The Chairman of The Church of Pentecost and President of the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC), Apostle Eric Nyamekye, has asserted that society will feel the impact of the Church when it works towards transforming society.
“The relevance of the Church to the ordinary person is the transformation it brings to society,” he said, adding, “For a nation that claims to have 71.3 % of its population as Christians, we need to rethink our influence on the nation’s development in our generation, especially the moral development.
Apostle Nyamekye said this at the opening session of the 2nd All Ministers Conference (the biggest non-denominational conference for Ghanaian pastors) being attended by about 2,500 ministers at the Pentecost Convention Centre (PCC), Gomoa Fetteh near Kasoa.
Being held from Tuesday, 19th to Friday, 22nd September 2023, the conference is under the theme: “Moral Vision and National Development – the Role of the Church.”
The Chairman pointed out that 71.3% of Ghanaians purporting to be Christians are cultural Christians, nominal Christians and actual practising Christians.
He observed that cultural Christians are those whose ancestors were Christians while they have not accepted Christ or been active church members.
He charged the clergy to work to bring all cultural and nominal Christians into the Church and effectively disciple them so that the Christian community’s huge numbers could have a meaningful impact on the nations.
Apostle Nyamekye charged ministers to work together across denominational lines’ since this is the essence of the conference.
While calling on the clergy to work hard at winning souls, he advised them not to lose sight that the souls (persons) they win are not isolated individuals but live in communities with complex and corrupt socio-economic and political structures.
“We cannot save the soul of an individual and not be concerned about the society they live in, the very structures and systems that inform their daily lives. Both the soul and society must be evangelised to make righteous living easy in the nation,” he stated.
The GPCC President expressed his delight that Ghanaian clergy was gathering once again as a unified force not bound by denominational barriers to pursuing the purpose of the Church in Ghana.
He reiterated that a single church denomination cannot achieve the work of transforming people to be Christlike, saying, “I hold the view that no one denomination is the exclusive or particular channel of God’s grace. The saints, I believe, are equally distributed across denominations. That, the degree to which God uses a fellow is determined not by the denomination in which they are located but by the depth of their surrender to God regardless of where they are.”
Apostle Nyamekye disclosed that the essence of this year’s conference is to work together as a joint force to effect a moral change and foster national development as the Church, stressing that “we can become a powerful voice that shapes the development of our nation through the gospel of Christ.”
He indicated that the conference is a direct follow-up of the conference on national development that brought together two former presidents of Ghana, the sitting vice-president, the speaker of parliament, the chief justice, parliamentarians, leaders of political parties and various heads of institutions.
He revealed that the conference called for an urgent need for a clear moral vision to serve as a bedrock for Ghana’s development.
He said the theme of the conference serves as a conscious call to Christians to be channels through whom the grace of God will flow in blessing the Ghanaian society, a call to help all appreciate their role as salt and light of the earth, a call to orient church members that the Church holds the key to the transformation of nations.
Apostle Eric Nyamekye called on the Church to refocus her core mandate of raising Christlike Christians who will transform society with righteousness.
PENTECOST NEWS