St Alban Anglican Church unveils musical instruments

The St Alban Anglican Church has unveiled a set of musical instruments to help in the church’s worship life.

The instruments, which will also help the church in its evangelism, especially in these contemporary times, will help improve performance and help enliven the congregation and elevate their mood at the church’s activities and programmes that may be organised by members of the church.

Since music is said to be the food of life and also serves as a communication tool, while it represents the culture of a group of people, the instruments are expected to bring members of the church together to play positive roles.

The unveiling was performed jointly by former President Jerry John Rawlings and the Archdeacon of the Tema Anglican Church, Ven. Major (Retd) Ebenezer Nii Addy Laryea, at the church last Sunday.

Ex-President Rawlings

In his remarks after the unveiling ceremony, the former President said members of the Anglican Church were fortunate because their church recognised and welcomed women into the priesthood.

He noted that that had made it possible for women to contribute their role to the work of the church and to share with the world the love in serving God.

Ex-President Rawlings told the congregation that he was happy to be part of the ceremony and commended the church in general for the efforts made towards acquiring the musical instruments.

He said: “Let me ask for God’s blessings onto the priest, the preacher of the sermon and the entire church and in particular, the person who facilitated the whole exercise of getting the instruments for the church.”

Sermon

Rev. Akua Buabema Ofori-Boateng, Priest Assisting of the Holy Trinity Cathedral of the Accra Diocese of the Anglican Church in Accra preached the sermon on the theme: “Sufficiency in the Master’s hands”, which focused on the gospel reading taken from Matthew 14:13-21.

The reading was one of the narrations in Scripture that showed the human side of Christ, having heard the news about His cousin John the Baptist where He was grief-stricken, and Scripture tells us that, “He withdrew by boat to a solitary place.”

In the midst of that, she said a multitude approached him, not to commiserate with Him, but among other things to solve their problems.

Rev. Ofori-Boateng said most of us would have shut down and taken a day off or perhaps weeks or months, as we do when things go wrong but Jesus had compassion on them and healed the sick.

As He was performing that task, she recalled that another problem came up while it was getting late and they were in a remote area and needed to eat. His disciples suggested that He sends them away to buy food, but Jesus said calmly that they didn’t need to go away, but they should give them something to eat.

The disciples knew they only had five loaves of bread and two fish, which they were going to share amongst themselves.

Trust

Rev. Ofori-Boateng noted that life sometimes put us in situations where a spouse died, which meant that one source of income had been cut off, a child fell sick and bills had to be paid, and a vehicle broke down and needed to be repaired, and we felt that we were in an impossible situation.

She said Jesus asked the disciples to bring the multitude to Him, saying what that meant was that we should entrust our resources to Him and let Him take care of our situations.

Rev. Ofori-Boateng noted that when the disciples gave Jesus the bread and fish, “He took them, looked to heaven, gave thanks and broke the bread and on that day, five loaves of bread and two fish fed 5,000 men not to mention women and children.”

Rev. Ofori-Boateng observed that half the time, our problem was that we limited ourselves, and we limited what God could do in our lives.

“Honestly, I don’t know…and I’m not even going to try to explain what miracle Christ performed to feed those 5,000 men that day,” she noted, adding that, “What I do know is that when we surrender our resources to Christ, no matter how small we perceive them to be, He will perform that same miracle for us.”

He will not only meet our needs but exceed them, she assured and referred to the portion of the Bible which said: “They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up 12 basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.”

Management team

Ven. Nii Addy Laryea later inaugurated a seven-member team of the parish that will manage the band.

The members include Mr Michael Cobblah, Mr Benjamin Cobblah, Mr Mark Cobbinah, Nii Doodo Wristberg, Mr Godfred Osei Amankwah, Mr Albert Nii Amu Smith and Miss Vanessa Essuman.

Ex-President Rawlings and Ven. Nii Addy Laryea congratulated the members.