Visions are crucial to the survival of every forward-looking organisation. It directs the course of the organisation and ensures that all decisions, actions and policies are aligned towards achieving the overall objectives of the organisation.
The Church of Pentecost as a religious organisation has a Vision Statement. Our Vision Statement is “to become a global Pentecostal church that is culturally relevant in vibrant evangelism, church planting, discipleship and holistic ministry.”
How then would the church become a leading global church and still maintain its unique Pentecostal identity and at the same time raise members to affect their world positively with godly values?
This indeed calls for visionary leadership and committed followers. This is what has guided the church over the years. Every leader (Chairman) of the church comes out with strategic vision that seeks to drive the ultimate goal or agenda of the church – to propagate the Good News to all people groups on the face of the earth and to equip them with godly values and principles that would help them to live transformational lives to influence their societies positively.
Roy T. Bennett, a renowned American politician, once said: “Good leaders have vision and inspire others to help them turn vision into reality. Great leaders create more leaders, not followers. Great leaders have vision, share vision, and inspire others to create their own.”
Sharing in the assertions of Bennett, we can attest to the fact that The Church of Pentecost has over the years produced good leaders who have come out with great visions. We know that the faithful God who has a covenant with the church will continue to nurture visionary and sacrificial leaders for the church at all levels in the years to come so that the church will continue to soar higher and higher and from grace to grace.
Upon assumption of office in 2018, the Chairman, Apostle Eric Nyamekye, in collaboration with the Executive Council came out with a 5-year strategic vision, dubbed ‘Vision 2023.’ The overarching theme of the vision is: “Possessing the Nations: Equipping the Church to transform every sphere of society with the values and principles of the Kingdom of God.”
The leadership of the church will in the next five years come out with annual themes in consonance with the vision. It was in this direction that the first of the five prospective annual themes, “I Will Build My Church” was chosen in 2019. It sought among others to concentrate on equipping ministers, officers and members of the church to transform every sphere of society with the values and principles of the Kingdom of God and thereby turn many people to Christ.
The intention of leadership was to bring to fore the dual purpose of the Church; that is the church is called by God to Himself and sent back into the world as salt and light to serve God’s purpose and to transform it with the values and principles of the Kingdom of God. It is believed that having put all these measures in place to equip the members to be agents of Christ in their spheres of lives, we would have built a glorious Church.
To the glory of God, a second theme has been drawn out of the vision for next year, thus the year 2020. The 2020 theme of the church is: “A Glorious Church To Possess The Nations” – Ephesians 3:21; Ephesians 5:27. The slogan still remains, “Possessing the Nations, I am an Agent of Transformation.”
From all indications, the Holy Spirit is at the centre of the affairs of the church. One can see a direct linkage between the first and the second annual themes. Indeed, God is progressively preparing His church to become a glorious one poised to fulfilling His purpose on earth for humanity.
The 2020 theme attempts to raise a glorious body of Christians with the ultimate goal of becoming a beautiful bride prepared for the Bridegroom, which is Jesus Christ.
Launching the theme at the 2019 Heads’ Prayer Meeting held at the Pentecost Convention Centre (PCC), Gomoa Fetteh from November 11 to 15, 2019, the Chairman, Apostle Eric Nyamekye, intimated that God is always working in His church to prepare her as a glorious bride for Himself and to make her credible before the watching world, in order to make her witness to the nations easy and effective.
“To make the church’s witness credible and easy, we intend to focus on the goal of the church in the coming year. We will be looking into the church and focus a lot more on the goal of becoming the glorious bride of Christ, well adorned for the Bridegroom without spot or wrinkle or any of such things,” said the Chairman.
What seems to have necessitated this theme is the clarion call for Christians to take their rightful position in society as Salt of the Earth and Light of the World (Matthew 5:13-16). There is no better time to do this than now. We as Christians cannot salvage the fast-depraving world with our wrinkled bodies. We have soiled our garments with bribery and corruption, nepotism, backbiting, self-aggrandisement, selfishness, immorality, debauchery and what have you.
It is absurd, however, to note that the Church rather appears to have failed society in correcting the wrongs. As a nation that boasts to have over 70% of its nationals professing to be Christians, Ghana should have been the shining star that shows the way to righteousness and a citadel of godly people. However, the contrary is what prevails in the country. Indeed, Churches do not build nations but righteousness does. As a result, the Church has lost its influence in the world and has been branded by the watching world as a “bunch of hypocrites who preach virtue but practice vice.”
That notwithstanding, the Church remains the only hope of the world and we cannot afford to fail God in rescuing the dying world for Christ.
We must, therefore, not be satisfied with just holding church meetings and assembling sizeable congregations, but rather be committed to practicing what we preach and upholding righteousness in all our dealings so that the Church would become spiritually potent and more attractive to the watching world.
In so doing, we would be realising the ultimate goal of becoming “a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish,” a “holy and blameless” bride to be presented to Christ, the bridegroom (Romans. 7:4; 2 Corinthians 11:1-2; Revelation 21:2 & 9, Revelation 19:6-9) on His glorious return.
Pentecost News/Editorial
