The church is God’s community;
This is a spiritual community of faith with mandate to represent the interest of God on earth. Through this spiritual community, God wants to reach out to the secular community. We are to evangelize the community towards God. This is our first assignment to preach repentance. And then demonstrate the diakonos and apostolic mandate. Acts6:1-8.We are to minister to the whole man, we need to provide life coaching. The only institution which has answers for dying world is the church. We are God’ stewards.
Stewardship is required in our communities.
Who is a steward? A steward is anyone charged with a responsibility to take good care of that which is not his or her hence liable to give a full account of his or her stewardship ” It is required that a steward be found faithful”1 corinthians4vs2. Every steward is accountable to the one who appointed him or to his master, in this case a nation and its natural or financial resources are God’s property and people are God’s creation. We are charged with responsibility and duty whether as politicians, clergymen, community leaders or traditional leadership to Manage, Develop and Preserve what God has created.
Two words will repeatedly come out whenever you find the word stewardship in any context,” Responsibility” and “accountability” We are to preserve the nation from spiritual,morally,economical and social corruption and contamination by any means. We are to manage, develop and preserve the national, social economical, spiritual and public affairs and properly manage the national resources, national investments, and national treasury. We have a duty and responsibility to improve the social, economical and moral standards of our communities as church leaders. it’s unfortunate that the church avoided anything which involves community.
Ungodly people corrupt society, Corruption is actually sin and gross wickedness which delays the social, political, economical and spiritual progress of a country. When a nation denounces the authority of God and godly principle of governance a seed of decay and erosion of morality, justice, peace, integrity and the fear of God takes place. This will lead a nation into a serious social and moral breakdown beyond human comprehension.
CHRISTIAN RESPONSIBILITY
Community leadership is ordained by God and not by man, according to the book of Romans13:1 both the government and its citizens has responsibility towards each other and also towards God as the creator and owner of everything. Every one needs to treat national duty and national leadership as sacred God is concerned how we rule and how we govern his people, though in society today we may have different kinds of systems but the final account will be given to God. The rule of God through Godly leadership by prophets or priest or clergy is called a theocracy.
In most case in the Bible the kings of a nation through their leadership made the nation to sin, this is true even now Bad leadership,
THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH IN COMMUNITY LIFE
We are charged and mandated by God as Christians to preserve the nation from moral catastrophe as we see people departing every day from what is right to pursue their lewd emotions, sinful ambitions and ungodly personal agendas and self gratification which indeed is the cult of self worship and Gnosticism.
People will always seek different way in which they can find meaning to their lives, fulfill their own lives and be happy as human being but all we arrive at is more confusion and human complication. Commonly this is done in seven categories
We have a duty as a church to do the following thing in our nations.
2. Give prophetic direction, a nation without a prophetic voice and a prophetic direction is doomed.
3. Preserve, develop and manage our nations for God. The first responsibility God gave man was to take care of the earth and to rule well over everything he created on earth. We need to know that nature preservation is God’s will for man. We need to take care of our natural resources, our health, our jobs, our environment etc.
4. Be exemplary to the circular world of ungodly people and political leaders.
5. Be a trusted institution where both society and our government will run to for spiritual direction and solutions.
6. To disciple our nation for Christ following the great commission in the book of (Mathew 28vs19).
7. To pray and intercede for our nations according to the book of (1Timothy2vs2-4). We need to have special and specific prays for our national leaders and pray for them instead of cursing them if we are to live peaceable lives.
8. Be a socially and spiritually relevant corporate body of Christians.
9. Keep our national spiritual gates through radical and aggressive spiritual warfare and intercession.