Brief History and Challenges
Brief history about the name of this institution/organization and how the name was acquired
The New Apostolic church originated from Germany and Switzerland, it emerged from the Calvinist philosophy and religion focusing on the fact that the end time is near and that the more than the 12 Apostles were needed to complete the work of the lord. So the New Apostles emerged to complete the lord’s work. This led to the naming of the New Apostolic Church in Germany and the rest of the world including Ghana
When this religion / organization was first established in the town of Techiman traditional area?
The Ghana New Apostle Church originated from Germany and was brought to Ghana by the late priest Essel from Abura –Cape Coast in 1968. The first church was built in Abura, and started with few members. One of the early members was Stephen Ameyaw (currently Dr. Stephen Ameyaw), who was a native of Techiman but was living and working with Ghana Hosing Corporation at Pedu Easte near Abura.
Dr Ameyaw had several discussions with priest Essel and the late Apostle Schilling, about opening up another branch of the New Apostolic Church in Techiman. A meeting was held at Judge Edusie home in Mbrom Kumasi. In attendance was Apostle shilling, Judge edusie, priest Essel, Dr. Stephen Ameyaw, Opayin Kwesi Twimporo and Opayin Kofi Dabone(the first was Ameyaw’s uncle and the second his dad).
In this meeting Apostle Schilling gave his approval to priest Essel and Ameyaw to begin work on opening the Techiman new Apostolic Church in 1969.
Who were the early funders of the church in Techiman?
- Dr. Stephen Ameyaw/ Priest Essel
- Madma Adowa Pokuaah
- Opayin Kwesi twemporo
- Priest Kwando Nyame
- Priest kwame Effah
- Priest Nketiah
There were several others but those sited above were the key ones
Why establish the New Apostolic church in Techiman?
It is important to note that, there were several religions in Techiman—the Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Muslim and other Pentecostal churches. At the same time, there was a strong presence of the traditional fetish religion in Techiman and my aunt Adowa Pokuaah was married to one of this fetish priest. I had lengthy discussions with my aunt about her transition from fetishism to Christian faith. She had difficulty attending some of the old churches but was at ease with the New Apostolic church. She became the first woman and the first person to register in the church. My aunt Pokuaah brought many members to the church and some of them had never set foot in any church before. Several meetings and services were held in her home before they moved to the community centre and later to the present location of the church. The land belonged to my late uncle Kwaku Dwamena, however, my mother and uncle agreed with me to donate the land to the New Apostolic Church, and as result we built the first church on the land.
Were there any challenges during the early phase of the church?
With the development of any new institution, there were many challenges and some of them were:
- The difficulty of attracting new members—The New Apostolic church was new to many people and people were familiar with the old churches so we had to work hard to convince many of them
- The re-organization of the church--- With the mergence f Dr. Kankam and his wife in Kumasi, Techiman was the only New Apostolic church they could attend because there was no church in the Ashanti region, northern region, eastern and western regions. Only Abura-Cape coast and Accra had New Apostolic church. Later on, Apostles shilling asked priest Kankam to take over the Techiman church and as result priest Essel stopped coming to Techiman.
- These changes led to a division in the church, some of the members and priests had been with priest Essel for long and it was hard for them to dissociate themselves from him. This created problems for the church for a while.