Fikeveni

A lot of the attention and/or pressure that the church receives from the state or secular culture, today, comes from the history of an inseparable church and state. Even though we have come a long way since when the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church were one, we are still paying the price for all the damage done. This is one of the reasons why we have activists, representing various groups, working hard to change church doctrine and practices.  The church, as an institution, has failed to address human rights issues in the past, due to fear and political affiliations, and this has led to people believing that doctrine was the issue. The scripture is filled with love and the right kind of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We can have different backgrounds, possess different gifts, fall short in different ways, but be united and equal under God through Christ. We are one body of Christ instructed to show we are His disciples by our love. The church needs to interact with the secul...

Death is a serious subject that humanity has been obsessed with for generations. Its significance is undeniable, but in my opinion, it gets too much attention, especially from African, Middle Eastern, and Asian societies. The death obsession is crippling and keeping us in an infinite loop of birth and death; neglecting the important in-between. There are far too many festivals and events surrounding death.  This is not to say that funerals aren’t essential, but to say that they should play second fiddle to celebrations where the people are alive. People live their lives in service to those who have died and those who have reverence for the dead. This also leaves room for those who control society through the use of death as an instrument of oppression, to have free reign.  An obsession with death makes a society focused on the past, and not the future. Most resources, emotional and financial, go towards serving the dead. This then translates to holding on to terrible ideas onc...

In the quest for pleasure and happiness, often we find pain and suffering, with one of the ways being through what popular culture has termed the baby momma. Having a baby momma, or baby daddy, is a sure fire way to guarantee strife, especially if your baby does not live with you. We need to recognize root causes of pain and suffering in order to avoid the symptoms. Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a whirlwind of drama, because we tend not to understand that pleasure is meant to be shared with those that you have already committed to, and those that have earned your trust and you theirs.  Growing up, we learned about sex before marriage and sadly, the main point that the Sunday school teachers and preachers emphasized is that it is sin. Although that is true, it does not motivate us to stay away from having sex before marriage. It does not provide adequate incentives. We would have been better off hearing about some of the horror stories from couples (and their children) who had...

“Two heads are better than one,” or its variation, is a saying that almost every culture around the world knows and does its best to practice. It is not only used in reference to collaboration, but in reference to governance. Most companies, enterprises, and/or systemic groupings of people need to have two heads. These are the symbolic, advisory head and the administrative, operational head. In the non-C-suite way of corporate governance, it is simple, we have a chairman of the board serving as the symbolic, advisory head and a president serving as the administrative, operational head.  It gets a little confusing in the modern C-suite systems of corporate governance where you can have the chairman of the board, president, and chief executive officer roles. To avoid any confusion, it’s best to look at governance from the perspective of the people being governed, not the people doing the governing. If you’re a member of the executive committee, the chairman is the symbolic, advisory ...

At the end of the day, we are all just trying to be happy. There’s been countless songs and even movies with the pursuit of happiness as the main theme. Christians, especially those in service to God in an official capacity, tend to believe that the pursuit of happiness is not part of God’s will for their lives. We are raised to believe that we should not pursue happiness but pursue joy; as if joy and happiness are different. It is true that we are called to pursue a simple life, one centered on God. This means that we can be happy because simplicity brings happiness nine times out of ten. I propose that the pursuit of happiness is good. We should just make sure that we understand the difference between pleasure and happiness.  The word of God warns us about the enslaving nature of pursuing pleasure. Esau lost his birthright and blessing because his main driving force in life was pleasure. Esau didn’t want to be happy, because if he did, he would have honored his father and mother ...

The marriage custom of lobola is still practiced in Eswatini and South Africa. Some may be against it, because of what they think it says about the value of women or the patriarchal nature of African society, but I am not going to give a prescription as to whether or not it should be practiced today. I think that each family needs to figure out what it thinks is beneficial. I firmly believe that the decision to practice lobola lies in the hands of the couple. They need to decide how they merge the past with the future.  In pre-colonial times, lobola might have made a lot more sense. The economy was built on cattle and families were a lot more close-knit. The father of the groom was actually the one who had to part with the cattle. His son benefited from the trade of the family’s wealth which was in their kraal (bank account). The bride’s family and the groom’s family negotiated the value of the full exchange, but never fully settled there and then. After the negotiations, the groom...

