CIMS Program Launches in Ghana
The Church of God Certificate in Ministerial Studies (CIMS) program was recently launched at the headquarters church in Fanchenebra, Ghana. There will also be classes at the Ghana Bible Institute, making it the second international learning center in Ghana.
“Thanks be to God that we now have no less than 10 Ghanaians who have just completed their studies at Pan African Christian University in Winneba,” said an excited Offiong Ibok, director of Christian Education in West Africa. He said Most of them have been assigned by the administrative bishop of Ghana, Robert Nkansa, to handle the CIMS program.
Ninety pastors attended the seminar.
The first CIMS course used was “Living the Faith,” which featured the first lesson on doctrine.
Highlights of the course include:
1. There is no one who sings, dances, prays, preaches, or teaches in the church that can deny having engaged in the work of doctrine.
2. Church doctrines comprise traditions and teachings of the church taken from the Bible and given out to parishioners in its spoken or written form (2 Thessalonians 2:15).
3. The notion that the preacher is supposed to preach the “undiluted” Word, but never “doctrine” is misleading.
4. Worship can not be defined by or confined to the time we set aside during our Sunday services. Rather, the believer worships God in Spirit and in truth (John 4: 24) with his body, soul, and spirit. That is, all the believer is and has are involved in the worship of God. The comfort derived by confining the definition of worship of God to set times and items is to set an agenda for poverty. This is so because even in African traditional religions worshipers are identified by their devotion, and will not believe we are worshiping our God without sacrificial gifts and offerings.
