Some religious leaders have called on Christians to stop chasing miracles and concentrate on knowing the word of God.

According to them, knowing and believing the word of God hold the key to all challenges facing mankind.

Responding to questions on the stampede that claimed the lives of four people at the Ghana branch of the Synagogue Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) on Sunday, the religious leaders described the incident as an indictment on Christian leadership in the country.

The leaders — ; Apostle Samuel Yaw Antwi, General Secretary of the Ghana Pentecostal Council; Rt Rev Francis Amenu, Chairman of the Christian Council of Ghana; and Mr Fred Gobah-Tengey, a senior presbyter of the Evangelical Presbyterian (EP) Church – described the incident as very sad and unfortunate.

On Sunday May 19, four people died in a stampede at the Ghana branch of the Synagogue Church of All Nations when thousands seeking divine intervention, besieged the church premises to benefit from the distribution of ‘anointed water’.

The four have been identified as John Brainoo, 61, Emmanuel Thomas Addo, 50, Esther Adabadzi, 39, and Mike Teye, 35.

Brainoo was a pensioner and member of the church, who resided at Ashaiman Lebanon with his family. Mr Addo, also a member of the church, was resident at Darkuman in Accra and Ms Adabadzi, a resident of Achimota, until her death was a field worker with the Community Development Agency at Amasaman while Teye, a businessman, resided at Ashaiman.

The anointed water was said to be a gift from the head pastor of the church, Prophet T. B. Joshua, who had announced during a church service in Lagos on Sunday, May 12, 2013 that the repackaged anointed water would be sent to the other branches of the church across the globe.

Some members of the congregation, their relatives and first-timers from the length and breadth of the country who did not want to miss out spent the night on the church premises as the compound was said to have been filled to capacity by 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 18.

Rev Anyani-Boadum, who is the General Overseer of the Jesus Generation Ministries, noted that instead of Christian leaders preaching the word of God, they concentrated on preaching attractive messages to draw people to their churches.

According to him, although seeking miracles is not a bad thing, the miracles should come as a result of hearing and believing the word of God.

He said people who went to the house of God should be taught to know and believe the word of God so that the miracles would chase them and not believers chasing the miracles.

“I would blame the Christian leadership for what is happening in our society today,” he said

He said some Christian ministers were looking at success in the ministry of Christ as the large numbers, wealth and the use of marketing strategies to win people to Jesus Christ.

“Jesus is not in anointed water or olive oil, but Jesus Christ is His word, and we (Ministers of the Gospel) must let people know the word,” he said.

He explained that the Church was losing many potential followers to the world because such people got disappointed when they rushed to miracle services and did not get what they sought.

Rev Anyani-Boadum explained that it was imperative that preachers concentrated on teaching the word of God instead of miracles.

For his part, Apostle Antwi said it was unfortunate that Christians these days were running after signs and wonders instead of signs and wonders following them.

“What is happening is an indictment on the Church. We are not fulfilling Jesus Christ’s commission of making disciples of nations,” he stated.

Apostle Antwi admonished Christians to seek Christ in all their endeavours and “we will get the answer to all the challenges facing us”.

The chairman of the Christian Council of Ghana, Rt. Rev. Francis Amenu, said chasing miracles was not the way to receiving solutions to challenges.

He conceded that every individual was confronted with one or more challenges be it marital, professional or health.

He, however, said the solution to those challenges was seeking to know Christ through His word.

Rt. Rev Amenu, who is the Moderator of the General Assembly of the E. P. Church, called on the leadership of churches, to bring the right teachings to their members.

In his view, Mr Gobah-Tengey described the day of the stampede as a sad day in christendom in the country, Timothy Gobah reports.

He described the incident as a religious massacre, emanating from fundamentalism, bigotry and false orchestration by false prophets.

He recalled the Jonston Massacre and the Davidian cult in the United States of America which took the courage and political will of the government to flush out to save the rest of the people.

He, therefore, appealed to the government to flush “this church out to avoid further occurrence of this avoidable incident”.

The presbyter said a lot of churches were being driven from their core role of development in the areas of agriculture, education and health, into falsity in the name of miracles.

He encouraged Christians to read the Bible and follow the tenets as laid down by the Lord Jesus Christ, saying “we must pray fervently and watch out for false prophets”.

Meanwhile, a daughter of the late Mr Brainoo, Ms Harriet Nana Amma Brainoo, has described her father to the Daily Graphic as a highly religious, spiritual, kindhearted and honest person.

She said the family was yet to come to terms with the sad news of her father, who had driven the household of six to the church premises at about 5am last Sunday.

According to her, when they reached the church grounds, they could not find a place to sit, so Mr Brainoo asked them to wait while he went round to secure a sitting place for the family.

“That was the last time anyone of us saw him. We called his phone several times until about 8am, when someone informed us that my dad was on admission at the 37 Military Hospital for injuries he sustained at the church grounds,” she said.

Ms Brainoo said she and other members of the family were on their way to the 37 Military Hospital to visit their father when she was informed that he had passed on.

Meanwhile, a pastor of the church, Rev Sam Mc-Canaan, also told the Daily Graphic that the leadership of the church was in contact with the Ghana Police Service to advise the church on the necessary security measures to be taken to forestall a recurrence.

He described Sunday’s incident as very unfortunate, considering the fact that the incident occurred during a normal church service and not a revival.

Two weeks ago, thousands of people, acting on a hint that Prophet T. B. Joshua would minister in Accra, thronged the church, off the Spintex Road.

The large number of worshippers spilled over the church auditorium and premises onto the street outside, stretching for about 100 metres.

THE DAILY GRAPHIC