The Moderator of the Christ Evangelical Mission, the Rt. Rev. Francis Awuku Gador, has advised Ghanaian Christians to avoid using funerals of relatives and close friends as funfair activities but rather use the function as a time for sober reflections.
“It is sad that people use funerals for funfair and I am worried of how some mourners get drunk, over eat and engage in promiscuous activities at funerals of relatives”, he said in a sermon at a funeral service in his Church at Kotobabi in Accra.
Interestingly, funerals have become a time for both mourning and celebration of life.
Funerals have always been the main public social attraction among Ghanaians but the growing funeral business significantly alters the way death is celebrated.
In recent times, there had been calls on Ghanaians to try and bury their dead within a week as well as to desist from organising flamboyant funerals to save cost, time and other resources.
Adding his voice to the calls, Rt. Rev. Gador vehemently condemned excessive spending on funerals and other unprofitable celebrations, saying, the time had come for people to use their resources in profitable ventures for rapid development.
“Ghana is not our home, death makes us speechless and the wealth we acquire in life, we will not take them to our grave,” he said, advising Christians to live modest lives so that they can have a place in God’s Kingdom.
Rt. Rev. Gador cautioned Christians against becoming devils and nuisances to people through their lifestyles, asking them to turn wholly to the Lord since “heaven is our home.”
He prayed that Christians would submit themselves-body, soul and spirit- to the Lord because “God is rewarding the lives of everyone no matter where you are or find yourselves.”
