Chirapatre (Ash), Aug. 19, GNA - The Reverend Frank Oduro Agyapong was on Tuesday ordained Bishop of the New Testament Assembly Church International at Chirapatre in Kumasi.

Until his ordination, Bishop Agyapong was the National Overseer of the church, a post he held since 1982 and thus becomes the first Ghanaian pastor of the church to rise to that position.

Bishop Melvin Powell of the United Kingdom church, who ordained Bishop Agyapong, told him to serve the people with humility and work diligently with the other pastors to propagate the word of God. He challenged the new Bishop to always seek the power of the Holy Spirit in all his endeavours and also called on other churches not to concentrate their evangelism in the cities but extend it to the hinterlands where others have refused to go.

Bishop Powell said, because money was the root of all evil, some people eager for money had deviated from the path of the faith and cautioned that, the work of God was not an avenue for money making. He said it was therefore unfortunate that some pastors had turned the work of God into moneymaking ventures at the expense of evangelism. Bishop Powell asked Ghanaians to maintain the peace currently prevailing in the country, which had made it the most powerful state in all of Africa.

The Rev Ransford Obeng, a Senior Pastor of the Calvary Charismatic Centre in Kumasi, urged the newly ordained Bishop to be strong and courageous so that he did not depart from the Bible, which he said held the key to overcoming temptations. 19 Aug. 04