Daily Sun (September 5 2014) - THE CHURCH WAR has been going on for months. And it doesn't look as if the angry people of God will stop fighting soon. THEY FIND THEMSELVES IN THE SAME CHURCH, AT THE SAME TIME, HOLDING SEPARATE SERVICES!
One group faces the altar and the other faces the exit at the United Methodist Church in the Emangweni section of Tembisa, Ekurhuleni. Church member Solomon Zimba said there is no order in the church.
"We can have one pastor preaching while the other group is singing," he said.
"The church service never ends well. We fight all the time and that's not the way it's supposed to be."
He said the cops are called every week.
"They are called to bring order to our church and that's not the way it's supposed to be."
Daily Sun witnessed some church members wanting to assault Solomon, accusing him of taking the church problems to the newspaper.
But Solomon defended his actions.
"We are tired of what's happening in our church. It's time the world knew what's going on," he said.
Solomon said the trouble started when some congregants discovered that pastors from the other group had registered the church as their own company, without informing the members.
He said the church has five pastors.
"The other four pastors are in one group and we have another pastor leading us," he said.
"What they did was wrong and when we demand answers they become arrogant." He said the situation went from bad to worse when they found out that church funds are being misused.
"Some members have been evicted from church after demanding to know what the church funds were being spent on," he said. Solomon is in Pastor Thamsanqa Letuka's group. They were reading from Genesis, chapter 21, where Abraham chases Hagar and Ishmael away, while the other group was singing.
"The people around the church are asking for this church to be demolished because every week there is fighting instead of praying.
"This is our church, not theirs. These pastors are here to lead us, not to own it."
Daily Sun asked Pastor Freeman Bhongoza, who is part of the other group, about the money, but said he was not prepared to discuss such "nonsense". He refused to say why they had registered a church without informing other church members
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