Koinonia Baptist Church, Tamale - “One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism” (Eph. 4:5).

Isaac is senior pastor for Koinonia Baptist Church in Tamale. Koinonia was born four years ago after an unfortunate circumstance (which turned to be a blessing) which happened to Isaac while he was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Tamale. Isaac became pastor of the church after his predecessor who had led the church for over thirty years went on retirement.

The church outgrew the sitting capacity of the auditorium, so we decided to run two services to meet the growing need of the membership. Rather than giving thanks to God, this became a matter of concern to the retired minister since during his time the church did not run two services. So he tried to use some influential youth to cause confusion by arguing that the two services were not meeting the needs of the congregation. When he realized that he was not making any headway, he publicly attacked Isaac while he (Isaac) was leading a general church meeting on the issue of running a double service. He rebuked Isaac and told him to return to his home town and preach since the church was “their” church. He further threatened before Convention officials at a later time that “if Isaac does not do what he wishes, there will continue to be violence in the church”.

Isaac and Grace with the family prayed for God’s direction. The voice we received from God gave us a clear meaning of the nature of God’s church: A church to reflect the true nature of God, that frowns on the practice of tribalism, race, color, divisiveness and the building of barriers; but a church that depicts togetherness, fellowship, sharing, unity, love for one another and where dividing walls are destroyed, to make it possible for people to approach God through a meaningful worship.

When it was time for Isaac to complete his contract service with the church he resigned as pastor. This paved the way for us to begin Koinonia Baptist church on Sunday January 06, 2008 by the grace of God. We started worshiping in the Seminary chapel until now. We have a weekly average attendance of two hundred. Half of this number sits outside the chapel on Sundays for worship for lack of space. We have acquired a piece of land, though with financial constraints for the purpose of putting up an auditorium. Our greatest need here is for God to provide the finances needed to put up this facility.