Sunday Okobi
In an effort to submit all the worrying challenges,
mostly insecurity and hopelessness, in Nigeria before God, the Catholic
Charismatic Renewal Church of Nigeria has announced its final preparation to
hold an ‘unprecedented’ Grand Lagos Archdiocesan Conference in Lagos on
November 7 to 10, 2019 with the theme: ‘Stand Your Ground’ at the Trade Fair
Complex, Badagry expressway, Lagos State.
At a press conference held in Lagos to usher in the
event, one of the organisers and AST Chairman, Uche Anyanwu, told journalists
that the event is significant and urgent as a result of the situation the
country has found itself right now, and that it is necessary for the church to
take the lead in seeking the face of God to abate the unprecedented level of insecurity
currently ravaging Nigeria.
According to him, many Nigerians are presently
confused if God has abandoned the country “as strange things keep happening by
the day in the country, so the conference which has taken the past six years to
organise will be used to reach out to the people that God is still with us, and
that the Egyptians you see today, you will see them no more.”
Anyanwu, who announced that 50, 000 worshipers are
expected at the conference, stressed that many clerics from around the world
would be on hand to teach and pray with worshippers, as “it is important that
from time to time, we need to leave our parishes and come together and teach
and pray because iron sharpens iron. So it is our expectation that all
Christians an non-Christians grace this occasion for redemption.”
He noted that the conference is to sensitise
Nigerians that God is still with the people, adding that: “We want Nigerians to
know that we need to ‘Stand our Ground’, and believe that God is still with us
because the enemy you see today is for a while. We want Nigerians to open their
minds to this event, which, besides its spiritual content, is educational and economical
empowering.
“The organisers have also made provision for
accommodations for all participants as well as their security. We have secured
all the available rooms in the hotels in the area for the safety and comfort
also. Some of the areas to be featured at the conference are ‘Confession, Celebration
of the Eucharist, Worship, Word Ministration, Exposition of the Blessed
Sacrament, Personal Experience of the Holy Spirit, Intercession among others.”
While highlighting the programme for the event, the
Secretary of the Planning Committee, Mrs. Chioma Okemdinachi, said on November
7, guests around the world would arrive at the venue for the conference, adding
that an open Mass would be held, while on November 8, which will have three
different sessions, a special message will be broadcast for youth empowerment;
a Mass and an afternoon session will also be held with the title: ‘If you can,
God can’.
On November 9, she said: “We will have morning,
afternoon and evening sessions with the title: ‘The agony of an unfinished
journey’ by bro Okechukwu Ugwumadu; the second session taking place from 12 p.m. to
2 p.m. with the topic of ‘building an ideal Christian home’ to be delivered by
Sister Catherin Ezemadube. There will also be five sessions of a broadcast to be
run simultaneously. The grand finale, which is taking place the same day, is
tagged: ‘Stand Your Ground’, to be delivered by Rev Fr Emmanuel Obimma.
Meanwhile, a senior cleric, Revered Father Paschal
Nwaezeapu, on the sideline, lamented to Yellowstone that the current banditry
stunting the socioeconomic development of the country is as a result of
joblessness and bad leadership, saying: “Perhaps these bandits will not be
there because when you don’t have the means of survival and you are exposed to
crime and you now feel the crime is paying as the only way out; you go by way
of crime. But what I think is that if we have a visionary leader who would give the
people focus and lead them to that, not just by words, but by their own
examples, these anomalies would be curbed.”
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