President urges Christians to uphold responsible living for nation building

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged the Christian community to rise to its religious responsibility and stimulate the desired motivational spirit of renewal and transformation towards effective nation building.

He stated that the growth of the Church should be measured not only in the number of its followers but also in the quality of its members who were dedicated to upholding the spiritual virtue of Jesus Christ to help build a progressive and prosperous Ghana strongly anchored on the love for God.

President Akufo-Addo said this when he addressed the congregation of the Community Five Assembly of the Apostolic Church, Ghana, just before the inauguration of their five-storey Children’s Church building in Tema on Sunday.

The building will be used to reach out to children within the Tema Metropolis and its environs with a holistic Christ-centred training and a modern approach to child care, including after school tuition and child counselling services.

The multi-million Ghana cedi project has a library, an e-library, a multi-purpose auditorium, eight ultra-modern classrooms, offices for teachers, an elevator, penthouse and a canteen.

Standard of living

President Akufo-Addo stated that he assumed office with the goal of improving the living standards of Ghanaians and he remained committed to achieving that goal nearly three years on.

“I believe we can and we should be able to build a Ghana which looks to the use of our own resources and their proper management to engineer social and economic growth of our country. With the help of God and of the Church, I am confident that we can realise this vision,” he added.

Commendation

The President commended the church for constructing the imposing edifice and said what they had done was an indication of their love for children and obedience to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

He added that “if you welcome any child into this premises, you welcome Christ himself”.

He reminded the pastors, teachers, parents and members of the congregation of their responsibility of inculcating into the children the virtues of Christ and instilling in them the teachings of this church and also teaching them, as prescribed by St Luke, to love God with all their heart, soul, spirit and mind and love their neighbours as themselves.

Quoting from the Holy Bible, he said Matthew 18 verse 6 stated that “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

He said he knew that he must work hard to guarantee that knowledge became the backbone of the economy and prosperity, adding that “we are now at the point where we need to complete the transformation of our country into a modern 21st century nation that remains distinctly and uniquely Ghanaian”.

President Akufo-Addo explained that it was for that reason that investments in the educational system had become a key priority of his government which had ensured that poverty was no longer a barrier to accessing education.

 He said 1.2 million children, the highest enrolment in the country’s history, were now benefiting from Free Senior High School because he believed that Ghana required well-trained, qualified and skilled human resources of integrity and faith to propel it on the path of socio-economic transformation.

Future generation

In his sermon, the President of the Apostolic Church, Ghana, Apostle Dr Aaron Ami-Narh, said it was the responsibility of the current generation, especially the Church, educational institutions and the government to mould the kind of future generation it would want to have out of the present children.

He said children must be guided to make good use of knowledge and technology and not be swayed into using it for destructive purposes.

He added that the Church must focus on the development of children not as an afterthought but the main focus, adding that it was for the reason that the church had constructed the children’s church building to cater for not only children of the church but all children, irrespective of their faith or religion.