Church of Christ Campus Ministry (CCCM) - Ghana

Are We Relevant As A Church?
I am taking the risk of being called names or creating ‘enemies’ for myself by positing that The Church of Christ in Ghana has become irrelevant to the very lives of its members and the communities in which the church is situated. I will try to explain my reasons for arriving at this conclusion and will welcome constructive criticisms from brethren who disagree with me.
For some time now I have listen and been involved in discussions with a number of brethren including preachers and elderly people in the Church who seem to emphasize the need for the Church/members to grow in the spirit to the point that some even condemned certain programs as social and thus non biblical. I cringe anytime I hear Christians, particularly Preachers, talking as if “Social” is the opposite of “Spiritual”. To those of us who hold this erroneous view, I want to make it clear that social is never the opposite of spiritual and also more importantly it is what we do socially that determines our levels of spiritual growth.

I do not know the congregation you belong to, but ask yourself these questions.
1. What is the image of the Church of Christ in my community?
2. What is the impact or what role has the church played in the lives of our members - – particularly the lives of young people, the elderly and the needy?
3. What programmes has the Church undertaken to impact the lives of people in the communities where we are? The children, the women, the widows, etc in our various communities.
4. Last but not the least, what is the contribution of the Church to the country? In which areas has the Church made an impact in this country? When churches are being mentioned for their roles in nation building, will the Church of Christ be mentioned or rather it is a few members of the church that may be mentioned instead of the Church?
Honest answers to the questions above will clearly show that the Church of Christ is or has become irrelevant to the lives of the people. The litmus test we need to apply is this “if all other churches acted exactly the same way as the Church of Christ, will the community or the nation be better than it is now or worst?” We can apply this litmus test to each of us as individuals; in other words if every member of the Church behaved exactly the same way as I do (my punctuality at church, my dedication to church activities, my commitment to help others, etc) will the church be better off or worst off? Let’s focus more at the Church (institutional) level rather than the individual level for now.
If every other church (the Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, the ICGCs, etc) acted exactly the same ways as the Church of Christ, many of us would not have been educated, if at all not as well as we have been. As much as many would want to argue this point with me I believe truth stands; governments since independence have never had enough resources to build enough schools for all Ghanaian children to attend, even Ghana at 59 years is still trying to build schools and there are still numerous schools under trees. If one takes the total population of any Church of Christ congregation in Ghana, I can confidently say that at least half of the educated brethren had at a point in their education attended at least one school affiliated to another denomination (a church that is not Church of Christ). Interestingly the greater majority of the elite SHS (Senior High Schools) in this country were started by the Catholic Church, The Methodist Church, The Presbyterian Church, etc. Where is our footprint as a Church? What have we done to impact our society?
I will urge all of us to consider the answers to the following questions, and let’s be very honest with our answers:
1. Is it good for a Church of Christ person or child to attend a school started by a church we consider is doing the wrong things or a church practicing false doctrine?
2. Are we comfortable sending our children to schools affiliated to other churches to learn about their doctrines and ‘rituals’?
3. If we condemn the doctrines that these churches adhere to, yet out of the activities of their false doctrine they have built schools, is it sinful if we attend those schools and pay fees? Are we not abetting their false doctrine by attending their schools and paying fees to ensure the schools keep running?
4. I have heard some brethren say that the Church should not engage in “business”; the question we need to answer is whether running a school is the same as running a business? Is running a social enterprise like a school, to ensure that the nation is educated a business? Does the fact that the school generates enough revenue to take care of all its expenses and its infrastructural needs the same as running a business?
5. Where in the Bible is it written that a Church should not engage in a business? What is the difference in a church running a for-profit venture and a church investing its money in Treasury Bills, Savings Account, etc? It is obvious that all these activities are for profit or interest. The only difference is who is using the money to generate that profit or interest. If I had the choice I would rather have fellow Christians us the money than not knowing who is using my money and what business my money is being used to promote.
6. I have also heard the very ridiculous assertion that if the Church starts a school, it should be free to everybody and that we cannot charge school fees. The proponents of this view say if it cannot be free then we should not start it at all. If we can’t start a school, how then do we educate our children and our communities?
