Hours after another reported murder in Barbados, a church leader is calling fellow Christians to stand up against the ills facing this country.
Senior pastor of the People’s Cathedral, Reverend Jewell Callender told congregants at the Bishop Court Hill, St. Michael church this morning that as servants of God it was their responsibility.
“In fact, we should feel the burden of this country more than anybody else because we have been empowered by the Holy Spirt to go out there and do the work for the Lord Jesus Christ,” she told those attending a service in recognition of the National Insurance Department’s 55th anniversary.
“The only hope this generation will ever have is hope in Jesus Christ because if they watch the news, nothing on there will give them hope. If they think about the pandemic it will not give them hope because as soon as it seems that the pandemic is levelling off there is another spike, and when that spike eases, monkeypox comes up and you say ‘Oh, dear one thing after another’. We who are endued with power from on high know this is not a hopeless situation because our God still lives.”
Addressing the crime situation, and an alleged increase in suicides, recidivism and other issues, Callender reiterated the need for religious people to “get up off our sit down and make sure that we help the citizens of our country to get through this thing”. According to her, the people, mostly young men, are not being the productive citizens they can be because they don’t love and are angry.
She said: “We’ve got a lot of our young people who need this love. When you think about it, a lot of young people who are sitting in Dodds are sitting there because they are angry, they have anger management issues because they feel rejected, because they have low self-worth. Why? Because the love that God gave to us to give to our young people, we have not shared with them as a church. And we have allowed our young people to get into crime and so on.
The minister encouraged those with knowledge go out and spread the gospel just as Jesus’ 12 disciples did, as she believes the gospel makes a difference
“When we as a church tell people about Barbados and demonstrate his love, transformation will take place … We’ve been empowered by the Holy Spirit so that we can make a difference. I don’t have any empirical evidence to support this thesis but I would hazard a guess that only a small percentage of people incarcerated for violent crime might be born again believers because the gospel makes a difference. When we as a church tell people about Jesus and we demonstrate His love for them, transformation will take place in this nation and then our future can be secured. Saints of God once again, the Holy Ghost was not poured out on Pentecost just for us to speak in tongues, roll around on the floor and feel good, we have been empowered by Holy Spirit so that we can go out there and turn Barbados upside down for Jesus and in a good way,” Callender added. (KC)
