Cleric Lists Gains Of Mission Schools

A mission school is a kind of formal or informal educational setup put together by the church in order to achieve a purpose. The purpose is to transform people lives.

It is a mission, journey, aim and target, then when you add school, is a means and procedure by which you want to pass information to people.

So for the Church, mission school is used to pass a message of God which is the gospel to future leaders of this great nation.

This was the view of the General Overseer of the Abundant Life Evangelical  Mission (ALEM), Apostle  Eugene Ogu, in a chat with newsmen in Port Harcourt, recently.

Apostle Eugene Ogu said the aims  of mission school is to pass the message of God to the pupils and students through taking available  social requirements to build the society, as well as training the children to become the true and good persons that God wants them to be.

Apostle Ogu emphasised that government handed over schools to missions because  it does not have the capacity to impart morals to the pupils and students.

He acknowledged that government can provide facilities but to train the children is actually not just an ordinary thing, noting that there has to be a lot of commitment, dedication and discipline.

According to him, “In a society where human right activities have been so highlighted that government and some persons try to stay away from issues that will discredit them. You  know that the mission is believed and accepted  by the society, so most people find it easier and better to hand over their children to be trained by the mission”.

The man of God recalled that when the missionaries came in the past, our educated parents and grand parents were disciplined and trained, without  the issue  of secret cults  and other vices  because the missionaries could not have tolerated  that.

In a society like ours, he explained, government realised that the Church has the capacity to instill such discipline by training the pupils/students through the word of God.

The former president of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Rivers State Chapter, admonished churches to establish schools and subsidise the fees so that the aim for which they were established would be achieved.

He advised the government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to support missions in order to subsidise education because the churches have the wisdom and moral authority to instill discipline and teach, so the children have that fear and believe in God and his agents.

His words: “When man acquires all the degrees without the spirit of God, what he can just impact is knowledge for secular purposes. This does not transform the human mind spiritually, what transforms the human mind spiritually is the word of God.

“The church has the capacity because  it is the agent of spirituality and morality and when such man is in Christ and has the fear of God, he can transform peoples’ lives”.

The man of God who argued that most criminals and homo-sexuals  have also acquired education stressed that such knowledge is not enough adding that what matters most is their change of life and fear of God.

Referring to the Biblical injunction that, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, he emphasised that the church is the right agency to change the moral aspect of the human life to what it ought to be.

He explained that teaching Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) in schools cannot solve the problem arguing that some persons have acquired such knowledge  but could not transform lives and noted: “We are talking about where the gospel is being preached, where  people are being enlightened to understand that there is a purpose for livings, there is a reason for life.

“Before education, life came first. Then why did God give that life? What is the purpose of life? What is the mission of life? Is it  to kill?” he queried  and advised that  it is good to have God’s foundation before going to other levels since Christianity plays a major role in human development.

He, however, advised government to put in place a regulatory body to ensure that the scheme of work and curriculum used in missions schools are in line with the educational system of government.

He discouraged a situation where the name of a particular church would  determine whether a child  should be admitted into mission school or not, emphasising   that the Christian faithfuls are the same.