to hear Brother Eraño Manalo, it was an experience. He would teach mind-blowing topics on the “number of the beast”, the “drying up of the River Euphrates”, the “return to Jerusalem” and many others.

I’ve stopped writing about the WebEx reruns because they are pretty much a rehash of the same lessons: Obey and submit to the Beloved Leader and you will go to heaven. Sure it sounds different in the beginning with introductions about catastrophes or poverty or world problems but it all ends up with the same sermon- obey the Leader… ignore anyone speaking up… remember to offer… and you’ll be saved! It has all become redundant. People know it. Let’s not kid ourselves.

Most church members just don’t say anything because they can’t do much. Some just don’t attend much or they simply sleep in the gathering.

I’m sort of hesitant to call it Worship service anymore because 1) It’s a repeat. I already wrote about these recorded prayers. God gets to hear the same stale prayers. 2) The Ministers praise the Beloved One more than God. So how is that still a Worship Service to God?

But I digress. I wanted to simply point out a couple of things.

Hymns

Let me start off with these: Hymn singing. I’ve already written about how the hymns nowadays are more like Showtunes, as if they are either a patchwork of Les Misérables, trying to be like a grand musical number or some leftover song from the movie LalaLand. I cannot express this enough, and I wish the Church leaders would listen to these comments without deeming them as ATTACKS. People would LOVE to sing along to the hymns. But honestly, these hymns are so ridiculous because the regular worshippers simply cannot follow the horrid tunes! Remember, the Apostles wrote when it comes to hymns in 1 Corinthians 14:15

“So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding.”

How shall we sing with the spirit if the average worshiper cannot keep up with the fancy new jazzy sonata with notes flying all over the place? Let me give you a simple example. Probably many of my readers don’t even celebrate Christmas. BUT, if I ask you to hum some Christmas tunes, you would be able to belt out 3 or 4 of them wouldn’t you? Why? Even if you never went Christmas caroling in your life, you probably not only know the tunes but the lyrics because those songs have been around for ages. We grew up listening to them, they do not change and they are simple enough to follow.

Which brings me to my second point, the tunes should be simpler. There are different songs. There are songs for opera structured to be sung by a solo Tenor or a cheerful 3 minute pop song created to lift up the mood and to be sung by a band. And then there are hymns. What are hymns designed for? They’re not meant to be for Mariah Carey solos with lots of slides. Hymns are praises to God which should be sung by the entire congregation. Every time I see and hear these jazzy tunes, I often wonder about our poor elderly deaconesses who can’t keep up with all these undulating Broadway style ‘hymns’. Even the younger worshippers can’t or just don’t bother trying to keep up with all the nonsense.

Third, STOP CHANGING the LYRICS every few months! IF there is a halfway decent tune that comes out once in a while, KEEP IT! Don’t replace the lyrics after 3 months or alter older tunes by simply changing what previously went down, now goes up. What is the purpose of that??

And you wonder why church members just sit there looking at the hymnbooks? How shall we fulfill that command to sing with the spirit and with the understanding when we don’t even know how the tunes go and we are not familiar with the lyrics?

Lastly, (pertaining to hymns) I feel bad for the non-Tagalog speakers. Whenever the non-Tagalog brethren and guests attend these Webex reruns, they sit there looking at the lyrics on the big screen TV. How many of them do you think are actually able to sing along? The hymns are in TAGALOG! The translations are there on the screen. What is that supposed to do? The non-Tagalog worshippers will only sit and say, “oh, that’s what that means”. So are they singing praises? Of course not! But they know the meaning – Some may say. But that is not the same as singing praises is it? Just as it is different from prayers. You are taking away their part in their worship of God by putting the service in a language they DO NOT understand.

Would you like to experience what I am referring to? Here, watch this video and try to sing along in English subtitles:

Did you even know which part you were singing?

“… I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding.”

For argument’s sake, let us say it is fine with them that they just read the words on screen while the Tagalog hymn is being sung, how many worshippers do you believe can actually see all the lyrics on the screen. The first 2 rows, maybe even 3, but beyond that, most people can’t see the writing on the screen anymore. How shall they sing and understand what they cannot see?

Stale

Like I said, I’m not going to even bother about the topic of the sermon since it is just repeated. However it truly blows my mind that the prayers have reverted back to the recordings. Prayers are for God. They are not for video streaming. Sermons can be 2 weeks or even 2 months old because those are for the people and if they have not been heard before, then it’s ok. But the recorded prayers… why play them? Don’t the leaders even bother to think about this? I hate going over materials I’ve covered before, and I have mentioned this on several occasions but this is ridiculous. Isn’t God particular with what is offered unto Him?

“And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.” Genesis 4:4-6

Why offer up prayers that were done weeks ago? There’s a word for that: STALE. God favoured Abel because he offered the best. Why don’t the Ministers who are just sitting there in the sanctuary conduct the prayers? Why play the recorded video of wailing that God had already heard? Cain was not accepted in his worship, why would the Webex reruns be accepted when it is more stale than what Cain offered?

Voice Over

When I watch the Webex playbacks, it reminds of those Saturday afternoons, when I used to watch old Kung Fu movies that were dubbed so badly. Here is an assortment of some of them:

My point is, that is how the Webex playbacks are; you see the Beloved Executive Minister talking but it is dubbed in English because someone else is actually preaching. A little comedic in this time and age. Does the Beloved speak in English? I assume he can, he does meet with ambassadors for photo ops, that is, unless, they have been speaking Tagalog with him. If we will hear the sermon in someone else’s voice, why not just have a LIVE English speaking Minister preach it to us instead of the silly voice over? What is the point? We all sit there and listen to someone else anyway.

I will answer my own question with the answer of others. From what I heard in that previous Webex rerun, is that “Through HIM we receive the blessings.”

And thus, we get to my last point; I don’t know if anyone actually listens to the prayers anymore since, like I said, it’s all about praising the Beloved One, but it is very shocking to hear when Ministers will pray for the Executive Minister and say that “THROUGH HIM WE RECEIVE YOUR BLESSINGS”. Since when have we ever been taught that we receive blessing through the Executive Minister?

Why would that be necessary? God is Almighty. He can bless us directly. Here is one example:

“Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him.You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours.” Psalms 128:1-2

We also received blessings THROUGH JESUS:

“He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.” Galatians 3:14

But never have we been taught that we receive blessings through the Executive Minister. One can argue that the Executive Minister PREACHES God’s words. But have you ever heard the previous Administrations mention that we receive blessing through them? If blessing are obtained through the Beloved Executive Minister, then why do the Ministers keep praying for him? Wouldn’t make much sense would it?

So now we come to the end of my rant. I apologise for the length of this post. I just needed to release all this frustration with all the nonsense that the Church leaders continue to spout and spew. There are so many things going on in this world, and all they are concerned with is praying for the Beloved One and that the members would submit by giving more offerings. When will this end?

“Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.” James 5:13

One last addition, which I have also covered in the past, so I will not say much on it, except to say, PLEASE… NO MORE WAILING. It’s not very inspiring nor spiritual. And I will end it with a segment from the Beloved One’s own letter when he was just a humble Deputy…

Remember?