Set up regulations for churches to ensure sanity – Chief Bishop France

To ensure sanity in Christianity, there is the need to set up regulations for churches, Frederick France, Chief Bishop of the Faith Evangelical Mission Worldwide (FEMW) has stated.

He said the door for entering into ministry in the country had become too wide hence the need to set up norms and regulations to guide the criteria for churches and pastors.

Bishop France was speaking at the 14th pastoral ordination of 13 pastors of the FEMW in Accra on Saturday.

“Anybody can set up himself or herself as a pastor today and people who cannot discern will follow them, we believe there is some need for regulations,” the Chief Bishop said.

Describing the situation as unfortunate and shameful, Chief Bishop France expressed the need to put in place structures to empower certain bodies to have oversight over the criteria for pastors and churches in the country.

He lauded Parliament for its efforts to prevent the spring up of such churches and pastors from engaging in abuse, indoctrination and other activities that are not in line with sound Christian teaching.

“Christians should not be regulated by non Christians, we believe that whatever regulations that comes in should be self regulations,” he urged.
The pastors who received training from Faith Evangelical Mission College and Seminary were expected to head various branches of the church across the country. 

He advised the newly ordained pastors to heed to the call of God to equip themselves to work for the purpose of the Lord, adding “You have been sent by the Lord Jesus Christ therefore work according to his word,” he stressed.

 The Member of Parliament for Ablekuma Central, Mr Ebenezer Nii Narh Nartey, urged the newly ordained pastors to preach the gospel and not use Christ as an excuse to swindle people to achieve their personal interest and be faithful to God and serve humanity in humility.

He noted that often times, some pastors tended to use the name of God to defraud people and urged members of the congregation to be vigilante and desist from going to such churches.

Touching on sanitation in the area, he advised them to keep their environment clean and not throw refuse in the gutters to prevent flood.

He said the construction of drains in the area would commence as part of measures to control flooding.


BY ALLIA NOSHIE