Ghana Methodist Fellowship-UK Episode III—Ministers

Since the days of Rev Dr Hayford Adu-Darkwah, the Ghana Methodist Fellowship-UK has never lacked the services of ordained Methodist Ministers - Ghanaian and non-Ghanaian alike - at our meetings. The British Conference minister (now retired) who opened the doors of his church at Bermondsey Central Hall for the fledgling fellowship in the early days not only made the place available to them at virtually no cost but he himself became one of their first unofficial chaplains.

The fellowship also benefitted from the free services of another British minister (also now retired) who was stationed far away in the Pinner Circuit but came down to take services whenever he was approached.

Just before the arrival of the first chaplain, two Ghanaian ministers (and later, a third) arrived in London for further studies and instantly became the fellowship's unofficial chaplains: even though one has since returned to Ghana, the other(s) still continue(s) to offer his(their) services to the fellowship regularly. It is noteworthy to mention here that all these ministers never charged a penny for their services to the fellowship, and some even refused to take the small envelope the fellowship decided to give them to cover their transportation costs, with the explanation that such moneys could be used to further the aims of supporting church projects both in Ghana and here in the UK.

During the tenure of the first chaplain, the fellowship management committee agreed to pay all visiting preachers a token allowance of £30.00, (supposedly now risen to £50.00), and this has been the case all these years up to the present time. At the time this decision was taken, the committee also agreed to set aside £30.00 a time in appreciation of the contribution of the music group – the fellowship choir.

This amount was, in fact, initially supposed to be for the organists alone, but the choir representative at the time argued that the success of the choir had been due to collaborative efforts of the music directors as well as the entire choir members; so the amount set aside would be applied to the benefit of the entire choir.

It has lately emerged that the current chaplain and fellowship management committee are demanding an invoice before the amount accruing from this fund could be released, because, according to them, this is from 'public funds'. However, they are unable to provide invoices for the travelling expenses that have been paid to visiting preachers all this time.

Talking about visiting preachers, the fellowship has continued to benefit from the services of many Ghanaian ministers who happen to be in London. At most services, especially but not restricted to the monthly all night vigil services, sometimes as many as three or four visiting ministers may be present, and they all receive their travelling allowances without fail, irrespective of whether or not they actually take part in leading the sessions. As visiting preachers who receive their allowances, one would expect that they would at best receive the same privileges granted to ordinary members of the fellowship, who do not get any rewards for their participation in the fellowship's activities. But this is not so.

In the past few years, a couple of these visiting ministers reported the loss of their parents in Ghana and decided to organize memorial services in their honour here in London. Even though the fellowship had never had any contact with the deceased, individual donations from members were topped up by worthy sums from the fellowship's coffers. In the same period, the fellowship lost a couple of its members.

In one case, the deceased, his wife and their daughter all belonged to the fellowship and its organisations. However, the man, who was unemployed, could not join a welfare group that has been set up in the fellowship because he could not afford the monthly dues. For that matter, at his death, the fellowship did virtually nothing in honour of this member.

All the contributions he, his wife, and their daughter had made over the years, both in cash and in kind, counted for nothing. One would have expected that due to the deceased's circumstances, the fellowship could have organized a freewill donation from individual members and given it to the family, the same way donations were solicited from members for the 'visiting preachers' who lost their parents.

The argument fellowship management put up was that the deceased member had not joined the welfare group, forgetting that the 'visiting preachers' were also not members of the welfare group. Furthermore, even though the fellowship did not know the parents of the 'visiting preachers', this late brother had been well known to all.

There is a passage in the Good Book which translates thus: “If we could not love or honour the brother who lived with us, how could we have professed love and/or honour for someone else whom we did not know?” Without any disrespect to our ministers or the deceased, let us just suppose that these 'dead parents' were in fact just distant relatives of these ministers – there was no way anybody could have verified this information: would the entire fellowship not have been taken for a ride? What is good for the goose must be good for the gander, they say!

The first chaplain was confident in what he did, for that matter he asserted his authority in his leadership of the fellowship. Unfortunately, the next chaplain did not possess the same charisma, and that has sometimes not benefited the fellowship in any way. For instance, even though we have a 'full time' chaplain, we almost always have a visiting preacher for every service – and this is only monthly; sometimes, we have more than one visiting preacher, with the attendant payment of travelling allowances to each minister. This is just a drain on the fellowship's resources.

The case of one of the visiting ministers, who was nicknamed 'Sofo Kukuriantumi” because he took on more than he could carry, will be narrated in subsequent episodes. This was, in fact, a minister who would proclaim: “I am going to pray for people to start speaking in tongues”, and he would surely pray and get people speaking in tongues! For all we know, ours is not a Pentecostal organization where this is a common feature week in week out. This is the Ghana Methodist Fellowship!

