2023: WHY THE CHURCH MUST SPEAK WITH ONE VOICE
By Ima Nkanta
The Church is an institution that has shown integrity, power and authority over many centuries now. It is indestructible; extremely formidable and influential.
The Church crowns kings and removes kings. The Church builds kingdoms and destroys thones and kingdoms, too.
The Church is the maker of nations. She also can bring to an end, nations.
The Church is invincible; the apple of God’s eye. Nothing can by any means crush the formidability of the institution called the Church.
The Church, however, is not denominational, it is not religious and it is not political.
The Church is the power and wisdom of God on earth. If anything happens that makes the Church not to exit anymore, then the end of life in all forms and shapes has come.
However, for the Church to exercise her incredible power and assert her authority in the affairs of man or beast on earth and in heaven, the Church must come together and speak in one voice.
Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me,” John 10:27
The inability of believers to recognize the voice of the Shepherd is the bane of the gathering known as the Church.
In our world, we follow all kinds of voices: voices of the flesh, of the devil, of the world, of man. All these voices sound good in the ears but not in the spirit, for “Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O LORD, in the light of thy countenance,” Psalm 89:15
When believers know the voice of the Shepherd, they will walk in the brightness of his face; they will never walk in confusion and doubt.
Last week Thursday, the Church in Akwa Ibom State gathered at the Cathedral of Believers Assembly Nigeria, Mbiabong Etoi, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. It was a beautiful sight to behold Church fathers of all denominations leave their pulpits, leave their retinue of attendants and leave their comfort to gather alongside other thousands, just to listen to one man’s voice.
Prelate Emeritus Dr Sunday Mbang CON is the man God has ordained for us as the veritable voice of the Church in Akwa Ibom State. We don’t need to go far to recognize that His Eminence Dr Sunday Mbang CON is a godsend to us in the Christendom, particularly in Akwa Ibom State.
He has been all over the world before God brought him back to repair the broken down walls of the Church in Akwa Ibom State.
I was amazed and deeply touched by his message to the body of Christ last week. It was such a dispassionate message of the kingdom. It majorly admonished all of us Christians to depart from the old life to a new one as baptism teaches us.
He invited all Christians to join him in the task of re-Christianizing Akwa Ibom State altogether. The State needs urgent re-Christianization. The State named after God the Almighty has the highest number of Church denominations and 99.9 percent of her population is said to be Christians, yet, as Prelate Emeritus Dr Sunday Mbang CON lamented, many are just nominal Church goers whose hearts the message of Christ death and resurrection has not touched. To such Christians, Pa Mbang said, are still in their old life. Hence, he called all to embark on the re-Christianization march.
I am humbled and elated to have found a seat under the roof where Prelate Emeritus Dr Sunday Mbang CON was giving out this message.
It was then it dawned on me that there may still be thousands of believers outside who do not have the benefit of knowing God’s voice. Mbang, may he live long, is God’s voice for the Church in Akwa Ibom State.
When God wants to deliver a nation, he looks for a man he can trust.
Gideon was one of such men and he did just the will of God for the then Israeli nation. Gideon had men and women who were believers in his ability to lead the people. That was why he raised up over twenty thousand foot-soldiers against the Medianites. It took God’s intervention for only 300 to do the job.
For the Church in Akwa Ibom State to be powerful and assert her authority against evil, cultism, violence and bad governance, the Church needs to know and follow a distinct voice – the voice of Prelate Emeritus Dr Sunday Mbang CON.
We have a duty to restore the dignity, power and influence of the Church over politics, economy and the social developments of our State. Let’s listen to the voice of God; follow Prelate Emeritus Dr Sunday Mbang CON!
