New­ly-in­stalled Mod­er­a­tor of Pres­by­ter­ian Church Joy Ab­dul-Mo­han said she was dri­ven to be­come a min­is­ter, not for pres­tige or pow­er but to be a ser­vant leader.

Speak­ing at her ser­vice of in­stal­la­tion at the Susumachar Pres­by­ter­ian Church, San Fer­nan­do, on Sun­day, Ab­dul-Mo­han out­lined her vi­sion for the church.

“I want to as­sure all of you that I will try my best to be God’s cho­sen leader. I re­mind my­self every year at my or­di­na­tion an­niver­sary why I am a min­is­ter and why I was called an ac­cept­ed this call to this min­istry and vo­ca­tion. Nev­er for pres­tige, pow­er, po­si­tion or an in­sa­tiable thirst for glo­ry or recog­ni­tion but al­ways to be a ser­vant leader striv­ing to­ward spir­i­tu­al ex­cel­lence. We were all cre­at­ed in­trin­si­cal­ly good by Our Cre­ator to do good de­spite the evil in the world and we can all play our part.”

She said while her vi­sion may not be new or unique, she said they are con­cepts which she has em­braced through­out the min­istry which Christ has en­trust­ed to her. She was hop­ing that the con­cept of care fronting can as­sist her to play a more ground­ed and ef­fec­tive role as pas­tor pas­toral.

“As I aim to vis­it all our pas­toral re­gions and hope­ful­ly every church and school.”

While that could be chal­leng­ing, she said the con­cept was de­vel­oped by a pro­fes­sor who was drawn to care con­fronting rather than con­fronta­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ences.

“So con­fronting plus car­ing brings growth just as dis­ci­pline, plus grace brings sal­va­tion,” she said. Ab­dul-Mo­han said the Mid­wife con­cept comes from the book of Ex­o­dus. “It’s about the trans­for­ma­tion of so­cial sit­u­a­tions from op­pres­sion to free­dom, jus­tice and peace and the church must re­dis­cov­er that God’s pres­ence demon­strates change in so­cial and oth­er struc­tures that can im­pede progress.

“The church, there­fore, must en­ter ful­ly in­to the im­age of the mid­wife em­pow­er­ing those who suf­fer at the hands of the so-called pow­er­ful, bring­ing life to lives es­pe­cial­ly in the midst of the refugee cri­sis we face at this time. Yes, we must look af­ter our own but we have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as a church and as Chris­t­ian God-fear­ing peo­ple to be true to not just the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion but our call to seek out the lost, to look af­ter those who can­not look af­ter them­selves and we are thank­ful that through the board of so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, we have part­nered with Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty to cre­ate short term and long term pro­grammes that would cater for the needs of those who seek asy­lum from every area of life.”

Speak­ing on the Con­sen­sus con­cept, she said since 2003 the World Coun­cil of Church­es en­cour­aged its mem­bers to adopt the con­sen­sus mod­el de­ci­sion-mak­ing and all the de­lib­er­a­tions with­out triv­i­al­is­ing the many voic­es or even the nom­i­na­tion of one per­son or group.

“And to achieve this I sug­gest that strate­gic fo­rums or sym­po­siums be held in each Pres­by­ter­ian area so that the voic­es and the grass­roots and the mass­es can voice their con­cerns and their hopes for a bet­ter and brighter fu­ture not just for the church but for the coun­try and by ex­ten­sion to in­clude the ec­u­meni­cal and in­ter-faith or­gan­i­sa­tions in our con­ver­sa­tion.”