Sierra Leone holds Social Principles Strategic Training Workshop

“Christians will become the mirror that society will emulate. The church played an effective role in bringing the civil war in Sierra Leone and the Ebola Virus Disease to an end. Similarly, the church can help bring about a change in the attitude and behaviour to reflect Christian values,” said Mr. Smart Senesie, District Lay leader in the Sierra Leone Conference at the start of Social Principles and Strategic Planning Training held in Freetown. Citing 2 Cor. 6:17 Senesie encouraged participants to view themselves as children of God with a purpose to be the conscience of society, voice of the voiceless and hope for the hopeless.

The training was led by Ms. Keziah Gbondo, Director for the Church and Society Department Rev. Ande Emmanuel, Minister for Congregational and Community Engagement Church Society in the Nigeria Episcopal Area and Dr. Victor Massaquoi, chairman of the Development Board for Sierra Leone Conference.

Creation justice named a priority

Mrs. Elmira Sellu lifting up three priorities for the church, environmental degradation, arms proliferation and corruption explained, “Environmental issues include deforestation, over population and inadequate waste disposal management. Congregations must be educated to avoid the indiscriminate felling of trees for firewood that causes massive deforestation; congregations should be made aware of reckless mining methods that pose a serious threat to land use and livelihood; and economic migration and overpopulation in the cities due to influx of people relocating from rural areas, is exacerbated by the continued presence and distribution of fire arms, increases in interpersonal violence, and unaddressed corruption.”

By district groups covenanted to collecting resources locally to plant five trees in the place of every tree felled down and begin a Conference wide planting campaign, declaring June 1 as “United Methodist Tree Planting Day” and symbolically plant trees during the 2017 and 2018 Annual Conference sessions. Several districts covenanted to press the government to reinforce laws against indiscriminate deforestation, mining and waste disposals and corruption.

Outreach to local prisons

Still other districts led by Mrs. Finda Quiwa and Mrs.. Elmira Sellu focused on outreach to the Remand Home, a women’s correctional facility outside of Freetown where twenty four inmates were recently baptised, after giving their lives to Christ. Some prisoners that were later released and have become members of the King Memorial and Brown Memorial UMC congregations. Church and Society organised a Christmas retreat at the female Correctional Centre on Friday, 23rd December, 2016.

Rev. Ande Emmanuel quoted Martin Luther King Jr. as saying, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter,” quoting Mahatma Gandhi who said, “We must become the change we want to see.” In other words, the need for a change must be initiated by the individual who desires the change. The church must therefore see itself as relevant to the change process.

Training and civil society consultation

Following the training participants held a consultation with leaders in civil society and government representatives. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Leonard Gbloh, Sierra Leone Annual Conference Education Secretary, and participants agreed that the church has not created the environment to discuss the issues comprehensively; the church has spent more time praying than acting; the church listens to religious radio stations when it is equally important to be familiar with contemporary issues by listening to national and global news, and sermons rarely address realities of ritual murders, cannibalism, rape, sexual harassment and intimidation, regional sectionalism and selective justice, as in the case of a murderer that was given bail while another individual who had stolen a mobile phone was refused bail.