The New Juaben South Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Isaac Apau-Gyasi, has reiterated the need for religious organisations, especially the church to stay neutral and never allow any politician to divide them.
“I urged you to be very careful of the politicians who try their best and in a cleverly ways to divide you on tribal lines,” he added.
According to the MCE, the many successes and peace of the nation had been largely dependent on the unity of the religious groups, and the love in the tribal marriages in the country.
Mr Apau-Gyasi said this at the Ghana Day celebration held at the Full Gospel Church International in Koforidua on Sunday.
The Ghana Day celebration was instituted by the leadership of the church about five years ago, where the first or the second Sunday after every Independence Day celebration, the various groups and tribes dressed in their traditional colours to honour God and to thank Him for the nation.
The MCE who was very impressed about the dressings of the church members and their cultural performances, said the church had something unique to showcase to the world that Ghanaians were really one people with a common destiny.
He urged the leadership of the church to sustain the programme, because culture was one of the heritages that binds the people together and pledged to institute the same in his church to win more souls for God.
Mr Apau-Gyasi outlined the vision of the municipality to the members of the church and appealed to them to pray with the government, and especially the New Juaben Municipality because some of the decisions and policies were hard but without it development would not be as fast as they wanted, and also technology would leave them behind.
The Resident Pastor, Rev. Ken Adza Wudey, preached the sermon on the theme “A Grateful Citizen” and urged the church members to be patriotic, and show love to their nation.
He quoted from Jeremiah 29:7 “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile, pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” and appealed to the members never to pray against any leader of the nation.
“Never pray that death and calamity will come over your leaders but love them and pray for the peace of God for them,” he advised.
Rev. Adza Wudey quoted Romans chapter 13 and said all authority was set up by God and therefore the members should try as much as possible to help build the nation irrespective of their political divide.
He urged them to choose to love Ghana unconditionally to demonstrate their gratitude to God.
“Let us also be patriotic because it is the only way we can be together to protect and defend our nation Ghana,” he added.
FROM SAMUEL OPARE LARTEY, KOFORIDUA
