Accra, July 13, GNA - The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Right Reverend Dr Yaw Frimpong-Manso on Friday bemoaned the downward trend in the population within the orthodox churches, saying there was the need for members to develop strategies that would encourage church growth.

"We should not be complacent with biological growth within the church, but go out and win more souls to help the church grow," he told the National Ministers' Spouses conference which opened in Accra on Friday.

"Missionaries in the olden days travelled outside their countries to preach the Gospel to us and ensure that a lot of people accepted the message of salvation of the Christian faith, but the rate of growth of the church has slackened when they handed over to us," he said. The three-day conference on the theme: "You Have Come to Mount Zion", attracted over 420 members who are discussing aside the general business, talks on health care and vocational skills. Citing the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, as an example, the Moderator said its community was still below 600,000, while the Church of Pentecost had 1.2 million and the Assemblies of God 800,000. "We need to embark on a serious evangelism programme, bring back majority of Christians into our fold and also bring back the old Presbyterian discipline, within society," he said. Rt. Rev Dr Frimpong-Manso said the turn around could only start from the homes of the ministers who had often focused on their congregations to the neglect of their immediate families and close associates.

"We should not continue to neglect out immediate flock, which are our own children who have become wayward and criminals within society,' he said, adding that most parents had little or no time for their own children right from their childhood.

"As spouses we should not continue to abandon our babies to the care of house-helps, grandmothers and other relative, in our desire to prove how serviceable we are as spouses of the ministers. "Let us instead provide our children with the motherly and fatherly love first, have time for both their physical and spiritual growth and train them the way we desire to see them grow and behave within society," he told the spousal group.

The Moderator said the lack of parental care and attention had been the root cause of increased moral decadence among students with the children of ministers not being exceptions. The Moderator said the church's focus was for the spouses to embrace the evangelism drive especially among the youth. "If we are able to attract the youth into the church's fold at an early age, they will not depart in line with the word of God that says 'train up a child in the way he should go and if he is old he would not depart from it".

Admitting that the spousal job was a none paying one, the moderator said the time had come for the church to take services provided by the spouses of the ministers serious and provide them with some allowances 'to keep them going'.

He urged both ministers and their spouses to ensure that they provided the basic needs of their wards so that they would not go out of their homes in search of basic items, such as panties, braziers, sanitary pads and the like that made them fall prey to rich men and women who often introduced them to vices that were unacceptable to the Christian faith.

The Moderator also cautioned parents who put too much money in the pockets of their children saying such acts were equally damaging. Mrs Rebecca Nkrumah Appiah, National President the group urged members to celebrate their 30th anniversary, which falls this year with the same euphoria as they celebrated Ghana's 50th anniversary. She urged the church to support widows and widowers "because these people are often the forgotten group" who were left to shoulder the upbringing of their wards alone.

Mrs Appiah also called on the church to institute scholarship scheme for children of ministers who died, adding that the Ministers' Spouses Conference was instituting its own funds to support less endowed spouses and their children" who might find themselves in such unfortunate situation".

She said she was convinced that if such measures were in place, the young ministers of the Church would devote their energies and time to the service of the Lord with the hope that their needs would be properly catered for in cases of crisis.