History was once again made on Sunday August 15th as the International Church of Christ, Koforidua, Ghana was inaugurated.
In the peaceful city of the Eastern regional capital, people from all walks of life thronged the Teachers hall on Sunday morning to honor invitations from disciples from Koforidua, Accra, Kumasi and Lagos earlier in the weeks and months gone by. We are especially grateful for the hearts of these men and women, who moved to Koforidua before the service to reach out to people in preparation for the inaugural service.
The planting team to Koforidua had been sent forth at the recently concluded 2010 West Africa Missions Leadership Conference in Accra (right).
The service began with a time of prayer led by Mr. Kissi-Boateng in Twi and our brother Godwin Onwughara from the Lagos church in English. This set the tone for a great and inspiring time of singing led by the song leaders. Mr. Kobby Boakye welcomed the guests.
The communion message was delivered by Divine Daitey, the leader of the church, and taken from John 15:9-14. In his message he spoke about the fact that the greatest love story ever heard came from God as he sent his son Jesus to come and die for sinners. He said Jesus is our perfect example when it comes to relating to one another. Jesus showed his love for his father by obeying him and for us we can only do same by loving and being committed to Christ. Christ loved us by taking our infirmities and dying on the cross while we were still sinners. And we need to love one another by imitating Christ’s unconditional love.
The talk on the contribution for the poor was led by Michael Olomo from the Lagos church. He shared about Cornelius in Acts 10 and how he was God fearing, gave generously and regularly to the poor though he had no clue about Christianity. He noted that when God looked at Cornelius he did not look at the number of times he evangelized or prayed but his generosity to the poor. He also shared about Tabitha who was also known for her love and giving to the poor. He encouraged everyone that our finances came from God and therefore we must give generously.
Mr. Jimmy Parry then came up to give a brief history of the ICOC. He went on to talk about how the Koforidua church began as a seed fellowship in the living room of Kobby and Sarah Boakye. Evangelist Jide Ojo applauded Kobby and Sarah for their sacrifice and then introduced the couple who will be leading the work in Koforidua – Divine Daitey and Julie Akaki.
The title of the message for the day was the Foundation of Christian Faith. Jide called everyone to repentance and spoke at length about what repentance is – what causes men to repent – why we need to repent – things that are associated with repentance and the fact that we cannot call people to repentance if we have not repented. The message was truly inspiring and convicting.
A special contribution was given for the church to start off its missionary work. As Mr. Parry called everyone to give as he shared from Nehemiah 2:17 -18. He encouraged the congregation to imitate Nehemiah’s vision of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and give to help the baby Koforidua church grow. There was great singing and dancing as people gave.
The service ended with an attendance of 97 people, with 55 adults’ visitors. The most encouraging thing was that most of our friends who came waited to study.
Let’s be praying for the work in Koforidua and the brothers and sisters who have volunteered to see God’s work grow in the Eastern regional capital.
For more inspiring news from our West Africa family of churches, log on to: www.icocnigeria.org
