Presby Church Creates 2 Additional Presbyteries

The Presbyterian Church of Ghana has created two new Presbyteries in its overseas branches to bring the total number of Presbyteries in the church to nineteen. 

These new Presbyteries, which are the North America and Europe, were created to enhance the growth of the church in these areas. 

The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church, Rt. Rev. Prof Emmanuel Martey, made these disclosures during the opening ceremony of the church’s 14^th General Assembly which took place at Abetifi in the Eastern Region of Ghana last Saturday on Saturday, August 16, 2014.

The General Assembly, which is the highest decision making body of the Church, attracted about 600 commissioners, and corresponding members from all the 19 Presbyteries, including the newly inaugurated overseas Presbytery and partners from local and foreign to draw a missionary agenda for the new ecclesiastical year.

According to the Moderator, “the creation of these Presbyteries is in fulfilment of the decision by the General Assembly at its 13th General Assembly held in 2013 at Abetifi in the Eastern Region to create overseas Presbyteries.”

Creation of a Spirit Filled Church

Touching on the state of the church in his address as per the theme for the Assembly which is “Be Filled With The Holy Spirit”, he noted that, the growth of the church is on course and well placed to take decisive decisions in the creation of a spirit filled church in the country.

He said, “PCG is in a very significant process of change, blazing a trail towards Christ-centred, self-sustaining and growing future. Steadily, the debilitating clouds hanging over several areas of church’s life are lifting, giving way to conscious-effort strategic and Spirit-controlled management and administration.”

Prof. Martey said, more members of the church are gradually becoming spiritually aware of the need to be filled with the Holy Spirit and they are striving for that continuous experience in their lives.

“Our members continue to undertake prayer retreats, deliverance meetings and bible studies across the country which is triggering the filling of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Because the Holy Spirit is at work in our church, the worship lifestyle has changed and that is attracting more people into the church, especially the youth in the various universities and those who left the church sometime ago for one reason or the other” he noted.

Spiritual and Worship Life

According to the Moderator, large number of Members, Ministers, Catechists and Presbyters have become spiritually aware and striving on to Christian maturity, adding that, the emergence of over two-dozen Prayer Centres within the past few years with both lay and ordained leaders and team-members who are addressing the spiritual needs of both Presbyterians and non-presbyterians of the Ghanaian community is an eloquent testimony to the fact that, there is, at the moment, a vision focused on building Christian communities that are Biblically based and spiritually transformative.

He said, the church will not sacrifice the forenoon Bible Studies during its Sunday worship service for any other thing, noting that, every congregation in the church must make use of the Bible Studies materials in every of their Sunday services to enable members experience the move of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

To enhance effective teaching and understanding of the Bible Studies materials, he revealed that, the church is translating some of the materials into other Ghanaian local languages to enrich the worship lifestyle of the church.

Health & Education

The Moderator also announced that, the Church is preparing to convert all vocational training centres, to health training institutions to train more health professionals.

He explained that, this has become necessary due to the high demand of health professionals in the country as against vocational training which is losing its value.

According to the Moderator following the trends in the country, it has become necessary to re-look at the post basic vocational training which in the past has been serving a useful purpose in training girls and young women to acquire skills.

He said the number of girls enrolled in these training centres is shrinking because it is no more attractive to young women.

Rev Martey said the Church handed over the Duayaw-Nkwanta Girls Vocational Institute to the health unit to convert it to a health training institute.

He said the facility would start with a Post Basic Midwifery programme and later upgrade it to a Diploma.

“Training of midwives is a priority to the Ministry of Health as a strategy to reduce the high rate of maternal mortality rate,” he said.

The Moderator also announced that Begoro Girls Vocational Institute in Fanteakwa District of Eastern Region and Lartebiokoshie in the Greater Accra Region would also follow suit.

He said the Church has opened a new clinic at Abasua in the Ashanti Region to take care of the ever increasing population in the area that walk long distances to access health care.

He said the church renovated a rented building with financial support of GH₵ 10, 000.00 from the General Assembly Office, provided access road, furniture and extension of electricity to the facility.

To continue enhancing education delivery in the country the Moderator said the Education Department of the Church has put plans in place to ensure that at least every region in the country would have one senior high school.

He said presently there Western, Volta and Upper West regions have no Presbyterian senior high schools and the Church intends to reverse the situation to ensure that education is placed at the door step of every Ghanaian.

He announced that the Church would institute an award scheme for all categories of teachers at every level including the best chaplain, best head and best teacher.

Widows’ Ministry

Prof. Martey expressed worry about the serious lapse in the care and attention the Church pays to widows.  In line with this, he disclosed that, the Church Life and Nurture (CLAN) Department is putting measures in place to come out with a committee that will ensure that proper and well-functioning widows’ ministry is operational at all courts of the  Church. 

Relocation of PCG Head Office to Kuku Hill

He informed the General Assembly that, following the decision of the 13^th General Assembly to relocate the G.A Office from Makola to Kuku Hill, the remodeling of the Guest House has been going on and is nearing completion. 

“The original design of a four (4) level structure has been changed to five (5) levels after all the testing proved that, the foundation can accommodate more than one more level.  This led to additional redesigning to cater for this change” he said.

Hon. Antwi-Boasiako Sekyere, the Eastern Regional Minister, who was the guest of honour, commended the Presbyterian Church on its contributions to the socio-economic development of the country since its establishment in 1828.

He said the PCG is providing quality healthcare across the country, notably through the Donkorkrom Hospital, Agogo Hospital, Bawku Hospital, Dormaa Ahenkro Hospital and other health facilities.