General News of Saturday, 5 November 2011

Source: Daily Guide/Ghana

I did not say I'm expensive - Duncan Williams

The General Overseer of Action Chapel, Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams, has taken strong exception to a DAILY GUIDE publication alleging that he recently claimed that he lives an ostentatious life as a man of God.

According to the Archbishop, he was quoted completely out of context because at no point did he tell his congregation at the Kumasi programme that he was an expensive pastor. “No, I did not say that,” he told Daily Guide on Wednesday.

He explained that he was only admonishing the young pastors who were going into the Ministry of God not to chase worldly things but rather dedicate themselves to the service of God who would in time bless them.

The Archbishop was reported to have told a congregation at Action Chapel International Bible College in Kumasi during the first graduation ceremony of the school over the weekend, that the perfume he used could not be found on the shelf of any store in Ghana.

The story also alleged that he was an expensive pastor because of the cars and the attire he used and the caliber of people he mingled with.

Far from that, he said, his background was known to Ghanaians as a person of humble parentage and therefore could not go and stand in front of freshly-graduated priests to boast about his wealth without admonishing them about how to save lives.

Archbishop Duncan-Williams noted that he was telling the young priests to be mindful of worldly things that could only shoot them to fame with no attention to salvation, which was the essence of the Ministry of Jesus Christ.

He said he told the graduating young pastors about how to win souls for Jesus Christ with dedication and commitment which God, in turn, would bless them.

While conceding that he is a blessed man of God with goodwill from across the world, he said he told the congregation that if they followed the teachings o Christ as imbibed in them during their studies, they could go places, using his humble beginning as a typical example.

He said he was surprised that all the advice he gave to the new priests citing relevant biblical quotations were not carried by the newspaper but rather the reporter focused attention on him and reported him out of context in the process.

He said his doors were open to all media outfits for clarifications on any other issue.