"Sex for jobs" cropping up in Methodist Church - Bishop

Most Reverend Professor Emmanuel Kwaku Asante, Presiding Bishop of Methodist Church, Ghana has expressed regret over what he termed "sex for jobs" practice, which has started rearing its head in the church. He said highly-placed men in the church had been taking advantage of the difficulty in securing jobs in the country to lure young girls to bed with the promise of helping them to secure jobs. "This has led to fornication and corruption in the church," he added. Most Rev. Asante made the revelation when addressing the opening session of the Sixth Biennial Delegates' Conference and Silver Jubilee Celebration of Association of Methodist Men's Fellowship in Accra on Friday. The three-day event, under the theme "Return to your first love", is to afford members an opportunity to undertake self-introspection, take stock of activities for the previous year and strategize for the future. The Presiding Bishop said "there is too much pretence and simulation in Christians today" adding people could no longer be taken for what they looked like, they are deceptive in appearance. "Sounding right and being right are not the same. Before God can deliver us, we must not deceive ourselves," he said. He compared such irresponsible men to a huge tree with hollowed stem which could be brought down by a windstorm, adding "they are dead before God, because they are self-centred". Most Rev. Asante called deceptive Christians as practical 'deitists' because their actions did not reflect God's and urged them to show commitment to God and spiritual holiness. He said most Christians now had self-centred motives, which was a disease affecting most churches adding "they are like a tree with full of leaves but without a fruit or no spiritual content". Most Rev. Asante took issues with those engaged in noise-making in the name of revival saying it (revival) had to with commitment and readiness to work and living the word of God. He called on Christians to live with the tenets of the Word of God instead of just saying and hearing it to ensure a transformed society. Most Rev. Asante called on members of the Men's Fellowship to live by the dictates of their objectives for the good of the church. Mr Ishmael Yamson, Member of Government's Economic Advisory Team, observed that most organisations did not take their objectives serious, "they just write them because they are obliged to do so". He said this was the reason why most companies experienced losses during the 2009/2010 global economic crisis. Mr Yamson called on members of the Fellowship to remain committed to their objectives and goals and not to engage in competition to do what Fellowships of other churches were doing to ensure growth of the church. Nii Armah Ashietey, Greater Accra Regional Minister told the members that society expected much from the church but deplored the emergence of vices in the church which were not encouraging. Nii Ashietey called on church leaders not to only pay attention to the affluent but also the needy and urged them to pray solemnly for total transformation of the nation. He called for collaboration between the state and the church to work and weed out negative practices such as corruption to ensure the nation's progress. Nii Ashietey commended the church for promoting peace in the country and urged it to augment social enhancement programmes of government for the benefit of the under-privileged. Mr Richard Stanley Quarshie, National Chairman of the Men's Fellowship said members had been spending much time on other things such as watching movies, attending social events, but failed to spend time on the work of God and read the Bible. He said this had made their commitment to the work of God to wane and urged them to do self-introspection and return to their first love. Source: GNA