The same arguments we have made about the role of the church in the provision of schools above can also be made about our role in providing healthcare (building hospitals, enrolling people onto the NHIS) and the provision of other social good.
This is the problem that arises when we as a people focus on the so called “spiritual” lives of members at the expense of their “social” lives. As I said in the beginning of this article, we cannot dissociate the spiritual from the social. If we keep converting people just to teach them how to be spiritual and neglect their social needs our membership numbers will keep going down. We need to stand up as a Church in this country and be counted! We are losing the moral standing as a church and if we continue on this trajectory it will only get worst; let us ask ourselves the following moral question:
I. What moral authority do we have to condemn a church after we ourselves and/or our children have attended their schools?
II. Do we have the moral authority to condemn a church for its doctrines for instance on tithing, meanwhile when we fall ill we rush to their hospitals/clinics built from their tithe proceed to be treated?
III. Do we have the moral authority to condemn a church that supposedly is leading people to hell, when we send our children to free vacation classes organized by this same church?
Brethren, do not get me wrong, my purpose for writing this article is not to wash our dirty linens in public but rather to prick our conscience to act. It is not too late to be relevant to the lives of our members, our communities and our nation. We must consciously take actions that will put the Church in good standing. Here are a couple of suggestions that can make very effective impact quickly.
a) In education, the Church can quickly and inexpensively make an impact on the educational sector of this country by simply converting our various church auditoriums into community libraries from Mondays to Saturdays. We can stock these temporary libraries with Basic Education and Senior High School level books as well as African Writer series of books. We can then provide jobs for three or four brethren who will work as supervisors/librarians. Depending on the size of the congregation and the auditorium, such a library will not cost more than GH¢10,000 (Ten Thousand Cedis) to start.

Over time and with conscious planning and strategy, we can transition these libraries into a much more comfortable and permanent ones that will serve both the Church and the communities. When we implement this plan, we will transform many lives and the story of education in Ghana will not be complete without the mention of the role of the Church of Christ.

b) In the area of health and sanitation, I personally think the Church has lost a lot of opportunities to carve a niche for itself and be relevant to the health needs of the communities in which we live. A few years back, I met Elder Nathaniel Adams at a programme in Tema. At the time, he had started a program (I believe in collaboration some brethren from the USA) that promotes hand washing, similar to a USAID program called WASH. His program was called GO-WASH (Gospel WASH). This program for instance could have been adopted and implemented very well to the glory of God. It appears too late but I believe it is not, the Church can work with Elder Adams to adopt this programme and have every single Church of Christ in Ghana implement it in their local communities.

Doing this will put the Church in good stead to become relevant in our various communities. Programs such as this should not be left to one person to implement across the country. It is almost impossible for Preacher Adams alone to effectively implement such a program across the nation, if nothing at all it becomes too burdensome for him.
These are just two simple projects that we can start implementing immediately without breaking the bank before doing them.
Sadly, even as I write this article, one part of me is telling me this is an exercise in futility not because brethren will not agree with me but rather because even as they may agree, there are no structures in place to implement or address issues affecting the Church of Christ as a collective unit in Ghana, thanks to one of the most misapplied words in the Church -AUTONOMY. Truth be told, some of our leaders and preachers do not even have the ability and or the willingness to implement some of these program. This may sound controversial but it is true.
To conclude, I would want to say that for the Church to be relevant to we need to come up with a strategic document which is relevant to our times. We cannot be engrossed in our old ways of doing things and be hoping and praying that things will get better. It is baffling to some of us to think that in 2016 the Church of Christ in Ghana does not have any strategy for getting new members, for retaining existing members (particularly the youth who are leaving to other churches), no strategy for infrastructural development, no strategy for preacher welfare, no strategy to ensure that members are in very high positions in Government, Civil Service, Public Service, The Military etc. Some pretentious members of the Church castigate and demonize brethren who are trying to get into politics yet they are the first to approach these brethren for help when they are successful with the political careers. What strategies do we have in place for the career development of the youth? What role models do we have for the youth in the Church? Do we have role models at all in the Church? If we do, do we expose our young ones to these role models for the youth to know that yes they can also abide by the word of God and still be successful professionally?
