Senior Pastor of Gospel Envoys Pastor Choolwe Mudenda is embroid in sexual scandals that have rocked social media in the past 72 hours.
Pastor Choolwe who is a protege of Pastor Chris Oyokhilomo is built his ministry using Pastor Chris template.
Mercy Song was first to begin this conversation that has lead to more victims of sexual abuse beginning to open up. She wrote,
“It is not in my place or authority to say this. But it is a concern, what to do if you find out that your senior Pastor and his junior pastors have a tendency of sexually abusing girls in the Church and having sexual relationships with them?”
Notice that Mercy didn’t mention the name of the Church, or name of the Pastor(s) involved but that didn’t stop the church from ordering members who commented on the post to delete their Comments. The post was reported to Facebook and Mercy Song was blocked on Facebook for 24 hours.
Mercy asks the question; what do you do when your senior Pastor is sexually abusing ladies together with his junior Pastors.
It raises the question; to whom are our Papas accountable to? Pastor Choolwe is the Founder, CEO, and alpha and Omega of Gospel Envoys. You can’t report him to himself.
The difficult with the Churches today is that they don’t have structures within the local church that has authority on matters of disciplining the pastor.
Even in situations where there is a church counsel, the members of the Church counsel are actually spiritual sons and daughters of Pastor Choolwe. Which son or daughter in these churches have the courage to discipline their Pastor when he is in doctrinal error or moral failure?
This gentleman wrote to me;
“I am glad people are now coming out about Gospel Envoys. I left that church in 2016 and the man ensured all members unfriended me, even those that I took to his church. I held a very senior position but tables turned when I started calling out the wrongs. In case you need more evidence, I still have a lot”
Now this is a typical example of Paparism. Members including the ‘leaders’ cannot challenge anything wrong in the institution.
Paparism demands absolute, unquestionable obedience to the set man of the house.
And if you dare question any moral or ethical issues they will not only show you the door but isolate you.
Some one then says, “Lawrence is there another way of dealing with this instead of using social media? No there isn’t!
Sources close to Bread of Life informed me in confidence that Pastor Choolwe Mudenda at one point was invited as a key note speaker at a conference by Rev. Oscar Mumba.
But certain members of the clergy that were preview to Pastor Choolwe sexual shinaniganis, protested against the move.
Though flyers were posted already with Pastor Choolwe, he was unceremoniously dropped as a speaker at that conference.
The majority of the people talking to us are not even shocked by the revelation, instead they confirm that this behaviour defines Pastor Choolwe even in his days at the Copperbelt university.
These affluent Papas know how to bribe our fathers in the faith with gifts and planting seeds they call it.
When a scandal like this happens they quickly lean towards respected fathers in faith in the city or country or even abroad.
When they are publicly seen in the presence of respected men, the the gullible Christians will trust them by association and disregard the scandals around them.
Why am I getting involved in this particular issue. Honestly I don’t care how many extra-marital sexual relationships he has.
I don’t care if he pays rent, and bought a car for his mistress and supports the mistress well enough.
Because that borders on consential adult sex relationship and it is not a criminal issue in the laws of Zambia.
He is accused of demanding oral sex to be performed on him and wants anal sex. He is has a deprived mind and need rehabilitation.
However, when there are women who were coerced into sex by virtue of his ministry authority and position or by use of spiritual manipulation forced his hands on the opposite sex that becomes the issue of injustice in church.
We must distinguish sin from crime. When a sister in the Lord is sexually violated, this is not a church discipline matter, it’s a criminal matter. We can’t call the victims of sexual abuse in churches in the corner and ask them to forgive the Man of God.
By so doing we as fellow Pastors have become enablers of sexual violence in Church. Yes some sins are not crime, some crimes are sins we ought to know at what point does the church report the matter to relevant authorities.
We have seen this repeat itself; when sexual abuse happens within the boundaries of a church, the members in the church run to the corner of the most powerful man in the church to support and cover his nakedness. While the victim is left alone, isolated, stigmatized, demonized and even blamed for leading the man of God into sex. She the victim becomes the Jezebel that is out to destroy the anointed spiritual father.
Apart from the testimonies of ladies opening up that #ItHappened2Me2 is a sad story that lead to death.
This young woman was pregnant by Pastor Choolwe. It is alleged that Mamfundisi Mrs. Choolwe forced this young lady to abort in order to protect her husband and the ministry. After the abortion this lady consequently died! This is how far these churches go to protect their infidelities. Sadly the Pastor’s wives are indoctrinated to believe it is the duty of the wife to cover the infidelities of the husband.
We need answers to what happened to that girl. Perhaps even an equest into her death. But perhaps she can rest, but those who can’t rest are those who are dealing with the trauma of church rape, the fear of the curses from the man of God, and they fear to speak out.
The first thing we do in Gender based Violence is to first believer the victim. Then find the victim help and then seek for justice. Church abuse is the abuse that go unpunished. The perpetrators know too well they are untouchable. The case of Pastor Timothy Omotoso revealed how senior police officers bowed down before the sex pest Pastor Omotoso. These guys of the cream of our society, intellectuals, lawyers, Prosecutors and Journalist. Haven’t you wondered why the media houses in Zambia are mute? Most of them are captured maybe inside Gospel Envoys or by association.
Do our fathers in the faith know that Pastor Choolwe’s weakness is sexual immorality? Oh yes definitely they do. So why do they invite him? Because these cliques are financially beneficial. It’s like a stokvel or ichilimba.
Pastor A invites Pastor C to preach. Pastor A tells his leaders “we need to bless this man of God with K50,000”. Pastor C goes back to his house with a tax free cool 50G! Now it’s the turn for A to receive, Pastor C tell his church I was blessed in Pastor A’s church with K50,000 we must out-give that Church. Pastor A now goes home with K65,000 tax free. The reasons our fathers don’t speak out against these things it’s because they are receipients of dirty bribes.
Most of the people are saying Pastor Choolwe and Gospel Envoys is a cult. I have a little problem with the cult language. When we say it’s a cult who raped the girl, we are actually saying the pastor himself is a victim under the influence of cultism. We need to use the perpetrators name as a subject in sexual abuse cases.
The battle lines are now drawn. We are very aware that there will be a fight-back and also back door negotiations that involves paying off victims to buy their silence, but also the usual threats and intimidations.
We also know that they will try to report this post, but those with data can just share the story from my blog site.
We encourage those who are silenced, scared of their man of God anywhere in Zambia to COME OUT and say; IT HAPPENED TO ME TOO!
Source: Lawrence Musunte
Get a premium automobile insurance coverage for your vehicle for as low as #15000 only and claim up to #3,000,000 in damages @Zenith Insurance To signup: WhatsApp/Call: +2349028313757