One thing the current chaplain has made his priority, sometimes even to the detriment of the fellowship, has been the organization of holiday trips to Ghana. On average, the chaplain makes more than two trips to Ghana each year, sometimes as many as four. There is one trip for British ministers in January each year, and one trip for the youth in April each year. During the biennial conference year, there is another trip in July. Last year, the chaplain organized another trip for adults in October. In the early days, even the secretary of the management committee confessed to a member of the fellowship: “Something must be done about Sofo's trips to Ghana; it is becoming a drain on the fellowship's resources”, to which the member retorted: “Why tell me this?

You are on the management committee, and if you realize that there is a problem, why don't you discuss it with your colleagues and resolve it?” Of late, this same secretary and the fellowship's treasurer have tried to confuse issues by telling members who have bothered to confront them about the issue: “Sofo pays for his own expenses on trips to Ghana!” What they have not been able to defend is whether the chaplain's work specification included the organizing of holiday trips, which has rather become the most prominent profile of his ministry here in London!

The phrase 'detriment of the fellowship' used in the paragraph above was borne from the fact that in previous years, the January and April trips have coincided with two of the most important dates in the Methodist calendar: Covenant and Easter Sundays. Of all days in the Christian year, to celebrate Covenant Sunday with a visiting minister removes the essence of the entire occasion, even if doing the same thing at Easter is acceptable!

Not only that: there have been occasions when the chaplain would lead a monthly service, and by the next day, he would be on a plane to Ghana, without having given us a hint about his movements. At the last service in August, for example, the chaplain repeatedly stressed the need for us all to pray for the various groups that would be representing the fellowship at invitations from our sister fellowships in Italy and two other European conferences.

Incidentally, the chaplain himself was flying to Ghana the following day to attend the Ghana Methodist Conference, but because he probably did not believe in our prayers, he never gave any hint of that. Supposing a member had the need to call the chaplain during his absence, this would be unfair to us.

Sometimes, it just looks like the chaplain himself acknowledges that his rampant trips to Ghana do not sit well with everybody, and that the less people knew about these trips, the better it would be. To the British Methodist Church ministers, these yearly trips to Ghana have helped them learn a little bit more about the background of the Ghanaian members in their congregations: this can only be good for their own ministries.

Consequently, to the British Conference, the current chaplain is doing a fantastic job, irrespective of whether or not the members of the fellowship think the same way. To the Ghana Methodist Conference, the British Conference continue to give good reports of the work of the chaplain, and that is enough for them to keep the chaplain at post, whether or not it is to the benefit of other ministers who crave the chance to get the same opportunity to gain overseas experience in their ministry, as well as the benefit of the home church.

What is unfortunate is that the two conferences know all too well about the Ghana Methodist Fellowship-UK issues, just as they know about issues affecting the church in the United States and other places all over the world. Issues raised with the British Conference are met with such finality as: “These are internal issues in the Ghana Methodist Fellowship we would not want to get involved in; you must either solve them all by yourselves, or raise them with your home church”. When the same issues are raised with the home church, the Ghana Methodist Conference would say: “We have released the minister to the British Methodist Conference and will only act on reports they send us, and nothing else!”

Only yesterday, I understand there was a program on BBC television discussing the plight of the church, on which the Secretary of the British Methodist Conference was a panel member. Though I did not watch the program myself, I learnt that the discussion was, among other issues, about the dwindling numbers of our congregations, the causes of which the panel could not fathom. Our church leaders should start listening to the voices of the members, who are, in fact, the church, rather than concentrating all attention on the ministers, as some of us see is the case presently. I can cite an instant in either conference:

In the Ghana conference, only a couple of years ago, a case of rape was brought up, wrongfully or rightfully, against one of our top ministers. Rather than waiting for the issue to be investigated and fully resolved, the minister was allowed to leave the country in order not to bring the church into disrepute. We all know that in a decade or two, the momentum of the issue would have been lost, and the affected minister would easily sneak back into the country and probably enjoy his pension.

The parallel that can be found in the British Conference is the case involving one Rev Paul Flowers. Snippets of information coming from the news media indicate that the church probably did not do full justice to issues when they first cropped up in the early 1980s, hoping that with time, all would be well. The church waited for matters to be resurrected again thirty years on before issuing out a pastoral letter to calm the nerves and concerns of all people affected by the matters.

The church is just behaving in the way the world does things. Only recently, there have been several scandals involving top British celebrities of the past. What is becoming clearer with each passing day is that when these crimes which were supposed to have been committed by these celebrities first surfaced, the powers that be made sure that they were shelved to protect the images of the celebrities involved. The sad thing is that now some of these people are dead; however, the effects of the crimes they are accused to have committed are still haunting society, and for that matter, they cannot be ignored. It is rather unfortunate that the church is being led through the same tortuous path.

Agya Okoromansah
London