In response to this mission, I founded the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation which, among it’s many activities, organises reconciliation outreach programmes to preach the Good News to people to be reconciled to God.
At these outreach programmes, we train people in practical ways to handle their individual conflicts as well as dispute and conflict among themselves, within the family and in the community. We also help them to better understand the practical conciliation work of Jesus Christ on the cross, learn to deal with bitterness, pain, hurts, quarrels and forgive others.
These outreach programmes create the environment for grace and set the pace for unprecedented divine interventions of miracles that heal the individuals and their entire communities, and also cut the unnecessary financial and emotional cost of conflict.
The Centre for Peace and Reconciliation also holds Conciliation Summits for community leaders, family heads, chiefs and queen-mothers. This gives an opportunity for the top ranking personalities and leaders in the communities to also be reconciled to God and also participate in the mission of reconciliation which forms part of their major function.
Chiefs and Queenmothers (Ho House of Chiefs) at CPR Conciliation Summit
Usually, it is very difficult to get this category of persons in this part of the world to respond or attend evangelistic programmes. But knowing the relevance of CPR’s holistic and practical approach, they always respond.
CPR also, through training, equips especially the Church leaders because they do not have the luxury of choosing whether or not to resolve conflicts. Their options really are whether to mediate in a disciplined and skilled way or not, hence the value of this training to them. CPR equips Church leaders to serve as professional Conciliators and mediators with added professional skills with the calling to intervene, prevent and help people to early resolve their disputes and conflicts at all levels. This is to respond to the call as to the Church in I Corinthians 6 v 1- 7 to dare not send their disagreements to the ungodly people to judge for them. We also provide practical materials, resources and tools for effective ministry and professional dispute and conflict resolution practice.
Church leaders in a training session
We have seen and received numerous testimonies of how the Lord is touching the individual lives and communities in a very practical way. Reconciling themselves to God, to one another, unifying dysfunctional families and creating a peaceful environment for growth and holistic development.
We have also developed, a program called Champions of Peace for teaching children at different ages how to resolve conflicts.
The basic program is packaged with cartoon clips that give a visual simulation, easy to learn step-by-step instructions and other fun stuff we know kids would love.
The quick adaptation to understanding conflict and its resolution through fun and working out of puzzles makes the approach an exciting one. This also makes the practical application of the skills acquired very easy and relevant to the everyday life of children.
We believe that having fewer conflict-prone children leads to fewer conflict-prone adults and an overall less conflict-prone society. We are praying to also run it as a parallel program in the schools.
To find out more about the Centre of Peace and Reconciliation (CPR) and our past, present and future missions, please visit the official website at www.cpr.org.gh.