Winston Churchill once said, “ Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” We just have to turn on the news to see that society seems to be trapped in a cycle of repetition. Sir. Churchill’s words ring true to every person who reads them, but why don’t we learn? Why do we keep inflicting the same pain on each other? Do not get me wrong; we are far better as a society than we were a century ago. Far less people die from infectious disease or starvation and there has not been a world war in over seventy years. We need to pray that the current conflict in Ukraine does not change all that.  History gives clues of a possible future, one that we should avoid, but we cannot prevent history repeating itself if we do not focus on the events of history. I propose that one of the reasons why we repeat history is because we focus too much on the suffering experienced. We obsess over the perpetrators and victims, instead of understanding the environments surrounding the event...

There’s a trend going around and it’s not what your favorite influencer is doing. It’s the prescriptive three point sermon. Church leaders, especially in America, present sermons that have similar structure and prescriptive points. “Here’s the problem and these are the three ways to fix it.” Gone are the days of a narrative approach to sermons. What happened to the church leader spending his quiet time with the Lord in scripture (they still do this part) and then giving us, the congregation, the insight that they have received: not the prescription from what they have learned? Prescription works best on a one on one basis because the person can ask questions, giving the opportunity for better clarification. Narrative works best as the numbers grow so that there's a sort of diversification of courses of action. Jesus used narrative to teach the masses and specific prescriptive words when addressing smaller groups. The danger of prescription in front of large masses is the thought th...

If church is the people and not the building, then what makes church, church? The answer must be fellowship or gathering together. When those who have faith in God through Christ meet together or gather, that is when church happens. God’s Spirit living in each person makes the gathering of those people a church, not their place of meeting. There are more instances in the Bible about God’s Spirit coming upon or filling someone than instances of His Spirit inhabiting a place. He inhabits the praises of His people and is present when two or three gather in His name. Even unclean spirits seemed to prefer taking up residence in living creatures. Jesus always cast out demons or unclean spirits from people and never from a place or locale.   So why do most believers think that the church is the building or even worse, the organization hosting them? This is likely a vestigial holdover from when the Israelites needed to visit the temple or carry the Holy Tabernacle. The early church - ...

Many of us are concerned about work life balance and the pursuit of happiness. What if there is no such thing as work life balance? What if life is a juggling act and not a balancing one? This could explain why we can never seem to find balance or have enough time for what really matters to us. The juggler just needs to make sure that he or she does not drop any of the items they are juggling. They do not need a perfect outcome, they just need to avoid disaster. If we are all jugglers, then we can stop trying to achieve the impossible (perfection), and just avoid the worst possible outcome instead (neglect). I know what some may be thinking: don’t you hit the object that you’re obsessively trying to avoid? That is the case when it comes to performing an action like skiing, driving, or any other activity that requires us to avoid hitting an object. When it comes to decision making on the other hand, you do not have that problem. Thought is a lot more complicated than action, it can be f...

In the beginning, God gave humanity an identity and a purpose. The devil came in and convinced humanity that God was not only keeping them from having an identity, but also from knowing it. This began the quest for identity, sending humanity into a rabbit hole leading to nowhere. Humanity was never supposed to know they were naked or judge for themselves what was right or wrong. We were called to have a relationship with God and each other, and steward the earth. In that order: God first, ourselves and each other second, and stewarding the earth third. We were not called to search for our identity. God sent Jesus for us to stop that pursuit of identity and have our identity in Christ. Jesus is the truest image of God and He serves as a reminder that we are made in the image of God.  The problem with searching for one’s identity is that it distracts us from the purpose given by the Lord at the beginning of our existence. It is a never ending pursuit of a treasure that can never be f...