Apostle Richard Kwami Adanu, Vice Chairman – Missions of the Great Commission Church International (GCCI – Ghana), has expressed the need for Christian missions to invest resources in the youth and catch them young for Christ.

He said failure to do so would spell doom for the church and the nation.

He said the clergy must ensure that their churches are well connected to the various educational institutions in order to influence students with the Gospel of Christ.

“Systematic bible reading and studies, regular personal and corporate prayer and fasting, daily personal devotion, regular church fellowship, soul winning and disciple making must be inculcated into young Christians,” Apostle Adanu stated over the weekend at the GCCI – Ghana 2015 General Council Meeting in Accra.

The four-day meeting was attended by pastors and their wives, the Board of Trustees, presiding elders, deacons and deaconesses on the theme: “Striving to Know God Better.”

The meeting reviewed the activities of the church over the past year and adopted some resolutions for implementation by the National Executive Council.

The Vice Chairman said statistics from Ghana 2010 Population census shows that 38.3 per cent of Ghanaians are below 15 years – which constitute children; 48.9 per cent below 20 years – making up the junior youth, while 66.6 per cent of the population of Ghana is below 30 years of age – thus the youthful population.

He explained that this means that 66.6 per cent or two-thirds of Ghana’s population is made up of children, junior youth, and youth.

Apostle Adanu said if churches miss these groups, they would be missing two-thirds of the population of Ghana; adding that in very few years to come, the number would become the adults of the nation.

He advised the youth who have been trained and supported by the churches not to seek for better job opportunities after school and abandon their places of worship

“They should not abandon their ‘mother churches’, which has nurtured them this far and needs them badly now, only to jump out to benefit people who never toiled over them,” he said.