Banished into fame: The 20-year-old story of CEM
Twice they were banished from their church and place of fellowship but they survived those tests of their commitment to evangelise and win souls for Christ because having been born twins, their faith and destiny were inseparable.
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The twin brothers, Rev. Stephen Mensah and Rev. Stanley Mensah, the General Overseer and Deputy General Overseer of the Charismatic Evangelistic Ministry (CEM), respectively, were called to a life of faith in the Lord.
The burden of being called has its joys and sorrows, and a heavy dose of heartaches.
It is a road of loneliness, a road on which one needs a lion's heart to take decisions that will affect congregants and generations after them; a road of desertion on which those counted on disappoint often because of a decision taken that was not agreed with; a road of agony, where the full complement of human hardship, spiritual needs, challenges, troubles and woes, stare the pastor in the face.
Rev. Stephen Mensah and Rev. Stanley Mensah have travelled this road for 20 years, full of encouragement and reprimands for members to stay the course of heaven!
How it all began
It began in the early 1980s when, after having been led to Jesus Christ by Brother Enoch Agbozo of the Enoch Mission, the twins started the journey with the Holy Spirit's presence heavy upon them, and with a burden in their hearts for nothing but sharing with others the gospel of Christ.
They did not initially shirk their Catholic affiliation, but the twins, once mass servers, started a fellowship – The Catholic Charismatic Renewal.
The meetings were held at the Mensah Sarbah Hall of the University of Ghana. Thus, after mass each Sunday, the faithful gathered for fellowship at the dining hall in the evenings and on Wednesdays, they taught new believers the gospel at 'Aboagyewaa,' a spot in Sarbah Hall.
Like fire burning in their bones, together with their collaborators, they also took the message out, preaching and evangelising outside Accra.
A deacon of CEM, Mr Pascal Gohoho, recalls one of the crusades by the Catholic Charismatic Renewal to Abraw Dunkwa in the Central Region: "We had a banner depicting the rapture, with the words, "Jesus is coming soon."
Catholic Church alarmed
It irked the ire of the Catholic Church, which started scrutinising the activities of the group more closely.
The church was troubled by the evangelism drive of the two, and the growth and buzz about the fellowship. The mass servers were deviating!
Their 'non-Catholic' ways included the fact that the they sang charismatic songs, and singing in duo, the two drew many to fellowship!
They also taught the gospel from the Bible and not from the Catholic Missal, and above all, they evangelised. That was deviating from the Catholic way!
Clapping and dancing in praise to God, sometimes in frenzy like King David did in the Bible when overwhelmed by the goodness of God, was too much for the palate of the Catholic Church then!
First banishment
Deacon Gohoho recalls the second Sunday in April 1991, when Father Joseph Osei-Bonsu of the Legon Catholic Church visited with an entourage.
The accusation was that the two, with the fellowship they had started, were not behaving like Catholics, although they bore the name of the church.
For their deviance, a mini-van, musical instruments and some furnishing acquired by the fellowship were seized.
"We left without a screw driver," Rev. Elisha Atsu Maglo, in charge of missions/crusades of CEM, said.
The twins decided to go independent and so left things as they were without contesting the Catholic Church.
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Surprisingly, the majority of members of the fellowship still turned up for service the following Sunday.
God was faithful. In the heady and difficult periods of military rule, Ghanaians yearned deeply for God and through fellowships such as the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, they expressed their faith in God.
They also surrendered their hardships, sorrows, and hope in God's Grace in accordance with his word: "Where sin abounded grace did much more abound," (Romans 5:20).
Second banishment
The services continued on campus until 1994, when the fellowship became a full-fledged church, but what God had started could not be contained on campus.
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The dining halls and the Central Cafeteria were bursting at the seams with the number of attendants by the late 1990s, and the university wanted the fellowship out!
That was the second banishment! The church bought a piece of land and moved from Legon to settle at Haatso, with the help of Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams.
The site was christened 'Rehoboth' by Rev. Stephen Mensah, signifying CEM's rest from its toils, and the first service was held on January 1, 1999.
Crusades and church growth
Since then, CEM has grown from strength to strength, through God's faithfulness. Its forte has been its evangelism drive that has resulted in the strong collaboration with local churches mostly in the rural areas and towns.
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These crusades are organised not only to share the gospel of Christ, but also to ensure that the difficult lives of rural folks are somewhat alleviated.
"Our aim is to show the love of God," Rev. Maglo said.
Thus, clothes, food, buckets, machetes, lanterns, are also shared after the gospel has been preached.
To cap it all, rural residents suffering from various forms of ailments receive medical attention from doctors and medical consultants conveyed to the crusade grounds by the church.
The more serious cases, such as cancers and other terminal diseases, are brought to Accra for attention at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
The crusades have assumed an international dimension, with missions already undertaken in Togo, while a crusade is to be organised in Burkina Faso this year.
The infrastructure development of the church has also been by the grace of God.
The church seats about 4,000 people each Sunday and has about 8,000 registered members, 72 local branches and nine foreign branches.
For his part, Rev. Awortwi said "What we have experienced and seen have all been by the grace and faithfulness of God.”
“It has not been easy, but by the grace and mercy of God, we have come this far. We believe God will take the church to another glorious level."
Indeed, the 20-year-old story of CEM has been one of grace and the faithfulness of God.