Is it not sad that after 50 yrs most Churches of Christ in Ghana today still depend on brethren from outside the country to support their programs? When we live a life of chance as a church, a life devoid of conscious strategizing, conscious planning, we will remain irrelevant.
God bless us as we make strides in our heavenly journey.
If you want to contact me or react to my views: Kwesi Acquah, [email protected]

Autonomy; Opinion or Doctrine
When we were much younger as new converts of the Church of Christ, we were taught many doctrines of the church. As we grew older and a little more literate/lettered, in attempt to re-learn some of the things taught to us in order to teach others, we came to realization that a number of the things we had learned as doctrines were more opinions than cast in stone doctrines. In this article I wish to examine one of such teachings, AUTONOMY!
The Mariam Webster Dictionary has the following alternate definitions for autonomy:
i. the state of existing or acting separately from others
ii. self-directing freedom and especially moral independence
iii. the quality or state of being self-governing; especially : the right of self-government
I have taken time to comb through many lessons on the autonomy of the church and I am yet to come to that realization/ conclusion that every Church of Christ congregation is supposed to work “separately from others” or to have “self-directing freedom and especially moral independence”.
Proponents and or loyalists to this “doctrinal” stands within the church are not even united in their understanding of this “doctrine”;
The strict adherents say that each congregation MUST be truly autonomous without any inter-congregational alliances or centralization. In the view of this group, all churches are equal and that forming any type of alliances will lead to imbalance of power where some congregations become subordinate to or under the control of other bigger and more influential congregations. In their view it is sinful to have any form of “Mother Church” of “Sponsoring Church” relationship. According to them, these types of relationships make one congregation (recipient congregation) subservient to the other (the sponsoring congregation), which then destroys the concept of equality of all congregations; churches are not supposed to received instructions/orders from sister congregations for any reason, whether these sister congregations are responsible for the sponsoring of activities such as radio programs, building of new chapels, sponsoring of preachers, etc.
The liberal adherents to the “doctrine” of autonomy believe that whereas that local congregation is autonomous in its governance, inter-congregational alliances are what makes us one in fulfillment of Christ’s prayer for all his followers to be one.
I have heard various teachings in an attempt to justify the Church’s “doctrine” of autonomy but NONE of them adds up; whereas some use the local church governance structure of Elders, Preachers and Deacons as their justification that each congregation MUST be autonomous others argue that the head of the church who is Jesus Christ is in heaven so there is no need to have any local administration besides the elders and deacons. These two justifications are tenuous at best.
Not too long ago here in Ghana, there was an attempt to form a national secretariat in order for some structures to be put in place particularly with respect to communication among the various congregations in the country but interestingly as I anticipated some stood firmly in opposition to that laudable idea on the basis of autonomy. Ironically however, some of the same people who stood against the idea of forming a national secretariat for the church are avid supporters of a movement (Rescue Ghana Mission)aimed at raising funds to better support preachers, particularly those leading rural congregations. I see this group of people as being intellectually dishonest. On one hand they are staunch defenders of the “doctrine” of autonomy because for some of them their Sponsoring Congregations threatened them with the withdrawal of their monthly stipends and other supports yet these same people support Rescue Ghana Mission.
In my view, some preachers take certain position simply based on their personal interest, the economic benefit they can derive from a decision and not necessarily based on unbiased research into what the bible truly says we should do, should not do or what is discretional per the dictates of the bible. How can a preacher be a staunch support of autonomy and yet receives monthly “support” from a congregation in the USA where he sends monthly report of his work in order to justify his salary? How can one be autonomous yet one has to send his monthly or annual program to a sponsoring congregation to approve of before implementation? How do we explain this irony, the decision of a congregation to support the formation of a national secretariat is informed/controlled by a sponsoring congregation somewhere in Texas or Mississippi? I am not in any way saying that congregations should not be interdependent; what I am simply saying here is that the double standards must stop. There should not be a place for double standards in the house of God.
