“WE DON’T want the church to be left behind in these national issues. We want to be part of nation building. The church, the ministers, are part of nation builders. We want to participate this time.”
ZIMBABWE Christian Ministers Association (ZCMA) president Bishop Christopher Choto last month said it was essential for the church to understand and participate in law-making processes as those were key to national development.
Bishop Choto told ZimGospel Masters after a familiarisation tour of the Parliament of Zimbabwe in the central business district as well as the new Parliament building in the outskirts of Harare that they wanted to be involved in future programmes.
The ZCMA leader said the tour was a powerful demonstration of the strength of the church in Zimbabwe and its commitment to the country’s progress. He underscored that they did not want the church to be left behind, but to be part of nation-building processes.
“Our tour to Parliament today was very educative and insightful. We learnt a lot and Parliament was able to answer some of the many questions we had,” he said. “We don’t want the church to be left behind in these national issues. We want to be part of nation building.
The church, the ministers, are part of nation builders. We want to participate this time.” Bishop Choto said the tour was like a groundbreaking process after which the church would, in future, be involved in such events.
“We the partnership that we now have as church leaders and Parliament, we are going to know when they are going to have some of their events that are similar to this one and make sure that church must participate,” he said. In their interactions with the Parliament Public Relations team led by Linda Manyemba, the ministers of the gospel expressed their desire to be involved in national development.
They said it was important for the church to be involved when Parliament held its sessions such as the question and answer segments with Members of Parliament as that would help to reduce misunderstandings between the church and Parliament. Meanwhile, Bishop Choto said they were going to advise their communities whenever Parliament carried out its outreaches.
“We are going to organise such programmes and to ensure that when Parliament has an outreach, we will ensure that churches in those particular areas are aware,” he said. “We have got our system, and we will release such notices and ensure our members and Christians in general participate.”
Bishop Choto said it was important for Christians to be knowledgeable about such things. “We must be knowledgeable, we counsel people, we help to transform in our community and the church plays a big part and it is important for the minister to play a big role as community leaders, we want to get knowledge about these things so that they push our country forward,” he said.
