WATCH: Drama as congregants fight

DRAMA recently ensued at St John's Apostolic Faith Mission in Bulawayo's New Lobengula suburb when congregants fought during a church service over what some members claimed was a  lack of transparency and  mismanagement of funds by the church leadership.

Video scenes typical of a nightclub brawl have since gone viral on social media depicting chaos that rocked the church service with members insulting, pushing and shoving each other.

Footage of the melee depicts a woman yelling at a male congregant who grabbed another by his neck and violently pushed him to the ground.





The woman is seen screaming trying to quell the fighting members and also asking why they were fighting and what kind of a spirit had engulfed the church.

Sadly the church's Bishop Vengayi Tapfuma unsuccessfully tried to restore normalcy, but was violently pushed and fell to the floor.

Sensing danger, other  church members bolted out of the church and watched the scene in the church yard. Some elders of the church later stepped in and managed to stop the fight.

A source at the church said lack of transparency in choosing church leadership, use of church funds and poor running of the church were the cause of the ugly scenes.

The source said some members accused Bishop Tapfuma of arbitrarily appointing and assigning duties to church members that were not chosen by the church council.

"Some congregants were not happy that there was a lack of transparency in the running of the church and they were also bitter that the bishop disregards the church's council in making decisions as he only consults his son Tapfuma Jr," said the source.

"There are positions which are occupied by people who were chosen by church council but the bishop assigns church members who were not chosen to do those duties," said the source.

The source added: "His son Tapfuma Jr is also using the church's premises to run a private school and despite the fact that the students are paying there is, however, no transparency in the use of those funds paid by the students."

The source said all those complaints sparked a fight during a church service.

Efforts to get a comment from the bishop were fruitless.

His son Tapfuma Jr also declined comment saying all questions should be addressed to congregants during a church service.

"I cannot comment on that matter. It's better you come to church on a Sunday and ask the church congregants," he tersely said.

The ugly scenes came hardly a few months after the bishop was humiliated by his junior pastor Edmore Mangombe who used to tell him to shut up and stop lying each time he was on the pulpit.

The troubled Tapfuma claimed whenever he starts preaching Mangombe would stand up and when church elders tried to tell him to sit down he would ignore them.

He said he had been doing that for the past five years adding that Mangombe had also threatened him with unspecified action before the end of the year.