Preaching in commercial buses has become a common phenomenon at bus terminals across the country. This is in spite of calls by Deputy Minister of Transport, Titus Glover for the practice to end because it has the potential to distract drivers and cause accidents.
The opposite is rather happening as individuals who call themselves men of God move from bus to bus with their megaphones preaching. Sometimes, they join the bus so they can continue the evangelism during the journey. As a passenger, you are forced to listen to whether you are interested or not.
But, what would be your reaction when you are tired and stuck in traffic at night after a stressful day at work and a preacher tries to share the word of God in the bus in which you are.
GBC’s Nathaniel Nartey witnessed an interesting situation where passengers angrily reacted when a preacher man tried preaching and even asked him to get off the bus.
During rush hour on a typical weekday, as people scramble for seats in taxis and commercial buses, one is likely to hear or encounter a whole lot of people and noise. The major roads that lead to residential areas in the city are often plunged in traffic as private and commercial vehicles go head-on or rather, bumper to bumper, squeezing into the smallest space available in a bid to get to their destination as quickly as possible.
One of such road is the Accra-Madina route where the traffic stretches from the Ako Adjei interchange also known as Sankara, all the way to the Atomic junction. Sometimes it goes even beyond the Atomic junction to Madina, then all the way to Adentan. The heat, noise, and fumes from vehicles make the journey unbearable, especially when you find yourself in a “rickety trotro” full to capacity with passengers sweating all over in a rather hot atmosphere.
In such a situation, the slightest provocation could easily become chaotic. Although justified to an extent, the situation becomes interesting when the anger is directed at a man of God for preaching in a bus that is stuck in traffic. This is exactly what happened when a pastor got up to preach in a commercial bus that was stuck a in traffic for close to half an hour.
The passengers resisted, arguing that it was the wrong time to preach while the pastor insisted on his freedom of speech, adding that no one can prevent him from preaching.
The back and forth argument which was initially between only the pastor and a passenger suddenly became heated as the rest of the passengers joined in and even asked the pastor to get off the bus, if he insists on preaching against their will. Interestingly the driver and bus conductor joined the passengers to forcefully order the pastor to alight.
At this point, it was unclear whose action or reaction was right or wrong.
My question is “was it right for the man of God to insist on preaching to such a hostile crowd in that hot situation?
Martin Luther, a German Professor of Theology once said that “To preach christ is to feed the soul, to justify it, to set it free, and to save it if it believes the preaching.
That is to say that so long as the soul of the listener does not believe in the preaching at any moment, the purpose of evangelism is defeated. Hence the onus lies on the preacher to be reasonably strategic in the process.
Story by: Nathaniel Nartey.
