The Tribune

By ALESHA CADET

Tribune Features Reporter

acadet@tribunemedia.net

COMING together for one common goal, a group of Bahamian pastors, ministers, educators and volunteers is launching what they are calling the Inner-City Pastors and Ministers Alliance.

The vision of this new organisation is to join forces in hopes of bringing about change and discipline within Nassau’s inner-city communities.

Under the theme “Disciplining Our Nation/ Changing the Culture,” which is taken from Matthew 28:18-20, the members of the Inner-City Pastors and Ministers Alliance is inviting the public to the group’s official launch to be held tonight at the Creative Christian Arts Ministries International, on Windsor Lane, west of East Street. The event will kick off at 7.30pm.

Pastor Henry Higgins of Creative Christian Arts Ministries International said with this launch effort, they want to leave the four walls of the church and carry the gospel into the inner-city through evangelism, and witness the provision of needs where necessary.
He said the launch will also promote a culture of peace and love as well as establish centres for counselling, conflict resolution and anger management.

“This is a vision that the Lord gave me from January of this year and I have been putting this together since then. This whole thing is to try to talk to these young people and bring them out of crime and violence,” he said.

Pastor Higgins said they will be touching on topics such as education, anger management, conflict resolution and job placement programming.

“If we can find alternative lifestyles for these young people, we can probably get them the help they need. The launch will basically release the information out to the public, but the pastors who are involved will be there to also touch on the programmes that they do within their own church establishments. We will be supporting each other’s programmes as well,” he said.

As the murder rate increases in the Bahamas, Pastor Higgins said he has also come to realise that through the inner-city community surveys that the rising crime levels are mostly the result of persons who are products of abject moral poverty.

“Moral poverty is when a person does not have an identity nor does he or she have anyone in their life to teach them lessons learned. Moral poverty is when a child grows up surrounded by deviant, delinquent and criminal adults in chaotic, dysfunctional, fatherless, godless and jobless settings, where drug abuse and child abuse are twins,” said Pastor Higgins.

He said there is a need to rebuild and resurrect the inner-city from this mess and it needs to be done now.

“Through this alliance we will attempt to fill churches and positive organisations with changed people instead of filling our jail and our punishment centres,” he said.

Going forward, the Inner-City Pastors and Ministers Alliance programmes will include park revivals, door-to-door witnessing, counselling sessions, parenting classes, anger management and conflict resolution, school visits, Sunday school, peace concerts and peace power rallies.

The group will target areas such as Grant’s Town, Bain Town, Englerston, Fox Hill, East Street South, Nassau Village, and many more.