Now to my personal views after considering the idea of autonomy by the Church of Christ, I know I will incur the displeasure of some brethren, but I strongly believe it is part of our collective struggle to get to that heavenly home. In 2 Tim. 2:15 we are to study to show ourselves approved unto GOD, not approved unto MAN. Now to my views:
1. Each congregation is supposed to be autonomous in its governance, hence the requirement for every congregation to have elders. This was evident when Paul and Barnabas returned from their first missionary journey only for them to again revisit the churches they had established where they appointed for them elders in every church (Acts 14:23). Several other scriptures in the NT support the need to have elders in EVERY congregation.
2. The idea by some in the church that inter-congregational relationships among congregations are not doctrinal is false. Churches in the NT cooperated with each other in the ex*****on of the mandate given to us by God. There are examples in Acts 11:19-26 when the Jerusalem Church sent Barnabas to Antioch to help, in Acts 11:27-30 the congregation in Antioch sent help to the Church in Judea through Barnabas and Saul.
In 2 Cor. 8:16-24, the Churches in Macedonia and Achaia sent Titus along with another brother to Jerusalem. This is just one of the examples of churches working together.
3. Beyond the governance of local congregations, it is critical that Churches of Christ particularly in Ghana begin to revisit the idea of national secretariat and put structures in place for collaboration among all congregations that bear the name “Church of Christ”. In my view, the way and manner in which we implement the concept of “autonomy” is a recipe for disaster and indiscipline; I must also add that it is one of the reasons why the church is experiencing difficulties in growth. Let me paint the following scenarios for your consideration:
I. Assuming I am an ex-convict child molester; who spent five years in prison where I claim to have been born again. On my return from jail I decide to open a Church of Christ branch in my locality called Seaside Church of Christ (SCC), which happens to be just one hundred meters from an existing congregation. Who in the church can stop me from starting my congregation?
The key issues in this first scenario that I want us to avail our minds to are as follows: first, currently who determines who is fit, in terms of character, to become a preacher of the church? Second, what is the minimum qualification (educational, moral, biblical education, etc.) for a person to become a preacher of the church? Third, who determines the minimum distance between sister congregations? Fourth, who will monitor me to ensure that the doctrines being taught in Seaside Church of Christ are the right doctrines befitting the Church of Christ name? Finally, who is qualified to use the name “Church of Christ” in other words if the name of the church is very important as we are made to believe then who protects the name “Church of Christ”?
II. Scenario two, assuming I am a very charismatic person who was recently converted to the Church of Christ from Jah Alone Church (JAC), a charismatic church with doctrines foreign to that of the Church of Christ. Within a couple of years I have grown to become a very important member of a local congregation, playing very active roles within the church. Not too long I have used my charisma to gain a lot of loyalists within the local congregation. Soon after, I, together with my loyalists decide to change the doctrines of the Church of Christ to a new doctrine that is a blend of the doctrines of the Church of Christ and that of my Jah Alone Church. After some opposition from some members my group managed to gain the upper hand in the quest to change doctrines. We then change the name of the local church to Jah Alone Church of Christ (JACC) and drive away loyalists of the Church of Christ doctrine.
Questions: Are there structures in place currently to ensure that JACC does not take possession of the assets of Church of Christ? Can any congregation prevent the local church from changing its name to JACC since the church is autonomous and the members who constitute the church decided to change its name?
My concluding submission is that when it comes to autonomy; let us limit it to the governance of local congregations. We should not over play the significance of what autonomy really is. We should be intellectually honest to ourselves and to the scriptures. There is the need to revive the national secretariat idea as a matter of urgency. We must rally ourselves and come up with various strategies for the growth of the church; such a strategy must target all the various groups within the church—the youth, women, men, children, visitors etc. We need to come up with various criteria for certification of preachers, establishment of congregations, who has the right to use the Church of Christ name, minimum qualification for preachers, conditions of service for preachers, asset registration/repository, branding of the church, etc. As a church we need to be innovative in how we do things, how we package and deliver our message; I must make it clear that I am in NO WAY advocating for changing of our doctrine. We can do much better!
If we continue to do things the old fashion way, let us be rest assured that we will lose a lot more of our youth to other denominations and the growth of the church will stagnate or even decline. May the Almighty continue to strengthen us as we do His will.
BY: Kwesi Acquah, [email protected]