These figures may largely be allowed to speak for themselves, but all Methodists must embrace the Presiding Bishop’s goal of doubling the membership of the church in five years. Conference has endorsed the goal and all Societies, Circuits and Dioceses must work towards the achievement of this laudable goal.

The story of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society in Ghana is a long record of sacrificial service. It began on New Year’s Day in 1835 when the first missionary from England , Rev. Joseph Rhodes Dunwell, landed at Cape Coast Castle . Two days before, at Elmina he wrote in his journal:

“What my feelings have been this day, I cannot describe. The place of my future residence is in view; it may prove the spot where I shall finish my earthly existence; and there the name of Jesus Christ may be honoured or dishonoured by me. But, in the strength of grace, they will be spent in the service of God. All things appear to me to sink into nothingness, compared with the great work of my Divine Lord and Master.”

This is a moving statement from a man who dedicated his entire life for the work and the glory of God. This sacrificial spirit was the conviction of all those missionaries and their wives, and the local men and women who laid the foundation of the Methodist Church Ghana. They were determined like John Wesley, the Father of Methodism to reach all people with the message of the good news of the love of God in Christ Jesus.

In our generation too we need the same sacrificial spirit and the determination to reach all women, men, the young people and children with the same gospel.