Mr. Alex Segbefia, Deputy Chief of Staff at the Office of the President, has called on the religious bodies to collaborate with government in its developmental agenda for national development.

He said in order to attain development, there was need for a deliberate quest to craft policies, programmes and projects that would result in the total well-being of the society.

“Development occurs when growth leads to an increase in the physical or infrastructural structure of a country as well as improving the social well-being of its people”, he said.

Mr. Segbefia said this when speaking at the opening ceremony of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church 3rd West Volta Presbytery Synod on Friday in Accra.

The event was on the theme “Strategic Evangelism for Sustainable Growth and Development”.

Mr. Segbefia said democracy was not only preserved for politicians, saying the church must be in the forefront of our national goal to build a strong and sustainable democratic culture.

He said to strategically evangelize for sustainable church growth and development, we must bring the command and control structure of the church closer to the community.

“Countries and people may grow, but if the growth does not lead to development, then their growth is pointless. The ultimate goal of growth should be development”, he said.

“So the church and the people may grow and must lead human development which entails the biological, social, intellectual, psychological, economic, cultural as well as spiritual being of the individual to live a God’s fulfilled life”, Mr Segbefia said.

He commended Evangelical Presbyterian Church for their enormous role for bringing development such as health institutions, agricultural establishment and educational institutions to rural communities in the country.

Mr. George Prah, National President of Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship International, said the biggest failure of the church currently was that it had not taught the ordinary member to share the gospel by himself to anyone in the simplest way.

He said Jesus never ordained the preaching of the gospel of salvation to be the preserve of the ordained minister but rather the privilege and most responsibility of every church member who has believed in his name.

He said the continuous separation of laity from the clergy in the execution of its fundamental responsibility, has seriously deprived the church of Jesus Christ of its most potent resource base for sustainable growth and development.

“In the laity lies the numbers, the diversity of gifts and talents and the resources required to go to the outermost corners of the world to preach the gospel”, he said.

He said any strategy that fails to factor in the active mobilization of every church member into preaching the gospel and to de-mystify the whole concept of the ministry, would ensure that the church grows in every way other than by the conversation method that Christ prescribed.

He urged every Christian to go out for personal evangelism with all boldness to fill God’s given commission as Christians.**