Emulate integrity of Jesus
The Bishop of The Tema Diocese of the Methodist Church Ghana, Rt Rev. Thomas Brown Forson, has identified the lack of integrity and character as one of the basic problems that have stifled the growth and prosperity of the country.
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He, therefore, asked the citizenry to do away with the spirit of selfishness and imitate the life of Jesus Christ.
Bishop Forson was delivering the sermon at a joint induction service of Mrs Ellen Ocansey Asare-Peprah as the first lay Headmistress of the Tema Methodist Day Senior High
School and a seven-member Tema Diocesan Legal Advisory Team of the church at the Calvary Methodist Church, Community Three, Tema.
Mrs Asare Preprah’s induction opened a new chapter in the administration as her appointment effectively truncated the practice whereby only ordained ministers of the church had headed the school since its inception in 1983.
The legal team is made up of George Ankomah Mensah, Mrs Efua Ghartey, Ebenezer Kwesi Haizel, Dicosesan Lay Chairman, Ahumah Ocansey, Mrs Joyce Debrah, Mr Aubrey Aidoo and Mr Louis Neizer.
The service was on the theme: “Christian leadership: doing God’s work with diligence”.
He reiterated the high Christian population of the country and asked Christians to go back to the character of Jesus Christ by cultivating His creative, humble and loving mind by which he was able to transform his disciples into special people who were focused and pure.
Referring from Philippians 4:8, he challenged the leadership of the country to be excellent in purity, truthfulness, have good testimonies, show high character, purity and also have love for their followers.
He thus reminded the citizenry that “the glory of life was to love and not to be loved, to give and not to receive, and to serve and not to be served”.
He added that when Ghanaians turned those characteristics into practice, “then we could turn Ghana into a paradise.”
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He bemoaned why God had placed us in such a rich land but poverty continued to be our lot.
“God has given this country everything: human, mineral resources and indeed all opportunities,” he emphasised.
Bishop Forson said it was imperative for Ghanaians, especially the leadership, to “replace harmful inputs with productive outcome”.
He expressed sadness that huge sums of money had been sunk into avoidable judgement debts, and wondered whether those monies couldn’t have helped transform the lives of the people.
The Tema Bishop said: “again, why should a person placed in a responsible public position supervise wrongdoings that went contrary to the growth of the country. How can a GH¢3 million voucher change to GH¢9 million and the supervisor after such serious wrongdoing turn round to plead that it was an oversight?”