Accra Ridge Church | Accra's Local Church

Apart from the social and humanitarian outreach programmes of the Christian Services group, Women's Fellowship and the Ridge Hospital Services, Evangelism had not featured prominently in the life of the Church.

The Youth Fellowship took the lead with its evangelistic outreach programme to the Senior Secondary Schools and through the cell groups in the neighbourhoods in which their members lived. In 1998, in an unprecedented initiative, the Youth Fellowship decided to spend part of the long vacation evangelizing. In collaboration with the Presbyterian Church at Agona Swedru, they carried out an outreach programme at Abosso.

This bold decision led to the planting of a church, the Emmanuel Congregation of Presbyterian Church, Abosso, which was handed over to the Bethel Presbyterian Church, Agona Swedru. The Youth Fellowship donated to the Church a set of the 'Faith Comes by Hearing' cassette tapes of the Bible Society of Ghana for their Bible studies since most of the converts were illiterates.

Fortnight follow-up visits were made and a first anniversary visit followed in August 1999.  In another initiative, this time by a single member of the Church, the Tudu Outreach Ministry was born.  The beginning of the new millennium saw Council resolving that the entire Church should be actively involved in Evangelism. In 2001, Council established an Evangelism Committee to spearhead and coordinate the evangelism programme of the Church. The first Coordinator of the Committee was Captain Dick Gbcsemete. The Committee was officially inaugurated on Sunday, 29th April 2001. In July 2001, the Committee was represented at the National Conference on Evangelism (NACOE), held at Lcgon, by a 7-member delegation.

Membership of the Committee was made up of representatives of the various groups within the Church and five volunteers. They met twice a month, on the second Thursday of the month for general meetings and the fourth Thursday of the month for fasting and prayer.

The Committee decided that, its first task was to reach out to members of the Accra Ridge Church, hence the first-ever Accra Ridge Church Breakfast Meeting held at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel on 28th April 2002 for the Ridge congregation and 18th August 2002 for the Manet congregation. These were preceded by a week-long programme of activities, includ¬ing a film show on the Second Coming of Christ ("Megido"), a drama and music night, talks, testimonies, etc.

The pamphlet, "Beyond Conversion, " was printed and made available to all members of the Church for study in the various Fellowships and Groups.
The committee was given oversight of the Tudu Outreach Ministry. Under its direction, the Ministry was formally inaugurated on Sunday, 15th December 2002. It started with a 'Jesus Mareh1 from the Ridge Church to Tudu, led by a brass band.

Since then, the Committee's main task has been the nurturing of the infant community of believers at Tudu. A medical mission was held at Tudu in 2003 as part of the Evangelism Week, code-named, "Operation Highways and By-Ways."
In January 2003, the Church Council decided that a Minister should chair the Evangelism Committee, while the Council member responsible for Evangelism remained the coordinator. Rev. Canon Lamptey became the Chairman of the Committee.

A specially-constituted 70th Anniversary Evangelism Outreach sub-committee planned and executed a programme at Okushibiade and surrounding villages in the Ga district of the Greater Accra Region in August 2006.
Membership of the Committee is being revised as representatives of the various groups in the Church on the Evangelism Committee have sadly failed to live up to expectation. An evangelism policy is also being drawn up.