The Chairman of The Church of Pentecost, Apostle Eric Nyamekye, has unveiled a new 5-year strategic vision of the Church (Vision 2023) dubbed “Possessing the Nations.”
Speaking at his first November Heads’ Meeting, which is a prayer and fasting meeting of all Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, National/Area Heads, Rector and Deans of the Church’s University and theological seminaries, as well as Ministry Directors at the Pentecost Convention Centre (PCC) at Gomoa Fetteh, on Monday, November 12, 2018, Apostle Nyamekye said Vision 2023 seeks to “equip the Church to transform every sphere of society with values and principles of the Kingdom of God.”
He indicated that the overall goal of the vision is to see a church where members go to possess their nations by transforming every worldview, thought and behaviour with values, principles and lifestyles of the Kingdom of God and thereby turning many people to Christ.
“Building on what has been achieved by my predecessors, I foresee a refreshed church that equips and releases its members into ministry as agents of transformation wherever they may be,” he said.
Referring to a statement by Roger Helland, a Canadian Baptist Minister that, “an unrestricted vision causes havoc and that churches must be strategic in what wars they fight and when they fight them,” Apostle Nyamekye stated: “I have carefully examined this vision in the light of our church’s overarching vision, mission, core values and practices.”
In his gap analysis, the Chairman observed that in spite of the church’s impressive achievements over the years, there is a lot more to be done, saying, “Our societies are still influenced by worldviews, thoughts and arguments which contradict the knowledge of God.
“Taking Ghana for instance, according to the 2010 Population and Housing Census, 71.2% of Ghanaians claim to be Christians. As evidence to this, churches are scattered along the length and breadth of the nation. The Church of Pentecost contributes largely to this occurrence.
“However, in spite of the presence of these churches in our societies, Christianity has not yet impacted society adequately in a way that eliminates endemic corruption and rampant social evil to reflect the huge presence of Christians in the country.”
For him, it is not that God does not have the power to accomplish the redemption of the nations, rather, many churches’ lack of understanding of God’s purpose for the Church keeps the nations bound in darkness to false religions, lust for power, greed and all forms of evil.
He explained that Bible characters such as Moses and Elijah as well as Church and social reformers like Martin Luther and John Wesley, when faced with similar situations, had a national focus as they were purposed on bringing their nations under the rule of God. “These preachers were considered as God’s divine agents ordained to reform the nations, and ‘to spread scriptural holiness over the land,’” he said.
“As a church, it is time for us to focus a lot more attention on the practice of being God’s representative on earth. The Church has to focus on being salt and light in this perverse world in order to transform the spiritual, social, economic and political fabric of the nations. I believe that the destiny of our nations is in the hands of the Churches,” he stressed.
To ensure an effective and efficient implementation of the transformation agenda of Vision 2023, Apostle Eric Nyamekye revealed that members of the Church will be taught to understand the dual purpose of the Church, thus the church is called out of the world to worship God and sent back into the world to serve; equip the members with the knowledge of God’s word for ministry; create the awareness that whatever a person does in any aspect of life is an opportunity and a setting for ministry; deploy the members to transform society and take nations for Christ; further strengthen existing institutions and structures of the church and realign their activities to drive the vision; undertake structural adjustments to get the church system freed from crowded programmes in order to release members to witness and to serve; and to strengthen existing institutions and structures to continually assess the effectiveness of interventions aimed at achieving the objectives of Vision 2023.
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