The latest effort of the members of the Christian Council and Evangelical Association, is coming in the form of a one day conference that has been scheduled for Saturday 24th September, 2011, at the Wesley Methodist Church Hall (Old Boys School Building), Seaton Street, Basseterre.
According to officials of the two organizations, the event is being dubbed, “National Christian Leadership Conference on Crime Reduction in St Kitts and Nevis”.
This conference, said an official, will bring together Christian leaders in St Kitts and Nevis, to discuss perspectives on crime and violence, as well as interventions, policies and strategies for reducing crime and violence in our nation.
The official explained that the conference offers the Church community the opportunity to engage in prayerful dialogue, to provide a Christian and Biblical response to this crisis. The conference provides a platform for discussion, exchange, and networking between Church leaders. It is critical that we do not forget to acknowledge God in the midst of all the other efforts our nation is putting forward to help deal with this crime emergency, said a church leader.
Like the rest of the society, the Christian Council and the Evangelical Association, are extremely concerned about the shocking high levels of murders that are being carried out in St. Kitts and Nevis. The latest cases have seen 4 murders taking place in 4 days, between Sunday, 14th –Wednesday 17th August, 2011, bringing the total for the year, to 26, just one short of the national record of all time, 27, as occurred in 2009.
“The huge escalation of gun and knife crime in recent years must be a concern to everyone, and we as Christians Leaders have a special responsibility to provide leadership in helping out nation addressing this issue and seeking God’s help for deliverance of our nation, stated the church organizations in a press release on Thursday, (18th August, 2011).
Church leaders will congregate to discover how they can be more effective in showing God’s love in a situation of brokenness and pain.
Aimed at Church/Christian leaders, the conference will seek to empower the Church to respond effectively to this crisis. “We believe that as God’s Church, we ought to be in the forefront of efforts to combat violence and crime, holding up the sacred worth of all human life and bringing together different church communities afflicted by this violence to affirm their common humanity and our common obligation to act as the Body of Christ, stated the official in the release.