Mindset change: The Greater Works factor — Part 1

Democracy demands that we vote to elect a leader to govern affairs of state. We are quick to blame our leaders, but we hardly do introspection to determine our own attitude towards nation-building.

Someone said that we are a reflection of the leaders we have, and I cannot agree more with him.

The leaders are Ghanaians who lived among us—people we attended school with, people with habits similar to ours, and who are just like us on many fronts. We have bad leaders because most of us are not fit for purpose, and so when we elect a morally depraved one from among us, it is basically more of the same.

If we want good leaders, then we need to have a mindset change as a society so that whoever we elect as President is a person who has a high moral pedigree.

Pastor Mensa Otabil, leader of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), has been on a crusade to promote the wellbeing of the Black person. The church as an organisation has a philosophy of Practical Christianity, Human Dignity and Excellence.

This philosophy underpins the mission of the church, which is raising leaders, shaping visions, and influencing society through Christ. As a result, the yearly conference dubbed Greater Works Conference emerged.

This conference is geared towards changing the mindset of the Black man, especially Africans, to believe in themselves and that God is not a White man’s God, and that Christianity is not a White man’s religion, but for everyone who believes in Christ Jesus as Saviour of the world.

The annual conference, which takes place at the end of July and early August, is preceded by a 40-day period of prayer and fasting to heighten the spiritual awareness of members of the organisation, so they can fully benefit from the spiritual insights and teachings shared during the conference.

If we do not do away with the mentality that we are somehow inferior to the White man, we can never amount to much as a people. This is what the Greater Works Conference seeks to achieve because Jesus, who by the way was not White—contrary to what some portrayals suggest—and who was God in the flesh, declared that greater works will those who believe in Him do, according to John 14:12. It has nothing to do with the colour of a person’s skin.

Pastor Mensa Otabil, who has a PhD but rarely addresses himself as such, has demonstrated that there is no limitation to what an African can achieve. He has established ICGC, a church organisation that is global, and has also established a university offering training for the next generation of Ghanaian and African leaders.

There is evidence of him being the preferred preacher at international conferences over others from well-known countries.

A few Black people or Africans have broken through the glass ceiling—our own Kofi Annan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Nelson Mandela, etc.—but there is more territory to conquer.

We have obtained independence, but we need to achieve the independence of the mind, where we will never see the Caucasian as superior to us or believe that everything foreign is better than what is locally produced.

We need to free ourselves from mental slavery, as declared by Bob Marley of blessed memory, where many have been made to believe that Jesus, God and the angels are white, but the devil is black.

This deliberate agenda of white supremacy to dominate the Black man by making him believe that he cannot amount to much must be quickly and deliberately dispelled from our minds so that we can see ourselves as capable.

By Laud Kissi-Mensah