By Ishola Adeleke, YeyeNews.com, December 1, 2021
A pastor in Uganda, Aloysius Bugingo, rolled on the floor in excitement to celebrate an unexpectedly huge offering he recorded in his church during a Sunday service. The pastor of the House of Prayer Ministries was seen by the YeyeNews.com reporter thanking God profusely for the harvest of offerings.
“God has done a great thing for us in this thanksgiving service. Since the history of our church we have not recorded anything near this sum. The ushers should told me we have seventeen million Ugandan shillings (17,000,000 UGX)”, Pastor Bugingo declared to the wild jubilation of the congregation.
The offering has caused a big stare in Uganda since it was declared. A financial consultant told YeyeNews.com that it was high time the country’s government started taxing religious collections. “Ugandan churches seem to be in a competition for who will collect the most tithes and offerings in a single Sunday. While the productive sectors are struggling to survive, churches keep declaring humongous collections without engaging in any economic activities. They simply collect from the citizens to finance the luxurious lives of the pastors. The government must institute some regulatory framework for their activities”, the source said.
But an assistant pastor in the House of Prayer Ministries who pleaded anonymity told those criticizing the church over the offering to visit a typical Nigerian church to see how much they collect in their tithes and offerings. “If Ugandans are shouting about this meagre offering, I wonder what Nigerians would be doing in their country. The offering in question here is just about $5000. That is what a single person can give to a typical Nigerian church as an offering, but Nigerians have not brought down the heavens. You see how their churches are growing in leaps and bounds but Ugandans keep dragging our churches to the mud. We have to know that our nation cannot advance more than the way our churches have advanced. Let us support Ugandan churches so that the country could grow also”, the pastor said.
