Following the story on the Uganda Police Force (UPF) website titled ‘Pastor Arrested For Kidnap And Child Ritualistic Sacrifice‘, referring to a self-styled pastor and his wife arrested on charges of kidnap and murder for ritualistic sacrifice of a 4-year-old girl victim. The suspect has been identified as Prophet Joseph Sserubiri and his wife, Felista Namaganda. Also arrested is the senior pastor of Deliverance and Healing Ministry, located at Ganda, Nansana, a one Pastor Buyinza Israel Isma, who allegedly lured him into the act.
One of the solutions to address such acts, the Uganda Police Force spokesperson Afande Enanga called upon the Inter-Religious Council and all other Faith-based Associations, to come up with stronger measures of profiling and auditing the activities of all places of worship. He added, we believe this initiative will help guard against such rogue self-styled prophets, who take advantage of people’s lives, in the search for miracles and divine healing powers.
A related case happened in 1990 of the Kibwetere inferno, when this happened the Balokole were easily the soft target. In order to clear their tinted image the born again/Pentecostal faith pastors vetted, profiled, audited themselves and registered their particulars and churches or ministries. Subsequently the National Fellowship of Born Again Pentecostal Churches of Uganda (NFBPC) was founded now headed by Bishop Joshua Lwere.
The main purpose of NFBPC was to address such acts that misrepresent the calling and title of Pastor. There might be other genuine born again/Pentecostal associations that register pastors and they are accountable to, but any self-styled pastor or prophet going by whatever title who doesn’t have any association he or she belongs to must be watched carefully.
For instance the NFBPC structure that I know very well, has a membership of 30,000 churches, each church and pastor are registered. It has built structures right from the national level down to the sub county totaling to over 1000 leaders across the county.
The NFBPC structure includes the National Delegates Conference (NDC) is the highest decision making body of the fellowship. The NDC constitutes an electoral college which elects the highest executive organ of the fellowship, the National Executive Committee (NEC). NFBPC has executive committees serving at Regional, Provincial, District and Sub-county levels that is, REC, PEC, DEC and SEC respectively. These are elected to serve a term of five years as stipulated in the NFBPC constitution. In addition, the General Overseer (GO) is supported by a council of 24 elders appointed for life and including any outgoing (retired) General Overseers, a Doctrinal & Restoration Committee (DRC) that handles doctrine & discipline, an Electoral Commission (EC) that handles national and local elections, a Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) handles Constitutional matters and a National Fellowship Tribunal (NFT) that handles disputes (Civil, Ministerial & Ethical).
With this robust structure NFBPC rarely gets problematic pastors, but when indiscipline happens the system is strong enough to handle such indiscipline cases silently. Many of these cases are majorly family problems but never cases of kidnap or child sacrifice. Most of these ritualistic sacrifice cases are from witchdoctors posing as self-styled pastors and the long arm of the law should take its course against such people.
All churches must be registered with Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB), as well as a registered church umbrella organization such as NFBPC. The beauty of a national church umbrella organization, the registered pastor can be traced right from the village level and enforcing accountability is first with his local fraternity members. In the local fraternity the members know each pastor’s character, struggles and also assess the doctrine they teach.
In the recent past the NFBPC Minister of Discipline and Doctrine handled serious cases ranging from allegations of sodomy, adultery and divorce among others. I find this very healthy because NFBPC becomes a self-regulating church body enforcing accountability among its membership and when this is further strengthen by good leadership good character is formed in the members and wrong doers are weeded out easily.
The writer is the lead Pastor at Exceller’s Chapel International, and registered member and leader in NFBPC
joseph.magongo@gmai.com
