The Agorrmanya Area of The Church of Pentecost organised a consultative meeting with the chiefs and queen mothers within the Akwamu and Dorfo traditional areas last Sunday to identify challenges confronting their respective communities and proper strategies to solve them.
The event, dubbed “Royals Consultative Meeting,” took place at the Mckeown Temple in the Akrade District.
The meeting was chaired by the Agormanya Area Head of the Church, Apostle Samuel Gakpetor, with assistance from Pastor Jacob Kwakye Frimpong (Area Chieftaincy Ministry Coordinator) and Nana Kwaku Budu Akomea (Area Chieftaincy Committee Chairman).
Apostle Samuel Gakpetor, in his opening remarks, refuted the misconceptions about the Chieftaincy institution as an ‘unchristian” venture, advocating that: “Chieftaincy ought to be understood as a divine call to leadership.”
“This means that the opportunity to serve as a chief should be seen as a God-given opportunity one has received to provide leadership and serve his or her people,” he stressed.
He indicated that most of the time, chiefs and queen mothers strive without success to bring massive infrastructural projects like schools, health facilities, etc, to their communities.
Apostle Gakpetor further noted that, although such developmental projects are important, they are very capital intensive and, therefore, demand the support of government and other organisations to be undertaken.
“However, there are also several challenges within our communities, which could be easily attended to by the chiefs and queen mothers even as they wait on the government for support for bigger developmental projects. This is why the consultative meeting has been convened,” Apostle Gakpetor noted.
Speaking on the topic “Boldness to Confront Challenges” with reference to 1 Samuel 17:32;45-46, Pastor Jacob Kwakye Frimpong called on the chiefs to tackle the challenges in their communities with boldness.
He encouraged them never to ignore the problems faced by their community folks, but do whatever it takes to overcome them or minimise the impact on their subjects.
Pastor Kwakye Frimpong again encouraged them to draw on God’s strength and grace to confront the challenges that come their way.
Some of the challenges of the communities identified from the discussions were moral, environmental, health, educational, economic, and security issues as well as the apathy of community members towards communal labour and development.
From the deliberations, it became apparent that the identified challenges have both spiritual and character dimensions.
It was, therefore, agreed that the traditional rulers should partner with the Church, ministers, and other Christian leaders in their communities to periodically hold prayer sessions to intercede for the communities.
Again, they were encouraged to collaborate with the Church and ministers in their communities to use the available media platforms (i.e. information centres) and community durbars to organise systematic and extensive teachings on character formation and morality to benefit the community folks.
The traditional rulers were also encouraged to engage the clergy within in their various communities to help address the developmental challenges.
On the other hand, the ministers were advised not to overlook the challenges within their host communities, but to see them as opportunities for ministry and strive to address them.
Apostle Gakpetor noted that the new interventions introduced under the five-year strategic vision of The Church of Pentecost (Vision 2023) such as the Environmental Care Campaign, the Home and Urban Mission (HUM), and the Counselling Ministry must be diligently employed to arrest the identified challenges.
The Agormanya Area Head also proposed a roadmap and action plan for the traditional leaders to adopt and work with for six months, after which another meeting will be convened to assess progress made.
On behalf of all the royals present, Nene Tetteh Amoako IV, the Chief of Natriku in the Osudoku Traditional Area, expressed heartfelt appreciation to God and the Church for the meeting and pledged to work hard to effectively implement the proffered solutions.
The colourful event had in attendance Mrs. Grace Gakpetor (Wife of the Area Head), Mrs. Cynthia Kwakye Frimpong (Wife of the Area Chieftaincy Ministry Coordinator), and a cross-section of ministers and wives in the Area.
Also present were committee members of the Chieftaincy Ministry at the Area and district levels.
In all, 23 chiefs and queen mothers participated in the consultative meeting.
Report by Agormanya Area Chieftaincy Ministry.