Missions accept to work with government

Accra, Aug. 11, GNA - Religious missions have accepted the offer of working in partnership with government towards the effective management of mission schools.

Consequently, the missions and the Christian Council of Ghana have called on the Ghana National Association Teachers (GNAT) and other stakeholders in education to also collaborate with the churches in the running of the schools.

The Most Reverend Dr Robert Aboagye Mensah, Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of Ghana, announced this on Wednesday during his first day of a five-day Official visit to the Accra Dioceses of the Church. Dr Aboagye Mensah who had visited eight other Dioceses including Koforidua, Sekondi, Oda and Kumasi was on a familiarisation tour of the Accra dioceses to inspect chapels and school projects the church was undertaking.

The Presiding Bishop said the churches were committed to providing quality education through discipline and morale upbringing. He assured the GNAT that the involvement of the churches in education would not throw some of their members out of employment but would rather work together for the total development of the schools. Dr Aboagye Mensah also noted that the church was seeking a loan from the Standard Chartered Bank to purchase 25 pick-ups for its Dioceses in the districts.

He said majority of the members were in the rural areas and as a result, the ministers found it difficult to meet their church members and let alone win more souls for the church.

The Right Reverend Samuel Kwame Hodasi, Methodist Bishop of Accra said it was time the church engaged in income-generating activities to support development projects.

He said the sole reliance on the church collections, harvests and dues was not enough to meet the stipends of ministers.

Rt Rev Hodasi also called on the church to establish a school of music to train organists and choirmasters to revive the Methodist hymn into tunes to compete with the Pentecostal choruses.

"We must forge ahead, and go forward otherwise we will lose our being a church", he said.