The Saint Stephen Society of the Northern Accra Diocese, Methodist Church Ghana, has climaxed its 30th anniversary celebration with a clarion call on Christians to champion a peaceful election.
The highlight of the year-long celebration, which started last year, was on Sunday, where the Church dedicated its completed three-storey worship centre, amid singing of hymns, songs of praises, and dancing to the glory of God.
Activities for the celebration included a tree-planting and clean-up exercises, health walk and screening, bible quiz competition, evangelism float and a talk on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for spiritual growth.
Others were, a donation to the Gbawe Methodist cluster of schools, cooking competition, Ga Traditional dressing, and regional representation day, as well as a field trip by the Children Department.
Speaking with the Ghana News Agency after the celebration, Right Reverend Professor Joseph Edusa-Eyison, Bishop of the Northern Accra Diocese, underscored the importance of safeguarding Ghana’s peace in the 2024 elections.
“You look in our region, and almost all the places have had challenges for some time now, but we have not, and we should not go that way. We have peace, and Ghana must be the beacon of such,” he said.
He encouraged Ghanaians to safeguard and entrench the peace that the country enjoys, saying, “let’s maintain our peace; we have children and grandchildren, and we should create an environment for them to live in peace, so that they can have education and contribute to national development.”
Rt Rev Edusa-Eyison stated that the failure to do so, would have far-reaching consequences on all aspects of Ghana’s national endeavours, as such, everyone should promote peaceful campaign and elections.
He, therefore, asked politicians to carry out their electioneering activities, including campaigns in a way that would please God, by speaking the truth and shying away from politics of insult.
He lauded the Church on its 30-year journey and called for a reflection on its past to shape its future, by learning lessons from both the challenges and successes chalked to do more to impact society.
He encouraged the youth to capitalise on various social media platforms to propagate the gospel to their friends and win more people into Christendom.
Rt Rev Samuel Mensah, the Minister-in-Charge of the St Stephen Society, also spoke about ensuring peaceful election, saying, “we should do our activities with that, which would bring peace.”
“Ghana is the only nation that we have, so if we do not ensure that peace prevail in the country, then where do we turn our faces to. So, let us all do our politics with decorum, and we should not bring anything that will disturb the peace of the nation,” he added.
Recounting the Church’s 30-year journey, he indicated that despite the challenges, the hard work of members, past and present, including evangelism, the St Stephen Society could now boast of more than 700 congregants.
He, therefore, urged the Church not to relent on its efforts in reaching out to more people by witnessing about Christ to others.
“Christ Jesus has bequeathed to us, an assignment, and a commission to go out and proclaim the good news to all others, and He has asked us to do it until he comes. So, let us continue to witness about Christ to others,” he said.
